在AI时代，Duolingo如何争夺学习市场——对话Luis von Ahn

大家好。

Hey, folks.

我是杰夫·伯曼。

Jeff Berman here.

有个好消息。

Exciting news.

《规模之道》峰会的报名现在已经开放了。

Applications are now open for the Masters of Scale Summit.

活动将在10月20日至22日于旧金山举行，这是一次非常特别的盛会。

It's happening October 20 through October 22 in San Francisco, and it is a really special event.

诚邀您加入这个精心打造的社群，与塑造未来的创始人、创新者和领导者们一起交流。

Please join our curated community of founders, innovators, and leaders shaping the future.

这里会有颠覆您固有认知的思想，以及能推动您的事业乃至人生向前发展的宝贵人脉。

Expect ideas that challenge your assumptions and connections that move your business and maybe even your life forward.

这将是一次足以彻底改变一切的经历。

It's an experience that can change literally everything.

现在就去 mastersofscale.com/apply20six 申请吧。

Apply now at mastersofscale.com/apply20six.

网址是 mastersofscale.com/apply20six。

That's mastersofscale.com/apply20six.

各位听众好。

Hey, listeners.

我是鲍勃。

Bob here.

如果你只听《Masters of Scale》的快速回应部分，那你可能错过了一半的精彩内容。因为每周五，我们都会发布一期仅在快速回应频道独家播出的第二集。

If you listen to rapid response on masters of scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday, we release a second rapid response exclusively in the rapid response feed.

嘉宾和话题同样引人入胜且紧跟时事，从福特CEO到NASA局长，再到《穿普拉达的女王》里的经验教训，应有尽有。

The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from the devil wears Prada.

找起来大概只要十秒钟。

It takes about ten seconds to find.

只要在你收听播客的平台搜索“Rapid Response”，然后点击关注，就能确保不错过任何一期。

Just search Rapid Response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode.

希望到时候能见到你。

I hope to see you there.

人类永远不可能比人工智能更聪明。

Humans will never be more intelligent than AI.

未来公司大概就分两种。

There's gonna be two types of companies.

一种是擅长用AI的，另一种是因为不擅长AI而倒闭的。

Those are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't.

我们该如何打造一个以人为核心的未来？

How do we build a future that is human centered?

我是拉娜·埃尔·卡尤比。

I'm Rana El Khauyubi.

在我的播客《AI先锋》里，我们会解答这个问题，还有更多其他问题。

And on my podcast, Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more.

作为一名AI科学家、创业者和投资人，我深知如何打造出真正惠及每个人的AI技术。

As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone.

每周我都会和那些塑造我们未来的先驱们坐下来聊聊，带大家深入了解正在改变我们生活的AI背后的故事。

Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives.

在你收听播客的任何平台上，都能找到《AI先驱》。

Find Pioneers of AI wherever you tune in.

我们将拥有一个怎样的世界呢？

What kind of world are we going to have?

我理想中的世界，是人们能够真正不断自我提升的世界。

The type of world that I would like to have is a world where people really are bettering themselves.

这是他们寻找人生意义的一种方式。

That is one way in which they find meaning in life.

十年后，会不会有相当大比例的人类，也就是几十亿人，真正开始学习，而不是整天刷着让人焦虑的信息，或者因为觉得AI什么都能做就直接放弃生活？

Will it be the case that in ten years we can get a significant fraction of humanity's population, billions of people, actually learning something as opposed to either doom scrolling or just giving up on life because AI can do everything.

我们活跃用户数已经超过了1亿，但这相对于整个人类来说，比例还是太小了。

We got to more than a 100,000,000 active users, but that's just too small of a fraction of humanity.

这是路易斯·冯·安，多邻面的首席执行官兼联合创始人。这家语言学习应用去年年收入突破了十亿美元。

That's Luis von Ahn, CEO and cofounder of Duolingo, the language learning app that crossed a billion dollars in annual revenue last year.

多邻国在社交媒体上以那只有点疯癫的猫头鹰吉祥物闻名，但去年真正火出圈的是路易斯本人，他发了一份内部AI备忘录，引发了巨大的公众争议。

Duolingo is known on social media for its slightly unhinged owl mascot, but it was Luis himself who went viral last year over an internal AI memo that sparked intense public controversy.

今天，我们来聊聊他从这段经历中吸取的惨痛教训，以及那份备忘录发布后，他对AI局限性的新认识。

Today, we talk through his tough lessons from that experience and what he's learned about the limitations of AI since that memo.

我们还讨论了为什么他在2026年做出了战略调整，把用户增长置于收入增长之上，尽管目前多邻国90%的用户都是非付费用户。

We also talk about why he's made a strategic shift in 2026, emphasizing user growth over revenue growth even though 90 of Duolingo's users are currently nonpaying.

另外，本着猫头鹰 Duo 的精神，我们也探讨了把“乐趣”作为一种学习策略，无论你是教语言、下国际象棋，还是传播新的商业理念。

Plus, in the spirit of Duo the Owl, we talk about fun as a learning strategy, whether you're teaching languages, chess, or new business ideas.

