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What Happened When People Typed Captures for the New York Times? · How I Built This with Guy Raz

How I Built This with Guy Raz

reCAPTCHA and Duolingo: Luis von Ahn

In 2000, Luis von Ahn was starting his PhD in computer science when he attended a talk and happened to learn about one of Yahoo's biggest problems: automated bots were signing up for millions of free Yahoo email accounts, and generating tons of spam. Luis' idea to solve this problem became CAPTCHA, the squiggly letters we type into a website to prove we're…

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Notes

  1. Why Did He Spend Weekends at the Candy Factory? at 3:38

    He liked the machines more than the candy. Full answer

  2. What Happened When His Aunt Was Kidnapped? at 6:15

    When he was 15 or so, his aunt was kidnapped for ransom and was gone for seven or eight days. Full answer

  3. How Do You Stop Programs From Opening Free Email Accounts? at 10:50

    Programs could get a 1,000,000 email accounts per day because they work fast and never get bored, while humans cannot open many accounts. Full answer

  4. What Happened When People Typed Captures for the New York Times? at 26:50

    Because Facebook was already using their capture, typing captures for about a week could digitize a whole year of the New York Times. Full answer

  5. How Did They Plan to Make Free Language Lessons Pay for Themselves? at 37:58

    They would give the service entirely for free, have learners help translate material for companies such as CNN, and sell those translations so the lessons… Full answer

  6. How Much Outside Money Did They Raise in That First Round? at 42:59

    The first outside financing was 3.3 million, described as a normal series. Full answer

  7. What Happened to Duolingo News Translation Contracts? at 48:08

    By 2013 there were 15 million users, but news-organization contracts were not sustainable. Full answer

  8. How Did Paid Subscriptions Compare With Advertising? at 54:39

    A paid plan at 9 99 per month, sold so people could avoid ads, brought in a ton more money than ads. Full answer

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