Who is the college dropout who dethroned Taylor Swift as the youngest self-made female billionaire?

There's a new billionaire in town—and she’s not headlining stadium tours or breaking Spotify records. Instead, she’s zipping around on an electric skateboard, hosting wild parties in Miami, and cashing in big on artificial intelligence (AI).

Meet Lucy Guo, the 30-year-old tech entrepreneur who just snagged the title of the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, beating out Taylor Swift on Forbes’ latest list.

Worth an estimated $1.3 billion, Guo’s fortune largely stems from her early stake in Scale AI, a data labelling company she co-founded back in 2016. The company, currently valued at around $25 billion, plays a crucial role in training AI models used by the likes of OpenAI and Alphabet.

But despite her billionaire status, Guo insists it doesn’t quite feel real yet. “Most of my money is still on paper,” she told The Telegraph. “Maybe reality hasn’t hit.”

The American dream

Born to Chinese immigrant parents and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Guo's story has all the classic ingredients of a modern-day tech fairy tale. She picked up coding in middle school, aced her way into Carnegie Mellon, and then dropped out—a move that horrified her parents at the time.

“They stopped talking to me for a while,” Guo admitted in a conversation with The Telegraph. “I get it. The immigrant mentality was like, ‘We sacrificed everything to give you a better life.’” But reconciliation came eventually, especially once things started taking off.

With support from the Thiel Fellowship—a $100,000 scholarship created by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel for students who skip college to build startups—Guo dove into the tech world headfirst. She worked brief stints at Quora and Snapchat, and it was during this time she met Alexandr Wang, her future Scale AI co-founder.

Together, they launched Scale AI, just as the AI wave was beginning to swell. Guo ran operations and production design, while Wang took the CEO role. However, a difference of opinion eventually led to Guo's exit just two years later, though she smartly held on to her 5 per cent equity. That stake? Now worth about $1.2 billion.

Building, partying, and investing

Guo didn’t stop there. After stepping away from Scale AI, she set up her own VC firm, Backend Capital, which has invested in over 100 startups. She also co-founded Passes, a content creation platform that blends the functionality of Patreon with a social media twist, like paid DMs, livestreams, and subscriptions.

Passes markets itself as a more wholesome alternative to OnlyFans, though it has been surrounded by controversy. A lawsuit filed earlier this year alleged the platform hosted explicit content featuring a minor.

Guo and Passes have denied the claims, calling the suit a baseless, orchestrated attempt to smear the company and its founder.

A spokesperson for Passes said the platform now bans underage creators and wiped related content even before the lawsuit went public. Guo’s legal team has filed to dismiss the suit, and the case remains ongoing.

Despite the heavy accusations and intense scrutiny, Guo isn’t exactly living the quiet billionaire lifestyle. Guo enjoys the finer, and sometimes flashier, things in life.

Think two Barry’s Bootcamp sessions a day, techno raves, and a party scene that once involved renting animals like lemurs and snakes from the Zoological Wildlife Foundation and led to the building’s homeowners’ association sending a warning letter.

Her apartment in Miami’s ultra-luxe One Thousand Museum tower became notorious enough to attract tabloid headlines. She now splits her time between LA and Miami.

While her personality might polarise, Guo is serious when it comes to supporting women in tech. She’s vocal about the double standards female founders face. “Take two people, exactly the same, one male and the other female, coming out of MIT. Investors still think the male will do better. It sucks,” she told The Telegraph.

Still, she doesn’t sugarcoat the startup grind. "It's pretty unrealistic to build a venture-funded startup with work-life balance,” she said, and she wants aspiring founders to know that upfront.

Passing the baton?

Even with her shiny new title, Guo isn’t too attached to it. In fact, she seems thrilled by the idea of being dethroned soon. “I have almost no doubt this title can be taken in three to six months,” she told Extra.ie. “Women are crushing it. Entrepreneurship is growing, and that’s exciting.”

She even had kind words for the woman she replaced. “Taylor Swift has always struck me as someone who’s very pro-woman and wants other people to win. I’m a huge fan. I think she’s an icon.”

(With inputs from agencies)