那我们开始吧。

So let's get to it.

我是鲍勃·萨菲安，欢迎来到《快速响应》。

I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

我是鲍勃·萨菲安。

I'm Bob Safian.

我和多邻国的首席执行官兼联合创始人路易斯·冯·阿尼在一起。

I'm here with Luis von Ahn, CEO and co founder of Duolingo.

Luis，很高兴你能来。

Luis, great to have you with us.

我很高兴能参加这次对话。

I'm very happy to be here.

谢谢你们邀请我。

Thank you for having me.

你第一次引起我的注意，是在我担任《快公司》主编的时候。

You first hit my radar when I was editor of Fast Company.

你参与发明了验证码，后来又推出了reCAPTCHA，那些网页上随处可见的单词验证小测验。

You helped invent Captcha and then reCaptcha, the the security word puzzles that became kind of ubiquitous across the web.

接着你推出了Duolingo，一个既有趣又务实的语言学习平台，迅速走红，去年年收入已经突破了十亿美元。

And then you launched Duolingo, which is this sort of playful but pragmatic language learning system that really took off, and now it's crossed a billion dollars in annual revenue last year.

Duolingo 一直都很出人意料。

Duolingo has always been unexpected.

尤其是你们在社交媒体上的营销，一直备受关注。

Certainly, your social media campaigns have gotten a lot of attention.

出人意料和有趣这一点，对多邻国来说有多重要？

How important is the unexpected and playful to what Duolingo does?

说实话，这真的挺关键的。

I mean, ultimately, it's pretty important.

我们的目标是教人，真正地教数十亿人。

I mean what we want to do is we want to teach people and we want to literally teach billions of people.

大多数人会说他们想学点什么，但说的和做的往往大不相同。

Most people will tell you they want to learn something, but what people say and what people do happens to be very different.

所以我们努力打造一个有趣、甚至有点疯癫的品牌，让人愿意学。

Certainly trying to be a fun brand, an unhinged brand, that gets people to learn.

我们相信，教得好固然重要，但让你在学习过程中保持开心，甚至更重要，不然大多数人根本坚持不下去。

And so, you know, our belief about teaching is that it's really important that we teach you something well, but it's equally or more important that we keep you entertained while you're learning because otherwise, you know, most people just won't learn all that much.

你的用户很多都是成年人，所以这不只是针对孩子，也要让他们觉得有趣。

And I I mean, a lot of your users are adults, so it's it's not just kids that you're trying to get to be playful.

对那些想终身学习的人来说，这一点尤其重要。

And and it's just important for, for those of us who are trying to be, lifelong learners.

是的。

Yeah.

我们的很多用户都是成年人。

A lot of our users are adults.

我们的用户年龄跨度非常广。

Basically, our users are the whole range from age.

他们需要学会阅读。

They need to know how to read.

所以，从六七岁到一百岁，都有。

So know age, call it six, seven to like a 100.

当初我们刚推出Duolingo时，有人坚持说，真正的学习者不会喜欢这种东西，学习就得严肃才行之类的。

When we started Duolingo, there were people that would say, no, no, no, serious learners are not going to want this because it has to be serious, etcetera.

我们从来就没发现，把东西变得更无趣能有什么帮助。

We have just never found that making something less fun helps.

只要我们让学习变得更有趣，连那些自诩是认真学习的人，也会学得更多。

Whenever we make it more fun, even the people who call themselves serious learners end up doing more.

你在使用Duolingo时做的那些选择，比如，学习效果和用户参与度之间真的有区别吗？

And it it the decisions you make about Duolingo, like, is there ever a distinction between engagement and learning?

在科技圈里，有些人已经开始反思，过于追求用户参与度其实有问题。

There are, you know, some parts of the tech world where there's sort of been blowback about emphasizing engagement too much.

他们通常认为

They mostly go

这两者其实是相辅相成的，因为最重要的是让用户真正花时间学习。

hand in hand because the the the most important thing is that people spend the time learning.

如果你是英语母语者，想学西班牙语，大概得投入五百个小时左右。

If you wanna learn Spanish and you're an English speaker, you kinda have to put in about five hundred hours.

差不多就是这个量级。

Like that's basically it.

这跟锻炼有点像。

It's kind of similar with exercising.

比如你踩椭圆机或者跑步机，具体用哪台机器可能影响不大。

I mean, you're doing the elliptical or the treadmill, it probably matters a little bit.

但最重要的是，你每天确实要投入一定的时间去做。

But what matters the most is that you're actually doing it a certain amount of time every day.

当人们在多邻国上学习时，环境跟课堂不太一样。

When people are learning on Duolingo, the the setting is a pretty is is a little different than a classroom.

我觉得在教室里，你可以稍微多‘折磨’一下用户，也就是学习者，因为他们不得不待在教室里。

In a classroom, I think you can frustrate, quote unquote, users, in this case, the the learner, a little more because they're, you know, they're they kinda have to be in the classroom.

他们没那么容易起身走人。

Not so easy for them to get up and walk away.

对。

Yeah.

没错。

Right.

