Duolingo is one of the most downloaded applications from the official Google or Apple stores. The concept is simple: Apply a gamification layer that favors the “break the chain” model to motivate users to learn a language. That and the persistent presence of her pet owl, Duo, who has already become a meme.

Behind this great success we find Luis von Ahn, one of the few millionaires born in Guatemala. Duolingo one hit wonder 46-year-old Guatemalan. Although the internet is a slightly safer place thanks to him, sometimes it makes you doubt whether you are really human or not.

A humble childhood. Luis von Ahn was born and raised in Guatemala City in a single-parent family consisting of his mother and grandmother. The now-millionaire Duolingo co-founder assured: Forbes He said that his childhood was spent with scarcity of economic resources. “Growing up, my net worth was probably close to zero. And so was my mother’s,” von Ahn said.

Education opened a future for him. In 1996, Luis von Ahn, who holds dual Guatemalan and American citizenship, moved to the United States to study mathematics at Duke University and later earned a doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The first success that changed the Internet. While studying in Pittsburgh, von Ahn and other students attended a talk by one of the people responsible for Yahoo! He shared 10 problems that the company could not solve. At the time, Yahoo! It gave its users free accounts, but there were malicious actors who created bots to automatically obtain thousands of them, and the company couldn’t stop them.

“I went home, thought about it, and my PhD advisor and I came up with the following idea: captchaTo check whether the user is really a human and not a bot, he said in an interview with Brits, “so the distorted characters people have to see online.” BBC.

first million. Luis von Ahn developed the system and led to the emergence of ReCaptcha. In 2009, Google became interested in the project and purchased it; In this way, von Ahn pocketed a fortune known only to be in the “eight figures”. It’s a very wide range, ranging from $10 to $99.9 million.

This system has become popular as Google’s “I’m Not a Robot” verification system, and given the level of sophistication bots have acquired, it sometimes leaves you doubting whether you’re actually human due to its difficulty.

A big waste of time. An interesting anecdote about the millionaire is that he initially took great pride in creating the anti-spam verification system. However, he was calculating numbers like a good mathematician. He claims that his system receives 200 million hits a day. Economist.

On average, it took each person about 10 seconds to resolve the issue and verify that they were human; Therefore, by doing something so inefficient, Luis von Ahn had unintentionally become responsible for the loss of approximately 500,000 hours per day worldwide. Confirm that you are the person.

Duolingo coming in 2011. In 2012, Luis von Ahn partnered with Severin Hacker and founded Duolingo with the aim of helping people without resources learn languages. “In a Latin American country, and especially Guatemala, if you have money you can buy a great education, but if you don’t have money sometimes you can’t even learn to read and write. That’s why we’ve worked hard to keep Duolingo free, because we want to give everyone access to education,” he said. . BBC.

He’s a millionaire but his mother doesn’t believe it. The curious detail was revealed in the interview given by the millionaire ForbesHe currently lives in New York with his 87-year-old mother Norma. He is not fully aware of the wealth his son has acquired in recent years, so he still asks for permission to call Guatemala. “He asks me if it’s too expensive to call Guatemala. I tell him: Call whoever you want!” said the millionaire.

Depends on its origins. Although his success has been achieved in the United States, Luis von Ahn remains true to his Guatemalan roots. In 2021, she founded a foundation that bears her name and aims to protect and support women and girls in Guatemala, among other goals. The millionaire claims to have currently donated around $13 million to this charity.

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Image | Duolingo, Mockup Studio