# Founders: Duolingo's billionaire boss on rejecting Bill Gates

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/business-daily-480879/founders-duolingo-s-billionaire-boss-on-rejecting-bill-gates
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/business-daily-480879/founders-duolingo-s-billionaire-boss-on-rejecting-bill-gates.md
Podcast: [Business Daily](https://stenobird.com/podcast/business-daily-480879)
Published: 2026-06-23T20:30:00+00:00
Episode link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct98s2
Audio file: http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss-low/proto/http/vpid/p0ntp1bt.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/business-daily-480879/episodes/founders-duolingo-s-billionaire-boss-on-rejecting-bill-gates
Duration seconds: 1285

## Resource

We hear how a childhood in Guatemala, a fascination with computers and a belief that education should be accessible to everyone helped inspire the world's most popular learning apps. Luis von Ahn tells us how he went from creating CAPTCHA and selling reCAPTCHA to Google, to building Duolingo into a multi-billion-dollar education technology company used by millions around the world. He reflects on his mother's sacrifices to fund his education, the lessons he learned as an entrepreneur, and why he struggles with conflict in his life as a tech CEO. Presenter: Leanna Byrne Producer: Amber Mehmood If you'd like to get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk

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## Transcript

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