但在多邻国，我们离 Instagram 或 TikTok 这些平台，往往就只差一个点击的距离。

Whereas in Duolingo, we are we are always one click away from Instagram or TikTok or whatever whatever you want.

所以，我们给用户带来的挫败感，必须比课堂环境要低才行。

So the level of frustration we can give to users has to be lower than what a classroom does.

这可能意味着我们实际教的内容少了一些，但我们更希望用户能花更多时间。

And that probably makes it so that we probably are teaching a little less, but we just want to have a lot more time.

所以最终，这对学习反而是有好处的。

And so in the end, it actually ends up being good for learning.

现在，很多商务人士被迫学习的内容都是技术性的，尤其是关于人工智能的。

I mean, right now, a lot of the, the learning that business people are being forced to do is is technological, is is about AI.

我知道Duolingo的学习内容并不是以这个为重点，但你们在设计学习方式时，有没有什么经验可以借鉴到这种新技术的学习中？

I I know that that's not been the focus of of what the learning is on Duolingo, but are there are there things about the way we should be approaching learning about this new technology that you would take away from, from what you do with Duolingo?

我们通常不觉得这类学习是有趣的。

It it certainly isn't often framed to us as being fun.

我觉得，学习任何东西，最重要的不是有趣。

I think the most important thing I would say for learning anything, it doesn't have to be fun.

关键是能让人持续保持动力。

It just has to be that it keeps people motivated.

让人保持动力的方式有很多种。

There are multiple ways to keep people motivated.

在多邻国，我们主要选择了趣味性。

With Duolingo, we've chosen mainly fun.

这是我们主打的方向，但你们不一定非要这么做。

That's the main thing we've chosen, but you don't have to do that.

我的意思是，比如看到成果也能让人保持动力。

I mean, for example, seeing results keeps people motivated.

就学习人工智能而言，我觉得这种形式可能更有激励作用。

In the case of learning AI, I would say that's probably a better motivator of the form.

比如，我要去学AI，但我第一步会先给自己做一个仪表盘，或者小型仪表盘之类的东西。

Like, I'm gonna learn AI, but the first thing that I'm gonna do is make myself a dashboard or, like, a mini dashboard or something.

不过我觉得，只要找到合适的动力，真的会有很大帮助。

But I I think it just if you find the right motivation, you know, that helps a lot.

我的意思是，

I

我得问问你，因为去年这个时候，你发了一封全员邮件谈AI，当时引起了一些震动。

mean, I I I have to ask you because last year at this time, you sent out this all hands email about AI that that rattled things a bit.

对吧？

Right?

除非团队能证明AI做不了这活儿，否则一律不招新人，而且所有岗位都要根据AI适用性来评估。

No new hires unless teams showed that AI couldn't do the job and existing places assessed on their AIUs.

这事儿在社交媒体上引发了巨大反弹，股价也受到了影响。

And it it really sparked this this blowback on social and the stock price.

你向来不害怕冒险。

You're not unfamiliar with taking risks.

当时这个决定的风险，是不是比你预想的还要大？

Was this a a bigger risk than you realized at the time?

当然了。

Absolutely.

我根本没想到这会引起争议，因为在Duolingo内部，这根本不是什么问题。

I did not think this was going to be controversial because internally, inside Duolingo, this was not controversial.

我们本来就是一家科技公司，我以前还是卡内基梅隆大学的计算机科学教授，亲自教过AI课程。

We started as a technology company and, you know, I used to be a computer science professor that actually taught the AI class at Carnegie Mellon University.

所以我们一直尽可能多地使用人工智能。

So we've we've always used AI in as much as we can.

所以在公司内部，这根本不是什么争议点。

So internally, this was not controversial at all.

但在外部，我觉得我当时表达得不够清楚。

Externally, I think, I was not very clear.

加上我写的方式又没提供足够背景，导致大家以为我是想大规模裁员。

And given how I wrote it and without giving it more context, I opened it up to people thinking that what I was trying to do was to fire a lot of our employees.

但那从来就不是我的本意。

But that was not never the intention.

我们从来没进行过裁员。

I mean, we've never done a layoff.

到现在我们依然没有裁员过。

We still have never done a layoff.

事实上，去年我发那封邮件的时候，员工人数反而增加了，而不是减少了。

In fact, last year when I sent that memo, we increased our number of employees, not decreased our number of employees.

当时出现了误解，我觉得是因为大家普遍担心AI会取代工作之类的。

There was that misunderstanding because I think there's there's a lot of fear that AI is going to substitute jobs, etcetera, etcetera.

在我看来，员工要是用上AI，效率会高很多。

The way I see it here is our employees are just way more productive if they use AI.

所以我反而想多招点人，因为他们的产出能提升更多。

And so I actually wanna hire more people because they can do more.

听起来你好像有点在逼着大家做似的。

It also seemed a little bit like, like you were sort of forcing people.

你没有把学着用AI这件事变得有趣一点。

You weren't making it playful to learn how to UI AI.

你那做法简直像拿大棒子赶人一样。

You were sort of like it was almost like a bludgeon.

