Taylor Swift’s billionaire title threatened? Meet the new youngest self-made woman who beat her (2025)

Taylor Swift‘s “Eras Tour” swept her up in a career-changing wave as the pop star became a billionaire during the tour’s nearly two-year run last year. Forbes reported in late 2024 that the “Love Story” hit-maker leapt ahead of Rihanna to become the world’s richest female musician, becoming worth $1.6 billion. However, the American singer had already joined the billion-dollar club ahead of that declaration.

Back in October 2023, Forbes announced that Swift’s financial phenomenon “Eras Tour” had already amassed $780 million in ticket sales by then. At the time, the pop queen was only 33 years old as she ushered in her brand-new billionaire era, worth more than $1.1 billion. Unlike other music stars, Taylor welcomed her billionaire title solely based on her songs and performance and no other side hustles.

Who beat Taylor Swift to become the youngest self-made woman billionaire?

Earlier this week, Forbes flipped the switch on Taylor Swift’s title as the youngest self-made woman billionaire. While her billionaire is still well intact, an AI founder has unseated her in this race of net worths and newsy headlines. At 30, Scale AI’s co-founder Lucy Guo is now the youngest self-made woman billionaire on the planet while Swift sits at age 35. As a daughter of Chinese immigrant parents, Guo grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The 30-year-old has since join Taylor Swift as one of the only six self-made women billionaires on Earth under the age of 40. Given her current situation, she’s also the only to have a considerable chunk of her fortune from a company she parted ways with long ago.

Who is Lucy Guo?

Lucy Guo is a computer science college dropout who co-founded (alongside Alexandr Wang) the artificial intelligence firm Scale AI in 2016. At the time, she was only 21. Two years later, both cofounders made Forbes’ Under 30 list. However, the same year also brought on a career low when Wang reportedly fired her following a disagreement about the company operations. “We had a difference of opinion but I am proud of what Scale AI has accomplished,” she said in a statement.

While she studied computer science and human-computer interactions at Carnegie Mellon University, her coding days began as early as when she was in middle school. Meanwhile, her days at Carnegie were cut short as she dropped out of college before her graduation so that she could become a Thiel Fellow. Billionaire investor Peter Thiel funded the program for college-age students with a knack for entrepreneurship so they could create companies. Guo shares that connection with India’s OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal — also a Thiel Fellow.

Lucy Guo net worth

Evidently, Guo ended her Scale AI journey years ago, but she held on to her stake in the company. Even as she moved on to her next startup venture, her estimated stake in her former company is just under 5% of Scale AI worth nearly $1.2 billion. Once we add her other assets, she’s worth $1.25 billion, according to Forbes.

Before co-founding Scale AI in 2016, she was employed as a product designer at Quora. This is where she met the company’s future co-founder Alexandr Wang. She eventually shifted her direction to Snapchat before finally starting her Scale AI journey.

After leaving the AI company, she started Backend Capital, a small venture capital firm that invested in new companies finding their footing. Following consequential investments through the firm, Lucy Guo founded her own business called Passes. Similar to Patreon and OnlyFans, the platform helps connect creators and celebrities with fans who pay for online chats and videos. The company has since entered into contract with basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal, DJ Kygo, former Disney star Bella Thorne and more.

Last month, Lucy Guo was dragged into the controversy zone as Passes was accused of histing child sexual assault material. A spokesperson for the company said Passes “refutes any claims that it approved or condoned the posting of underage explicit content on its platform. Any effort to attribute alleged misconduct of third parties to Passes is baseless and nothing more than an effort to entangle Passes and its founder, Lucy Guo, in the lawsuit.”