Lucy Guo

Lucy Guo is the founder and general partner at Backend Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, and a cofounder of Scale AI, a data platform for artificial intelligence that enables developers to use an API for repetitive human tasks.

Guo studied computer science and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. She dropped out her senior year upon winning a 2014 Thiel Fellowship, which awards twenty people under twenty-two a $100,000 scholarship and mentorship to build a business. She interned with Facebook and worked as a product designer at Quora and Snapchat. She later cofounded Scale AI in 2016, founded Backend Capital in 2019, and has become an angel investor. In May 2022, she also became CEO of Passes, a platform for "influencers" to monetize their brands.

Lucy Guo credits her upbringing in Silicon Valley with her early exposure to technology. She learned to program in the second grade, began creating websites in the sixth grade, and earned five-figure revenues from internet marketing and ads in high school. As a freelance developer, she created consumer web and mobile apps, including Pokecrew, AccessURL, and FriendSwipe.

In interviews, Guo states she "learns much more by doing rather than sitting in a classroom." About her Thiel Fellowship, Guo says,

The Thiel Fellowship gave me an opportunity. I was able to drop out and pursue my dreams earlier than I would have. On top of that, the community has been phenomenal. It’s a group of young founders who understand you. They push you to your boundaries and help make you a more intellectual and mature human being."

Guo was named in 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 for cofounding Scale with Alexandr Wang. Later, in 2023, she was named one of America's wealthiest self-made women by Forbes.