How Duolingo became a $2.4B language unicorn - TechCrunch

How do you survive as a startup if you don’t want to charge users?

“Now, there’s a difference between whether you know you’re doing the elliptical or yoga or running, but by far, the most important thing is that you’re doing something [other than] just walking around,” he said.

What von Ahn is getting at is that Duolingo’s biggest value proposition is that it helps people get motivated to learn a language, even if it’s just five minutes — or an elliptical workout — a day.

In the rest of this newsletter, we’ll talk about Tesla, the morality of going public and verticalized telehealth.

Here’s what to know: Tesla tapped a small Canadian startup to build cleaner and cheaper batteries.

While Equity usually keeps it light and punny, we chewed into a deeper topic this week: the morality of going public.

Startups are staying private longer than ever before, but one CFO argues that it’s a moral obligation to leave the nest and provide returns to the general public.

Here’s what to know: The growth of venture capital as an asset class has a role to play in this whole mess and has kept the nest warm for many startups.

The morality and efficacy of going public earlier.

Here’s what to know: I talked about how to become pandemic-proof in healthcare with Expressable, a virtual speech therapy startup that just raised millions in venture capital money