Lucy Guo is an American serial entrepreneur, social media influencer, and engineer. She co-founded Scale AI in 2016, a company that provides data labeling and training data for Artificial intelligence systems, and was fired from the company in 2018. In 2022, she founded Passes, a subscription-based creator platform that competes with OnlyFans. Guo became the youngest self-made female billionaire in 2025 after the acquisition of Scale AI, a title she held until late 2025.
Early life and education
Guo was raised in Pleasanton, California, by Chinese immigrant parents who both worked as electrical engineers. She began coding at a young age and, as a teenager, taught herself programming. She earned money by developing bots for the online game Neopets and selling the in-game assets for profit. Guo enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University to study computer science but dropped out in 2014 after being selected for the Thiel Fellowship, a two-year $100,000 grant for young entrepreneurs to pursue projects instead of completing their studies.
Career at Scale AI and beyond
After leaving Carnegie Mellon, Guo interned at Facebook before joining Snapchat as the company's first female designer, where she helped develop Snap Maps. She then moved to Quora, where she met Alexandr Wang. Together, they co-founded Scale AI in 2016, which focused on providing high-quality training data for Machine learning models. Guo was fired from Scale AI in 2018. When Meta acquired Scale AI for $25 billion in May 2025, Guo's stake made her the world's youngest self-made female billionaire, displacing Taylor Swift. In late 2025, the title passed to Luana Lopes Lara, co-founder of Kalshi. According to Forbes, Guo was one of only six self-made female billionaires to reach that milestone before age 40 as of 2025.
In 2018, Guo launched an app called Apply to Date, which allowed users to create a dating resume. In 2019, she launched Backend Capital, originally called Backend Ventures, a venture capital firm that primarily funded early-stage engineering startups.
Passes and later ventures
In 2022, Guo founded Passes, an OnlyFans competitor, leveraging her connections with Miami-based entertainment agencies. The platform raised a $40 million Series A in 2024 and acquired other creator platforms, including Fanhouse, founded by Rosie Nguyen. Passes claims it does not allow nudity or sexual content. However, in 2024, it was reported that Passes allowed an account featuring a 12-year-old selling bikini photos after the account had been banned by another platform; the account was removed only after the New York Times requested comment. In 2025, Passes and Guo were sued by a creator who stated that they had distributed sexually abusive material of her when she was a child. Guo's platform called the claim "defamatory."
In 2026, Guo released a tech house track, "Champagne On Me."
Personal life
Guo lived as a digital nomad for several years before buying a $6.7 million apartment in Miami in 2020, where her parties caused conflict with neighbors. The New York Post described her in 2022 as Miami's number one party girl. As of 2024, she was residing in Los Angeles after purchasing a home in West Hollywood for $4.2 million.
References
External links
"Lucy Guo profile". Forbes. March 15, 2025. Retrieved March 15, 2025.