对吧？

Right?

这可能也不是你的本意，但确实有很多人在这上面感到很困扰。

Which which I guess wasn't the intent necessarily either, but but I do think it's something a lot of folks are struggling with.

那你怎么让团队里那些对这项新技术比较抵触的人接受它呢？

Like, how do you get the people on your team who are more resistant to this new technology to to get on board?

是的。

Yeah.

说起来，多邻国招的人大多比较年轻。

I mean, the good news here is at Duolingo, we just we hire a lot of people who are pretty young.

我们招的很多人都是刚毕业的大学生。

I mean, we hire a lot of people who are straight out of college.

所以实际上，我们这儿没遇到多少抵触情绪。

And we have just not found a lot of resistance here.

公司内部我们有个叫‘AI使用黄金法则’的规定，就是必须用AI来造福我们的学习者。

Internally, we have this thing we call the golden rule of AI usage, which is you have to use AI for the benefit of our learners.

我们所有用AI的举措，都得是为了学习者好。

Like everything we do with AI should be for the benefit of our learners.

比如，如果AI能帮你更高效地推出新功能，那就是在为学习者造福。

So for example, if it helps you be more efficient at putting out more features, that's for the benefit of our learners.

如果我们推出一个功能，能让学习者通过和AI对话来更好地练习，从而提升学习效果，这就是在为学习者谋福利。

If we put out a feature that helps our learners learn better because they're now, for example, interacting with an AI to practice conversation, that's for the benefit of our learners.

有时候我们用AI确实能节省成本，但这并不是我们使用AI的主要目的。

Sometimes when we use AI, we're able to save costs, but that is not the goal of our usage of AI.

节省成本是好事，但绝不是核心目标。

That is an okay thing, but it is not the primary goal.

我们的出发点必须是帮助学习者，而不是为了省一千万美元而去用AI。

It has to be about helping our learners versus we're gonna use AI to save $10,000,000.

那种理由根本提不起劲来。

That's just not all that motivating.

我只是想确认一下，因为最近有人反映说，你们好像在收回之前备忘录里的某些说法。

And I just wanna make sure everyone because there have been some reports about you kind of walking back some of the things you said in in that memo.

但你显然还是坚信AI的，对吧？

You're clearly still a believer in AI.

对吧？

Right?

你显然认为，这正是公司必须继续走下去的方向。

There's no doubt from you that sort of this is the direction the business has to has to continue to go.

我非常相信人工智能，但这也伴随着一些注意事项和经验教训。

I'm a big believer in AI, but that comes with some, you know, it definitely comes with asterisk and learnings.

比如，我最初的备忘录里说，我们要根据员工使用人工智能的情况来评估每个人。

I mean, for example, my initial memo said that we were going to evaluate every employee on their usage of AI.

现在我觉得，那样做并不对。

I don't think that was right.

很多人来找我，说：‘我这份工作其实用AI只是应付考核，因为你拿这个来评估我，但并不是因为我真觉得用AI能让我做得更好。’

Many people came to me and said, look, for the job that I'm doing, I'm finding that I'm just using AI for AI's sake because you're going to evaluate me on that, but it's not because I actually think that for this particular thing we can do it better.

归根结底，在绩效评估中，我们应该看的是这位员工为公司创造了多少价值。

And I think ultimately, you know, in the case of performance reviews, what you should evaluate is, you know, how much that particular employee is contributing to the company.

事实是，对我们大多数员工来说，使用AI确实让他们能为公司做出更多贡献。

It turns out for most of our employees, using AI helps them contribute more to the company.

这一点没错。

That is true.

不过，有些项目或岗位可能用AI帮助真的不大。

However, there may be cases, projects, or particular roles where it may just not help all that much.

所以一概而论地说‘我们要根据你用AI的情况来评估你’，这根本没必要。

And so saying blanket statement, we're gonna evaluate you on the usage of AI, was not needed.

所以我们已经把这条删掉了。

And so we've removed that.

另外，关于AI，我想强调一点：我们确实想尽可能多地使用AI，但绝不能降低质量。

The other important thing that I think is important to mention when it comes to AI is that we're trying to use AI as much as possible, but we really don't want to decrease quality.

有些工作，AI已经能很好地完成高质量的任务了。

For some things, is quite ready to do high quality stuff.

但有些工作，它还做不到。

For some things it's just not.

所以我们不会为了用AI而牺牲质量。

And so we're not going to decrease quality just for the sake of using AI.

那在哪些方面，你觉得AI还达不到这种质量水平？

So where are you seeing AI not able to deliver that kind of quality?

在很多地方，比如我们雇了很多艺术家和设计师，我们的应用在设计上非常讲究工艺。

In a lot of places, for example, we hire a lot of artists and designers, and our app is very high craft on design, etcetera.

我们根本没看到AI能达到我们顶尖人才那种创意水平或精致程度。

We're just not seeing AI get to the level of creativity or the level of polish that, you know, our top people have by any means.

另一个地方，我觉得AI的质量确实不够高，我觉得AI最大的问题之一就是它做演示时特别好看。

The other place where I think it's just not the highest quality the one of the biggest problems I think with AI is that it demos really well.

