Cem is the Head of Product at Duolingo. Over 8 years, he helped Duolingo grow to 100M+ monthly active users and $500M+ in annual revenue. I had a super fun chat with Cem about Duolingo's unhinged product culture, the top drivers of Duolingo's user and revenue growth, and whether AI will democratize education.

Timestamps:

(00:00) We love being unhinged with our owl

(01:26) Duolingo is a game and this is our core loop

(03:46) The top 3 drivers of Duolingo's growth to 100M users

(05:55) Passive-aggressive push notifications work!

(08:12) How Duolingo onboards new users to maximize retention

(13:11) Our winding path to $500M+ in revenue

(17:25) We've figured out how international expansion works

(21:13) Will AI kill Duolingo?

(26:20) We made Lily an AI emo teenager on purpose

(32:41) How to A/B test without sacrificing quality

(37:09) What the best PMs at Duolingo have in common

Get the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/inside-duolingo-unhinged-growth-to-500m-cem-kansu

Where to find Cem:

X: https://x.com/cemkansu

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cemkansu/

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