Severin Hacker is the Co-Founder and CTO of Duolingo, the world’s most downloaded education app with over 100 million monthly users. Since its 2021 IPO, Duolingo has reached a market cap of $20BN. The company has raised over $183M from top-tier investors including CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins, Union Square Ventures, NEA, Ashton Kutcher, and Tim Ferriss. Severin is also an active angel investor, with standout bets including Decagon, one of the fastest-growing AI-native dev shops globally.
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
00:00 – Why It's Harder to Raise $3M Than $100M
02:10 – The Real Reason Duolingo Couldn't Have Started in Europe
04:40 – Duolingo’s AI Pivot: What “AI-First” Actually Means
07:00 – The 12-Year Bottleneck Duolingo Crushed with AI
11:40 – How Duolingo Uses AI Internally (and Why They Love Cursor)
13:30 – Where AI Still Sucks (Especially in Engineering)
16:00 – Will AI Kill the CS Degree? Severin’s Surprising Take
18:00 – The End of Work? UBI, Purpose, and the Future of Labor
25:20 – OpenAI vs Duolingo: Are They Coming for Language Learning?
29:20 – Duolingo’s Biggest Mistake: “We Waited Too Long on This…”
39:30 – Duolingo’s Secret Sauce: What Investors Always Get Wrong
45:00 – Would You Go Public Today? Severin’s Surprising Answer
49:00 – Best and Worst Parts of Going Public—A Rare Honest Take
51:00 – Should Europe Give Up? Severin's Unfiltered Opinion
56:00 – Harsh Truth: “Europe Can’t Win Unless the U.S. Screws Up”
59:10 – Why Founders Have to Move to the US to Optimise Their Chance of Success
1:01:00 – Why Union Square Was the Only VC to Say Yes
1:03:00 – The Real Value of Tier 1 VCs (Even at Worse Terms)
1:05:00 – From PhD Student to Billionaire: Does Money Buy Happiness?
1:09:00 – Why Severin Sometimes Lies About His Job
1:10:20 – Founder Marriage Advice: “Write a Contract”
1:11:50 – How to Pick a Life Partner – Severin’s Tuesday Night Test
20VC: Duolingo Co-Founder on The Doomed Future of Europe, Reflections on Money, Marriage and the Future of AI