我这话是什么意思呢？

So what do I mean by that?

就是你看，

It's just like, look.

它能写个故事。

It can write a story.

如果你只看一个故事，它可能确实写得特别好，就是他们给你看的那一个。

And if you see one story, it probably wrote a really good story, like the one story they showed you.

我心想，天哪。

And I'm like, my god.

它写了一个故事。

It wrote a story.

但当我们实际需要写一千个不同故事，比如教人语言的时候，情况就不一样了。

But when you go and, you know, in our case, we may need to write 1,000 different stories for, you know, for people to learn a language.

这时候你就会发现，大概有百分之二十的内容根本就是粗糙不堪。

Then you'll find that, like, I don't know, 20% of the things were just pure slopp.

每当我们大规模使用AI时，都得特别小心，别让这种问题漏掉。

Whenever we scale a lot, with things with AI, we have to really be careful that slot doesn't get through.

如果质量不够高，就算AI能快速完成，我们也不会用。

And if the quality is just not high enough, even though AI is really nice and that it can do it pretty fast, we just don't don't go for it.

是的。

Yeah.

我听别人也说过编程方面类似的情况。

And I mean, I've heard some of that with with coding too.

写代码的时候它可能表现得特别出色，但有时候生成的代码根本跑不通，你得花时间去逐个测试。

Like, it can be terrific in in writing code and then it can produce stuff that like, well, that just doesn't work and you need to dig into that to test all of those Yeah.

很长一段时间里，如果你刷推特，那边的风向都说你干脆把所有工程师都辞了算了，因为AI写代码比任何人都强。

For the longest of times, if you read Twitter, the vibe there was you probably should just fire all your engineers because AI can code way better than any human.

这根本就是错的。

That is just not true.

我们内部其实看到，工程师们都在用AI，但工程进度就是没见快起来。

Internally, would see that your engineers were all using AI, but somehow you hadn't seen a speed up in engineering progress.

比如每个月上线的功能数量，根本没增加。

Like the number of features we put out every month or whatever was just not increasing.

后来你去查原因，才发现有时候AI确实能做出惊人的东西。

And when you went to see why that was, you would see that, oh, it turns out in some cases it does something amazing.

但其他时候呢，就像你说的，根本用不了。

And then the other cases, just like you said, it kinda doesn't work.

更糟的是，你得花差不多和节省出来一样多的时间，去搞清楚为什么那些没成功，光是排查问题就耗掉了大量精力。

But even worse, it's so hard to figure out why it didn't work that you spend about as much time as you saved on the cases that it worked figuring out why the other thing didn't work.

现在情况稍微好点了，因为代码助手变得越来越靠谱了。

It's getting a little better because coding agents are getting better.

你确实能找到一些只有一个工程师的项目，效率提升了十倍，但总体来看，这还远未成为现实。

You can find a project with one engineer that maybe was 10 times faster, but overall, this is just not yet true.

对。

Yeah.

到了2026年，你似乎已经明确转向了以用户增长优先于盈利的战略，这对投资者来说又是个不小的风险。

In 2026, you've sort of signaled a a strategic shift for Duolingo prioritizing user growth over profitability, which seems like another risk, especially for for investors.

那为什么要做这样的决定？为什么偏偏现在？

So why make this move, and why why now?

我决定今年把重点放在用户增长上，而不是收入增长。

I decided that this year, we would really spend it trying to work much more on user growth rather than revenue growth.

原因有很多，但最重要的一点是，我相信在未来几年里，大多数人学习的方式将会发生根本变化。

And the reason for that is there's a number of reasons, but probably the biggest one is I really think that over the next few years, the way most people learn is going to change.

AI会让我们的教学方式比过去好上太多。

I mean AI is just going to allow us to teach significantly better than we have in the past.

我们现在已经看到了这种变化。

And we're already seeing it.

我们现在的产品在教学效果上，比四年前强多了。

Our product today in terms of teaching is way better than it was four years ago.

我们会做研究，看看产品到底教得怎么样。

We do studies to see how well our product is teaching.

每年都在不断进步。

It's just getting better every year.

所以我觉得，眼前有个巨大的机会。

So I think there's a huge opportunity in front of us.

既然有这么大的机会，那自然就是要尽可能把市场拿下来。

And because of that, whenever you see that there's a huge opportunity in front of you, I think what you want to do is just capture as much of the market as possible.

另外，到了2025年底，我们的用户增长确实慢了下来。

The other thing that happened was that our user growth, particularly towards the end of twenty twenty five, did slow.

但这不等于我们没在增长。

It doesn't mean that we're not growing.

我们依然在增长。

We're still growing.

我们的增长依然非常迅猛，只是速度确实慢了下来。

We're still growing exponentially, but it did slow.

我坐在这儿想了想，真是没想到。

And I, you know, I sat here and I thought, wow.

本该加速用户增长的时候，反而有点放缓了。

At a time when we should be actually accelerating user growth, it seems to be slightly decelerating.

