Member-only story
Learning a new language can be quite a challenge: first of all, it’s expensive. Plus, it takes a lot of time and energy while also being frustrating at times. So Duolingo wanted to change that by making language education free. To a degree, it accomplished its goal, earning fans and critics alike.
But Duolingo’s IPO is more than just the culmination for an ed-tech startup. Instead, this company changed learning for millions of people.
How Duolingo began:
Guatemalan Luis Von Ahn and Swiss Severin Hacker come from drastically different countries. In Guatemala, English was essential for professional growth, but class options were few and expensive. To study in the US, he had to take the TOEFL, which wasn’t available in Guatemala. So instead, he traveled to war-torn El Salvador, spending $1,200 in the process.
Hacker, on the other hand, lived an opposite reality. German, Italian, French, and English, dominated everyday Swiss life. In both cases, language marked their lives from early on.
When the two met at Carnegie Mellon University, their affinity for language made them click. Von Ahn was a computer science professor, and Hacker studied…
