Billionaire faculty dropout Lucy Guo is reportedly the youngest self-made lady in the world—knocking Taylor Swift off the highest spot. However even with a $1.3 billion reported internet price, the 30-year-old cofounder of Scale AI tells Fortune she nonetheless pinches the pennies and stores at Shein.
Regardless of founding and maintaining a $1.3 billion stake in an AI unicorn, you received’t catch Lucy Guo losing her billions on a lavish way of life to compare her new standing.
“I don’t like losing cash,” the frugal 30-year-old tells Fortune.
In fact, every so often Guo will splurge—like if she’s were given a 16 hour flight to undergo, she says she’ll go for industry magnificence. And there’s the strange fashion designer get dressed putting in her closet for when she wishes it.
“However relating to like day-to-day existence, my assistant simply drives me in a gorgeous previous Honda Civic. I don’t care,” she says.
“The whole thing I put on is unfastened or from Shein… A few of them aren’t going to be that fab high quality, however there’s all the time like two items or in order that in point of fact determine, and I simply put on them on a daily basis,” the billionaire founder laughs. “I nonetheless actually purchase buy-one-get-one-free on Uber Eats.”
Guo, who’s these days the founder and CEO of the writer group platform Passes, provides {that a} quote she came across at the morning of our interview completely summarises her method: “It’s like, act broke, keep wealthy.”
Millionaires wish to turn out themself—billionaires don’t
Guo hit the jackpot after the AI startup she cofounded, Scale AI, was once reportedly valued at $25 billion in April as a part of a proportion sale.
Despite the fact that she left the corporate in 2018 (two years after founding it), the 5% stake she held onto is now price an estimated $1.2 billion—making the millennial considered one of simply 5 feminine billionaires below 40 in line with Forbes’ newest score, together with Rihanna and Anthropic’s cofounder Daniela Amodei.
It’s why Guo not feels the wish to turn out her wealth with a Patek Philippe on a regular basis watch, or a Hermès Birkin to hold her pc. That, she says, is the behaviour of millionaires.
“Who you spot in most cases losing cash on, fashion designer garments, a pleasing automotive, et cetera, they’re technically within the millionaire vary,” Guo explains. “All their pals are multimillionaires, or billionaires and so they really feel a bit of bit insecure, in order that they really feel the wish to be flashy to turn people, ‘glance, I’m a success.’”
“I’m no longer appearing off to any individual, proper?”
Certainly, for our interview, she’s makeup-free, dressed down, and may just move for some other millennial. However previous in her occupation, Guo admits she, too, can have been dripping in fashion designer tools.
“I do assume that that is in reality one thing that I in my view went thru, and I feel numerous other people undergo whilst you’re in that center floor of you’re a success, however no longer as a success as you need to be.”
“And I feel the explanation maximum billionaires get dressed in a t-shirt, denims, hoodies, is that they are able to. They don’t wish to be within the swimsuit 24/7 as a result of they’re achieved proving themselves to the remainder of the sector. The remainder of the sector is solely sucking as much as them,” she provides. “And I feel that’s roughly how I love really feel, the place I’m previous that hump. I don’t in point of fact must turn out myself to any individual.”
“Nobody’s going to have a look at me and level at me like, ‘Haha, she’s so broke’ after I’m pulling up in a Honda Civic as a result of no matter, it doesn’t subject.”
‘Affordable’ CEOs simply wish to sound relatable—however no longer Guo
Guo’s no longer the one ultra-wealthy to confess she’s “beautiful frugal.” The sector’s maximum robust had been boasting about their quiet luxurious way of life for a while now. They’ve been donning logo-less angora wool jumpers and linen trousers which may be from any place to the unassuming eye. Professionals say their prosperous friends can inform who’s dressed in Zara from who’s in Loro Piana, however the level is to resemble other people in decrease tax brackets.
Others, like KeKe Palmer and Warren Buffet, had been much less delicate about how they lead very customary lives, in spite of their massive internet worths—with the sector’s most famed investor going as some distance to name himself “affordable”.
However in Guo’s eyes, she’s one of the most few who in reality are as affordable as they are saying they’re.
“I feel that folks wish to have compatibility into society. In particular in The us, I do assume there’s a ‘we hate billionaires state of affairs.’ So on account of that, other people wish to display, ‘glance, I’m no longer your conventional billionaire. I’m frugal,’” she explains.
“I’m no longer announcing it to be like, ‘let me display you the sector that I’m no longer like different billionaires,” Guo provides. “I totally admit it, I’ve long gone thru that spending spree when I used to be extra insecure, and I felt like I had to display one thing.”
And those that in point of fact aren’t spending their hundreds of thousands? They aren’t doing it to be relatable, she says it’s as a result of like her they’d their flashy technology—then reached the inevitable realisation: “Why am I losing my cash on one thing that doesn’t subject?”
This tale was once firstly featured on Fortune.com