我真的很不喜欢这种情况。

I really don't like that.

所以我们决定做出改变。

So we're gonna make that change.

当然了，如果你去资本市场说今年要下调收入预期，投资者肯定不买账。

Now, of course, whenever you go out to the stock market and you say this year we are going to lower our estimates for revenue, the stock market, no likey.

没错。

No.

我们早知道会这样。

We knew this was going to happen.

我们心里有数，但我真的相信，从长远来看，这是对业务最正确的决定。

We knew but I I really do believe that this is the the right thing to do for the long term of the business.

为了让我和我们的听众清楚了解你的商业模式，你们的用户大部分都是免费用户，通过课程后的广告获得支持。

And and just so I'm I'm sure that I and our and our listeners understand your your business model, most of your users are free users already supported by ads that come after a lesson.

你们的主要收入来自付费用户或订阅费用。

Most of your revenue is from premium users or premium fees.

所以用户增长意味着更注重免费层级？

And so user growth means more emphasis on the free level?

是的。

Yeah.

这才是推动用户增长的关键。

That's the main thing that helps us grow users.

我们每月的活跃用户中，大约90%没有付费，只有10%是付费用户。

About 90% of our monthly active users are not paying us, and about 10% pay us.

但我们的收入结构正好相反。

But the amount of money we make is flipped.

所以我们赚的钱里，大约90%都来自那10%的付费用户。

So about 90% of the amount of money we make comes from the 10% that pay us.

因此，我们大部分收入都来自订阅费用。

So most of the money we make comes from subscriptions.

让我们提升付费用户的比例，实际上并不难。

Increasing the fraction of people who pay is actually not that hard for us.

我们随时都可以做到这一点。

And we can do it at any point in time.

如果一节课结束时我给你放一个广告，而不是两个，这会对付费人数产生巨大影响。

If at the end of a lesson I give you one ad versus if I give you two ads, that makes a huge difference in the number of people that pay.

所以，这不仅仅是多放一个广告能多赚点钱的问题。

So it's not just that you get extra revenue from having two ads.

而是作为用户，我会觉得：我不想听广告，我想直接跳过。

It's that for me as a user, I'm like, I don't want to listen to the ads or want

对

And

去

to

最终选择订阅。

watch the end up subscribing.

是的。

Yes.

但关键是，我们还是想做一家长期经营的公司。

But the thing is, again, we're trying to be a long term business.

这么做确实有代价，因为放两个广告可能也没那么让人反感。

And it does come at a cost because maybe two ads is not that annoying.

但要是哪天一节课结束放了十七个广告，用户大概就直接走了。

But at some point, you know, if you're playing 17 ads at the end of a lesson, people are probably just gonna leave.

尤其是对你那些付不起高级会员费的用户来说。

Particularly for your users who can't afford the premium.

对吧？

Right?

你这实际上是在把用户推走。

You're you're kind of you're kind of driving them away.

没错。

Correct.

所以我们才不碰这个按钮，但这按钮确实很容易按。

So that's why we don't pull that lever, but it is an easy lever to pull.

而且这还不只是广告的问题。

And again, it's not just ads.

你还能做很多别的事。

You can do a lot of things.

几乎每个免费增值模式的企业最后都会加广告。

Almost every freemium business eventually piles on ads.

奈飞就这么干了。

Netflix did it.

YouTube 也是。

YouTube did it.

问题不在于Duolingo会不会在2026年用上这个手段，而在于它能在不得不这么做之前发展到多大，以及这背后反映出的教育未来会是什么样。

The question isn't whether Duolingo will pull that lever in 2026 as much as how big it can grow before it has to and what that says about the future of education.

广告插播之后，我们再深入聊聊这个。

We'll talk about that more after the break.

别走开，继续关注。

Stay with us.

我认识的最出色的创始人，都特别擅长搭建系统。

The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems.

他们能把团队串联起来，打通瓶颈，消除单点故障。

They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure.

但奇怪的是，说到自己的财富管理，大多数人用的却是一套完全脱节的系统。

And yet, when it comes to their own wealth, most are running a disconnected stack.

一个税务会计在这里，一个州律师在那里，财富经理跟前两者根本不通气。

A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them.

Creative Planning 就是为了解决这个问题而生的。

Creative planning was built to fix exactly that.

一个整合的团队，包含税务专家、遗产规划师和投资专员，全部由一位专职财富经理统筹，他能全面掌握你的财务状况，确保每个环节协同运作。

One integrated team of tax professionals, estate planners, investment specialists, all coordinated by a dedicated wealth manager who sees your full financial picture and keeps every piece working together.

主动税务优化、遗产规划和投资管理，全部集中在一个地方。

Proactive tax efficiency, estate strategy, investments all under one roof.

Creative Planning，让财富协同发力。

Creative Planning, where wealth works together.

了解更多，请访问 creativeplanning.com/mastersofscale。

Learn more at creativeplanning.com/mastersofscale.

