From Pokemon Cards to Millions: How Lucy Guo Built Her Fortune

Lucy Guo’s journey to becoming a self-made multimillionaire reads like a masterclass in entrepreneurial thinking and financial acumen. Today, this 28-year-old founder commands a net worth in the hundreds of millions, but her path to wealth wasn’t handed to her—it was systematically constructed through early business ventures, strategic investments, and calculated risks. Understanding how Lucy Guo achieved her financial goals offers valuable insights for anyone serious about building lasting wealth.

The Early Hustle: Lucy Guo’s First Business Ventures

Long before Lucy Guo co-founded Scale AI or invested in biotech companies, she was cutting her teeth in commerce on school playgrounds. As a kid, she discovered the power of commerce by buying and reselling Pokémon cards and colored pencils to her classmates. Though this childhood venture eventually landed her in trouble, it revealed an important truth: the fundamentals of supply and demand apply at any age.

Her business instincts only intensified as she got older. During high school, Lucy Guo escalated her ventures to eBay, where she sold various items and even monetized hacked Pokémon games and marketing tools through her own websites. These weren’t major operations, but they provided her first real income stream and taught her about online commerce, customer acquisition, and product delivery.

The profits from these early enterprises went toward a decision that would have life-altering consequences: she invested approximately $5,000 in Bitcoin during its early, inexpensive phases. At the time, this was a bold move that positioned her perfectly for potential massive gains. However, a critical mistake derailed what could have been an effortless path to her first million. Lucy Guo stored her Bitcoin on an exchange rather than securing it in a personal wallet. When federal authorities seized that exchange, her Bitcoin holdings became inaccessible. In a Fortune interview, she acknowledged that those coins are theoretically worth millions today—a valuable lesson in custody and security in the crypto space.

The Scale AI Breakthrough: Where Fortune Met Innovation

Rather than dwelling on the Bitcoin setback, Lucy Guo channeled her entrepreneurial energy into founding Scale AI with co-founder Alexander Wang. The company specializes in generative AI infrastructure, helping enterprises develop and deploy their own AI systems without starting from scratch. This wasn’t a niche play—Scale AI’s market potential attracted significant capital and drove rapid valuation growth.

Lucy Guo made a strategic decision to liquidate some of her shares and step back from day-to-day operations in 2018, yet she retained meaningful equity. She continues to hold 5.99% of Scale AI, which carries a valuation of $7.3 billion. This stake alone translates to approximately $437.3 million in wealth, representing the foundation of her current fortune. What makes this holding particularly significant is that it resulted from sweat equity and vision rather than inherited wealth.

Beyond Scale AI: Lucy Guo’s Diversified Investment Strategy

Rather than placing all her accumulated wealth into a single bet, Lucy Guo has demonstrated sophisticated portfolio management. She co-founded Backend Capital, a venture capital firm dedicated to funding engineering-focused breakthroughs across multiple sectors. This move positioned her not just as an operator but as a capital allocator—identifying and nurturing the next generation of founders and innovations.

Additionally, Lucy Guo launched Passes, a Web3-native platform that equips digital creators with monetization infrastructure. This venture reflects her forward-looking perspective on creator economics and decentralized technologies, further diversifying her wealth across different market verticals and future-oriented sectors.

Wealth-Building Wisdom: Lucy Guo’s Proven Strategies

When Lucy Guo shares her approach to generating substantial wealth, she emphasizes that becoming rich in today’s economy requires deliberate strategy rather than luck. In her Fortune discussions, she outlined several actionable principles that extend beyond her personal experience to create a framework others can adopt.

Learn From Community Knowledge

One of Lucy Guo’s first recommendations is tapping into Reddit’s financial forums, particularly communities focused on Lean FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early) and Fat FIRE. These communities distill decades of collective financial wisdom into accessible discussions about money management, investment principles, and wealth accumulation strategies. She credits these forums with accelerating her understanding of how to systematically build wealth, suggesting that aspiring entrepreneurs should study how others have achieved financial independence before attempting their own paths.

Recognize Real Estate Opportunity

Lucy Guo sees substantial potential in real estate as a wealth-building vehicle. She points to markets like Las Vegas where investors can acquire properties at attractive price points and generate consistent rental income through platforms like Airbnb. Beyond immediate cash flow, real estate appreciation creates a dual wealth-generation mechanism: monthly income plus long-term asset appreciation. This combination has historically been one of the most reliable paths to building substantial net worth over decades.

Position Capital in Future Industries

Lucy Guo maintains strong conviction in the transformative potential of biotech and artificial intelligence. She has personally invested in biotech ventures focused on extending animal lifespans as a precursor to human longevity treatments, viewing such innovations as potential trillion-dollar opportunities. Her willingness to deploy capital into emerging sectors reflects a principle: identifying megatrends early and positioning capital accordingly can generate outsized returns.

The Power of Frugality and Strategic Connections

Perhaps Lucy Guo’s most counterintuitive piece of advice challenges conventional assumptions about wealth. She emphasizes that as income rises, many people increase their lifestyle expenses proportionally, which erodes their ability to save and invest. Lucy Guo advocated for maintaining frugality even during periods of rapid income growth—a discipline she herself maintained until reaching $10 million in net worth.

This commitment to living below one’s means unlocks the compounding effect over decades. Every dollar saved and invested can generate returns that themselves generate returns, creating exponential wealth growth rather than linear income growth.

Finally, Lucy Guo distills a powerful concept: “Your network is your net worth.” She identifies secondary market brokerage as one of the most accessible wealth-generation mechanisms for well-connected individuals. Someone positioned at the nexus of venture funds, early-stage startup employees, and founders can facilitate secondary transactions in high-demand startups, capturing meaningful economics on each transaction. This principle reveals that wealth isn’t only generated through company founding or traditional employment—it can be created through facilitating valuable connections and transactions.

By combining early business experience, strategic exits, diversified investments, and disciplined personal finance, Lucy Guo has constructed a blueprint for sustainable wealth creation that remains relevant regardless of market conditions or macroeconomic cycles.