Key Takeaways
- Duolingo, the $4.6 billion language learning app, evaluates candidates from the minute they step into a taxi cab.
- Duolingo’s cofounder and CEO, Luis von Ahn, pays taxi drivers to evaluate whether candidates deserve to be hired.
- The company has passed on hiring otherwise strong candidates because of the way they treated the taxi driver.
After a year-long search, Duolingo was about to hire a chief financial officer. One person shone above the rest, with a stellar resume and strong interpersonal skills. The entire hiring committee “really liked” the candidate, Luis von Ahn, Duolingo’s cofounder and CEO, told The Burnouts podcast last month.
There was just one problem. It turned out that the person was “pretty mean to their driver from the airport to the office,” von Ahn disclosed. “And that made us not hire them.”
Duolingo makes it a practice to evaluate candidates from the minute they step into a taxi cab — even if they aren’t aware that they are under scrutiny. The CEO pays taxi drivers to determine whether candidates deserve to be hired, judging by their behavior in the car. It’s one extra layer of evaluation that job seekers have to pass to be hired by the $4.6 billion company.
“Our belief is if they’re going to be mean to the driver, they’re probably going to be mean to other people, particularly people under them,” von Ahn said on the podcast.
Meanwhile, it’s a tough job market for candidates, especially for those seeking entry-level positions. A recent analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed that by the end of 2025, unemployment among recent college grads (ages 22 to 27 with a bachelor’s degree) climbed to about 5.6% — the highest it’s been in three years and noticeably higher than the overall 4.2% rate.
Duolingo makes an AI push
Hiring the right people matters more than ever at Duolingo, especially as the company doubles down on AI. von Ahn told the Financial Times in June that AI won’t replace jobs, but will require employees to shift how they operate. AI will “fundamentally change the way we work — and we have to get ahead of it,” von Ahn said in a LinkedIn post.
Last April, von Ahn made headlines for saying he was cutting contract roles and replacing them with AI. In a memo posted to LinkedIn announcing the news, von Ahn said that Duolingo couldn’t afford to wait until AI was “100% perfect.”
“We’d rather move with urgency and take occasional small hits on quality than move slowly and miss the moment,” he wrote.
In May 2025, one month later, Duolingo launched 148 new AI-written courses, touting the benefits of AI in quickly rolling out new material. The CEO said in a statement that it took 12 years for Duolingo to create its first 100 courses. “Now, in about a year, we’re able to create and launch nearly 150 new courses,” he stated. “This is a great example of how generative AI can directly benefit our learners.”
Another test to evaluate candidates
Duolingo’s CEO isn’t the only one looking beyond resumes and interviews to spot real character.
Trent Innes, chief growth officer at hotel commerce platform SiteMinder, told The Ventures podcast last year that he always takes candidates to the office kitchen for a beverage when they first arrive. The candidate then brings the drink with them into the interview.
After the interview concludes, Innes looks for one make-or-break sign: does the candidate want to take that empty cup back to the kitchen? If they leave their cup behind and do not offer to take it back, Innes refuses to hire them — no matter how well the interview went.
“You can develop skills, you can gain knowledge and experience, but it really does come down to attitude, and the attitude that we talk a lot about is the concept of ‘wash your coffee cup,’” Innes said.
Key Takeaways
- Duolingo, the $4.6 billion language learning app, evaluates candidates from the minute they step into a taxi cab.
- Duolingo’s cofounder and CEO, Luis von Ahn, pays taxi drivers to evaluate whether candidates deserve to be hired.
- The company has passed on hiring otherwise strong candidates because of the way they treated the taxi driver.
After a year-long search, Duolingo was about to hire a chief financial officer. One person shone above the rest, with a stellar resume and strong interpersonal skills. The entire hiring committee “really liked” the candidate, Luis von Ahn, Duolingo’s cofounder and CEO, told The Burnouts podcast last month.
There was just one problem. It turned out that the person was “pretty mean to their driver from the airport to the office,” von Ahn disclosed. “And that made us not hire them.”
Duolingo makes it a practice to evaluate candidates from the minute they step into a taxi cab — even if they aren’t aware that they are under scrutiny. The CEO pays taxi drivers to determine whether candidates deserve to be hired, judging by their behavior in the car. It’s one extra layer of evaluation that job seekers have to pass to be hired by the $4.6 billion company.