在广告插播前，多邻国的路易斯·冯·安分享了他在人工智能上的失误与经验，以及为什么多邻国在2026年要放缓收入增长。

Before the break, Duolingo's Luis von Ahn shared his missteps and learnings about AI and why Duolingo is deemphasizing revenue growth in 2026.

现在我们来深入探讨过度营销的边界，当利益相关方彼此说不到一块儿时——就像路易斯说的——以及如果你想加入多邻国，哪些事情绝对不能做。

Now we dig into the limits of unhinged marketing, what happens when stakeholders don't speak the same language, as Luis puts it, and what not to do if you wanna get hired at Duolingo.

我们接着聊。

Let's jump back in.

当你想扩大漏斗顶端，吸引更多用户时，是不是意味着要更多地做那种多邻国常搞的社交媒体噱头？

As you're gonna try to, like, open up this top of the funnel, really, bring bring more people in, does that mean, like, like, more of the social media stunts that Duolingo is is kind of known for?

我记得去年你们还搞过一场 mascot——那只绿色猫头鹰的‘假死’戏码。

You know, I I mean, I'm remembering sort of staging the death of your mascot, the green owl duo last year.

但我还看到你们首席营销官说过，以前社交媒体的内容有八成是疯疯癫癫的，只有两成是温暖正面的，现在打算调整得更平衡一些。

But I also saw something your chief marketing officer said that's social output that was 80% unhinged and 20% wholesome that now is gonna become more balanced.

过去，我们的社交媒体一直是推动增长的利器。

Historically, our social media has been, an incredible growth lever.

我们的 mascot 变得特别火，火到我们都快管不住他了。

Our mascot is has become, you know, really popular, and to the point where we don't have much control over him.

就像你说的，他还自己‘演’了一出死亡大戏。

Like you said, he staged his own death.

但我们觉得，营销里也得传递一些过去我们一直没怎么提的信息，其实那些内容效果很好。

But we really do think that it is important to also convey some things in our marketing that I think historically we just have not because it was actually quite effective.

你去查一下数据，它的效果跟正规课堂差不多。

If you go look, it's about as effective as a classroom.

我们以前在营销上很少提这个，因为一直把精力花在搞噱头、玩疯梗上，比如让猫头鹰跳扭臀舞，那确实也挺成功的。

That's just not something we have really said a lot in our marketing because we spent a lot of our marketing doing stunts, unhinged things, having the owl twerking, which has been successful in its own right.

我们得在这中间找平衡，既要保持趣味性，也要稍微转向传递一些更明确的信息，比如——

We need to thread the needle here to try to continue being fun, but also move a little more towards having a message that is like, hey.

你知道吗？

You know what?

多邻国真的非常有效。

Duolingo actually really works.

在用户扩展方面，你们的计划有多大一部分是关于拓展教学内容的？

In this user expansion, like, how much of the plan is around expanding what you teach?

我一直觉得多邻国是学语言的，但你们现在也推出了数学、音乐、国际象棋这些课程，为什么选择这些领域？你们对多邻国未来的愿景是不是要变得更广泛？

I mean, I've always thought of Duolingo as for languages, but, you know, courses on math and music and chess, like, why did you add those areas and sort of is your vision of Duolingo's future to be more expansive?

是的。

Yeah.

我们可能不会涵盖所有内容，但我们会教那些对你有意义、而且需要长时间学习的科目。

We may not teach everything, but we wanna teach the subjects that are meaningful to you that also take a long time to learn.

数学就是一个例子，语言是，音乐也是。

Math is an example, languages is an example, music is an example.

国际象棋虽然是我们最新的课程，但在语言之外的领域里，它的用户增长最快。

Chess, even though it's our newest subject, has gotten the most traction outside of languages.

真有意思。

Interesting.

语言课程显然还是占比最大的。

Languages by far are still the biggest.

还有一点，美国的人可能不太清楚，那就是全世界学习语言的人有多庞大。

And languages the other thing that may sometimes people in The United States may not understand is just how big language learning is in the world.

全球大约有二十亿人在学英语。

There's about 2,000,000,000 people in the world learning English.

我不记得还有哪个科目，包括数学，能有这么多学习者。

I don't know of a subject, including math, that has as many people learning it.

数学大概有一亿人学习。

Math, there's about a billion people learning math.

所以，语言学习是规模最大的。

So language is the largest thing.

目前象棋是我们平台第二大的板块，但我相信随着时间推移，数学迟早会超过象棋。

Chess is the second largest for now for us, but I believe that over time, math is gonna overtake chess.

这正是我希望看到的。

That's that's my hope.

现在还没有数据支持我的想法，但这就是我的期望。

At the moment, no numbers support my hope, but that's my hope.

听你这么说，我突然想到另一个在线学习平台——可汗学院，它和多邻国几乎是同时崛起的。

As you're talking, I'm I'm thinking about another digital learning platform, Khan Academy, that rose up alongside Duolingo.

我最近请过可汗学院的创始人萨尔·可汗做节目，他很早就看好人工智能，最近还和泰德合作推出了AI技能学位课程。

I've had Sal Khan, the founder and CEO on the show, also an early AI believer, recently teamed up with Ted to offer a degree in AI skills.

