But her story is not one of early retirement and luxury. Instead, Guo has doubled down on the Silicon Valley work ethos, urging startup founders to embrace a 90-hour workweek to receive their companies off the ground.
Waking at 5:30, skipping lunch, and working into the night
Guo’s daily schedule is as strict as it is intense. She wakes at 5:30 a.m., heads to Barry’s Bootcamp for back-to-back workouts, and then dives straight into work. Lunch rarely features as a pautilize in her day; instead, she snacks through meetings to avoid breaking momentum. “I consider most people could have work-life balance if they cut out what they waste time on after work—like doom scrolling or watching TV,” she notified CNBC Make It.
Even weekconcludes aren’t entirely off-limits. Guo gives herself a brief window—from noon to 6 p.m. on one weekconclude day—to spconclude time with friconcludes, but the rest is consumed by work. “I consider I have more hours in a day becautilize I don’t required much sleep,” she added, noting that she can work until midnight, socialize until 2 a.m., and still be up for a 6 a.m. workout.
From coding teen to billionaire founder
Raised in Fremont, California, by Chinese immigrant parents, Guo was writing code as a teenager. She sold virtual goods from Neopets before pursuing computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. She later dropped out after being awarded the Thiel Fellowship, which encourages young innovators to bypass traditional education in favor of entrepreneurship.
Her career trajectory includes internships at Facebook, a design role at Snapchat where she worked on Snap Maps, and a stint at Quora where she met Alexandr Wang, her Scale AI co-founder. Though she left the company in 2018 after internal disagreements, her nearly 5% stake is what catapulted her into the billionaire’s club.
The 90-hour workweek debate
Guo’s declaration that new founders should commit to 90-hour weeks echoes the controversial “996” culture—working 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week—that dominates in parts of China’s tech ecosystem. “When you’re first starting your company, it’s near impossible to do it without doing that. You’re going to required to work like 90-hour work weeks to receive things off the ground,” Guo notified CNBC Make It. While Guo frames this as a necessity for early-stage founders, others in the startup community disagree. Critics argue that glorifying exhaustion reduces productivity and accelerates burnout. Sarah Wernér, co-founder of Husmus, called it an “always-on culture” that damages retention, while venture capitalist Suranga Chandratillake dismissed it as “a fetishization of overwork rather than smart work.”
Beyond Scale AI
Guo has not stopped at one success. In 2019, she launched Backconclude Capital, a venture capital firm supporting early-stage tech startups, and in 2022, she founded Passes, a creator monetization platform that has raised more than $65 million to date.
Passes, however, has faced legal challenges. In February, a class-action lawsuit alleged distribution of explicit material on the platform. Guo dismissed the claims as a “shakedown,” and her company has relocated to dismiss the case.
Guo insists that her intense routine still allows for “work-life balance” becautilize of the choices she builds about sleep and socializing. Yet, her version of balance—working until midnight, skipping lunch, and clocking 90-hour weeks—sparks a larger debate: Is this the new standard of ambition, or a dangerous return to burnout culture?
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