Luis von Ahn was born and raised in Guatemala, where he saw firsthand that high-quality educational opportunities were limited to those with money. In particular, learning English has long been a necessary means for getting out of poverty, yet it was expensive and unattainable for most people. Inspired to fix this, von Ahn co-founded Duolingo in 2011 to make language education free and accessible to everyone, and it has grown to become the most popular language-learning platform worldwide. Both of his parents worked as physicians, and von Ahn had a strong interest in science and computers throughout his childhood. Although he did not set out to become an entrepreneur, it eventually turned out to be a successful career path for him: von Ahn sold two companies to Google while still in his 20s before starting Duolingo.