多邻国以后会像可汗学院那样，拓展更多学科吗？

Will Duolingo become more like Khan Academy in subject range?

说真的，感觉这两个平台正在慢慢趋同。

I mean, it's almost like the two businesses are converging.

你和萨尔有没有聊过这个事？

Do do you and Sal ever talk about that?

我们确实有联系。

We do.

我认识萨尔。

I I I know Sal.

我们确实有联系。

We do.

我不确定我们会不会完全融合。

I don't know if we're gonna exactly converge.

在很多情况下，我们目标用户群其实很不一样。

Who we are trying to reach in many cases pretty different.

萨尔做的那些视频，能把各种知识点讲得特别透彻。

Sal has these incredible videos that explain subjects incredibly well.

我们的做法更像一款手机游戏。

Our approach is to be more like a mobile game.

所以某种程度上，咱们其实是互补的。

So, you know, in some sense they're quite complementary.

可汗学院一直以来主要面向学校和课堂教学这类用途。

Khan Academy has been mostly geared towards kind of schools and school usage, etcetera.

虽然很多学校确实在用，但我们的目标是覆盖全体人群。

Whereas where, you know, so many schools do use this, we're, you know, really for the whole population.

话说回来，可汗学院也是个非营利机构。

I mean, Academy is also a nonprofit.

而多邻国不是。

Duolingo is not.

你们是一家上市公司，市值超过45亿美元。

You're a publicly traded company, worth more than 4 and a half billion dollars.

你们是2021年上市的。

You went public in 2021.

自从多邻国上市后，你的CEO角色有什么变化吗？

How has your role as CEO changed since taking Duolingo public?

我觉得前两年其实没太大变化，但最近确实不一样了，特别是当我不得不宣布我们要调整战略的时候。

I would say the first couple of years, it didn't change all that much, but I think it has changed more recently, especially when I had to say that we were gonna have a different strategy.

现在作为一家上市公司，我得说服董事会、员工，还有那些我根本没法直接沟通的公开市场投资者。

Now as a publicly traded company, have to convince the board, the employees, and public market investors who I don't have a direct conversation line to.

他们中的绝大多数，其实就是网上素不相识的普通人。

The vast majority of them, they're just people on the Internet.

我们的用户可能是最重要的群体，但员工和投资者也同样重要，而他们的目标并不一致。

And there's our users, probably the most important constituency, but there's also our employees, also our investors, and they're not really aligned.

从长远看，大家的目标或许一致，但短期内肯定不是。

Maybe in the long term they all are, but certainly in the short term.

用户想要的，当然是学得越好越全面越好，而且最好完全免费。

I mean, users, what they want is to get, you know, the entirety of the learning as good as possible and as free as possible.

没错。

Right.

这当然是夸张的说法，但投资者希望我们尽可能向每个用户多收费，而员工则处在中间位置。

And again, this is a caricature, but investors, you just want us to charge every user as much as we can, and employees are somewhere in the middle.

员工可能希望把Duolingo完全免费开放，但同时又想赚大钱。

Employees probably want us to give Duolingo entirely for free, but they also wanna make a lot of money.

人们说，你会得到你应得的投资者。

They say that you get the investors you deserve.

对吧？

Right?

如果你老是强调眼前的成绩，那吸引来的就都是短期投资者。

I mean, if you if you talk too much about delivering, results today, you get a lot of short term investors.

这其实牵扯到一个问题：你做企业，到底是该拼命赚钱，还是该有某种社会使命？

And there's that issue of, you know, are you in business to make as much money as possible versus having a sort of more social mission?

是教人学习为了赚钱，还是赚钱为了更好地教人？

Is teaching people a conduit to making money or is making money a conduit to teaching people?

这是个非常好的问题，也许我太乐观了，甚至可能我错了。

It's a really good question and I may be an incredible optimist and it may be that I'm wrong.

但我相信，从长远来看，这两者其实是一回事，只是短期来看不是。

But it is my belief that if you look in the long term, these two are the same, but not in the short term.

我同意。

I agree.

短期内，你到底优先考虑哪一边，真的很重要。

In the short term, you know, it really matters which one you're you're prioritizing.

但我相信，从长远来看，最成功、也能赚最多钱的，一定是那些把用户教育放在第一位的公司，我觉得这样的公司未来会变得更大。

But I think in the long term, what's gonna matter the most and what's gonna also make the most money is a company that really is is putting the education of the users first, I think that will be the larger company in the long term.

那我能向你证明这一点吗？

Now can I prove that to you?

我证明不了。

I can't.

但我的想法就是，乐观地看，长远来看，这两者其实是统一的。

But that is, you know, that is my optimistic thinking that in the long term, these two are actually aligned.

你们决定拓展到语言之外的领域，有多少是因为新出现的AI工具能实现即时实时翻译？

How much of of the the decision to sort of broaden beyond languages is prompted by by new AI tools that enable instant live translation across languages?

你有没有担心，随着时间推移，人们学语言的动力会越来越低？

Like, do you worry that people won't be as motivated to learn a language as time goes by?

不会。

No.