Luis von Ahn

I'm Jessica Harris.

This is From Scratch.

My guest is Luis Von Ahn, an inventor and computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon.

Luis is one of the creators of CAPTCHA, a device that allows websites to determine whether you're a human or a computer trying to abuse your system.

CAPTCHAs are wavy, distorted words on screens that people need to type out when you're submitting a form to a website to confirm that you're not a bot.

His company, reCAPTCHA, proved users were humans while digitizing books.

The company was sold to Google in 2009.

In 2011, Luis founded Duolingo, the most popular language learning program on the web, attracting over 150 million users in its first four years.

Users worldwide learn a language for free while also translating the web into every major language.

Investors include Google, NEA, Kleiner Perkins, Ashton Kutcher, and Tim Ferriss.

Luis graduated from Duke in 2000 and got a PhD from Carnegie Mellon in 2005.

He won a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2006 and is from Guatemala.

Welcome.

Hi, thank you for having me.

And all this, by the way, since 1978, the year you were born.

Yeah, yeah.