Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn gives new hires five valuable tips.
Key Takeaways
- Luis von Ahn has been the CEO of Duolingo for over 14 years.
- In a new social media post, von Ahn detailed five tips for new hires to succeed at the company.
- One tip he gave was avoiding toxic behavior, which the company “rejects.”
Duolingo accepts a cohort of new graduates every September as new hires. Now the company’s CEO, Luis von Ahn, is sharing how these new employees can succeed and best contribute to the company.
In a LinkedIn post released earlier this week, von Ahn mentioned that Duolingo had welcomed 42 new graduates to the company this fall. The language learning app had over 850 employees total as of April. Its valuation was about $15 billion at the time of writing.
Related: Duolingo Says AI Completed Work in 12 Months that Took Humans 12 Years
The new hires “always ask me how to succeed here,” von Ahn stated in the LinkedIn post. Von Ahn has led Duolingo for over 14 years and holds a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University, per his LinkedIn.
Here are the five tips he shares with new hires, according to his post:
1. Stay away from toxic behavior
Von Ahn warned new employees away from approaching their roles with “massive egos” and being untrustworthy by telling different people different things to try to accomplish a task.
“Don’t be a jerk,” he wrote.
Duolingo’s culture quickly pinpoints and “rejects” toxic behavior, he stated.
Related: ‘Continuing to Hire’: Duolingo’s CEO Clarifies AI Stance After Backlash — Read the Memo
2. Be proactive
Von Ahn explained that in its early days, Duolingo didn’t have a company blog. Two engineers approached the problem differently: One complained about it for months without doing anything about it, while another started the blog without being asked to.
The latter engineer “did way better at Duolingo,” von Ahn stated, adding that if new hires notice an issue at the company, they are always free to fix it.
3. Put the company’s mission above yourself
Von Ahn encouraged new hires to think first about what is best for the company and their team, and put those priorities ahead of what is best for themselves.
He cautioned that “this doesn’t mean work yourself to death,” but it does mean focusing on what’s good for Duolingo’s mission, which is to provide free language education to all.
Related: ‘Make Chess as Accessible as Possible’: Duolingo’s Next Move Is Teaching Users How to Play Chess
4. Become familiar with the product
It takes actually using Duolingo to know the product and why it’s important, according to von Ahn. The Duolingo app gamifies language learning and is available for hundreds of languages, including Spanish, French, Japanese and Mandarin.
Von Ahn mentioned that he still reports bugs on the app in an effort to improve the user experience.
5. Embrace that success takes hard work
Von Ahn stated that success is “65% luck” and “35% hard work for about two decades.” He wrote that new hires don’t have to be the most intelligent people in the room — they just have to be persistent and “show up” until luck finds them.
“If you stick with it, you’ll surprise yourself with how far you can go,” he wrote.
Related: Duolingo Put Its Sarcastic Teen Chatbot to Work on Its Earnings Call
Key Takeaways
- Luis von Ahn has been the CEO of Duolingo for over 14 years.
- In a new social media post, von Ahn detailed five tips for new hires to succeed at the company.
- One tip he gave was avoiding toxic behavior, which the company “rejects.”
Duolingo accepts a cohort of new graduates every September as new hires. Now the company’s CEO, Luis von Ahn, is sharing how these new employees can succeed and best contribute to the company.
In a LinkedIn post released earlier this week, von Ahn mentioned that Duolingo had welcomed 42 new graduates to the company this fall. The language learning app had over 850 employees total as of April. Its valuation was about $15 billion at the time of writing.
Related: Duolingo Says AI Completed Work in 12 Months that Took Humans 12 Years
