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Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

reuters.com

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Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#211

Post by ghaff »

hirako2000 wrote: post #180
konschubert wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works if you're learning the language while you're in a place where it's spoken.

But then one got to wonder why not spend that time learning in the wild. People have forgotten how it works I suppose. It would take less energy. There are a few options to learn a language. Some say immersion. What's most effective for the brain to capture and memories is _needs_. We tend to learn languages out of a desire to add them to our skill belt. Or out of fun. And we are having a hell of a time this way. Duo…

For the vast vast majority of people, if learning a language is "immersion or bust," their entirely rational response will be bust.

That said, relatively casual language learning isn't likely to yield a lot outside of essentially entertainment value. I had four years of high school French which likely tops the relatively casual bar. On the one hand, I classify my French as pretty terrible. On the other hand, I've traveled to Paris with a friend who doesn't know any French and it makes me realize I actually do have a bit of working knowledge especially when it comes to reading.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#212

Post by patentatt »

estaseuropano wrote: post #100
ipnon wrote: post #2

I was a Duolingo launch user, when revenue was driven by crowdsourced translations. I used Duolingo to learn basic phrases in some languages over many years, but I had to stop using the app. There were too many basic mistakes in grammar and vocabulary. Duolingo innovated by bringing a structured language course with spaced repetition to mobile early in the previous decade. It seems they will need another burst of inn…

I'm not sure they innovated much. Other apps like Babbel are older and had the same features, if not more and better. Duolingo rode the 'free' and 'hip startup' publicity wave and had an interesting idea that they'd use the users to crowdsource translations. But that didn't pan out - everything afterwards seems to have been just scaling with no innovation whatsoever.

The innovation is the publicity and public image. I’ll get downvotes for it, but it’s the same innovation that Uber, Tesla, GoPro, Facebook, and countless others have rode to billions. Our economy is post-materialism and values public image and publicity greater than innovation and value. If you want to get rich, don’t do something innovative, focus on how you will make a good story to grab free publicity and cement an image as being ‘cool’ and ‘hip.’ Then you don’t ever have to make money or innovate anything. Investors will pour money on you because you’re cool and hip. I’m a little salty about it, but there’s something important there.

One more I just thought of, even if it’s not the same scale: Rap Genius. They took what’s pretty much a weekend project and turned it into a business and careers for themselves. The fawning press at their launch was overwhelming and impressive.

One small counter example: weebly. They made something actually innovative that provided real value to people. Grew quietly and made (by all outward appearances) a fantastic business. But since you didn’t/don’t see tons of gushing press about them, they (again, just by outward appearances) didn’t launch into the stratosphere like they absolutely could and maybe even should have.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#213

Post by jfengel »

saiya-jin wrote: post #197
AussieWog93 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that you can't possibly become fluent in a language with an app like it and there isn't any single app that will. I don't think anyone is seriously under the delusion that Duolingo alone will make you fluent in a language. It is an amazingly powerful tool to bootstrap you from "I cannot understand a single word of this language" to "I can pick up a newspaper and get a vague idea of what they're talkin…

There are definitely more effective methods, just mostly not free and more time demanding. I have a mission to get B1 French, tried Duolingo with some basic level for cca 6 months in past year. You get into the bubble that you think you are progressing but reality is, its a very narrow and not-so-useful progress if whole language knowledge is your goal - mostly passive skills and certain type of language usage that g…

Duolingo isn't really intended to get you to B1. And even if it were, it would take more than six months to get there.

A commonly cited statistic is that it takes 360 hours in a classroom to reach B1. Duolingo claims to proceed faster than classroom hours, but there's enough fuzz in that number to suppose that it's closer to 1:1. You just can't realistically do 360 hours of Duolingo in six months.

Duolingo could at best help you reach an A3, and even then you'd have to supplement it with reading and (ideally) conversation. Duolingo plus outside reading and listening could get you to a B1 level in a year if you really put your mind to it.

They even make a podcast available, to help the listening part. I happen to listen to the French one myself, and highly recommend it. The stories are interesting and well produced, and bring stories (and accents) from all around the Francophonie.

Doing it with a personal teacher will always be better than an app, but Duolingo gives a huge jump start on that. For free.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#214

Post by dlahoda »

least wrote: post #46

I was a cryptologic linguist for the army and went through a 16 month course of 6-7 hours of classroom instruction per day M-F, native speaking instructors, tons of immersion, and a couple hours of homework each night and left still feeling like I hardly knew the language that I was supposed to be interpreting. Unless your major in college is a specific language, you probably won't achieve any sort of fluency in your…

duolingo is A2 which is very good to continue own to B2

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#215

Post by minton »

brushfoot wrote: post #198
AussieWog93 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that you can't possibly become fluent in a language with an app like it and there isn't any single app that will. I don't think anyone is seriously under the delusion that Duolingo alone will make you fluent in a language. It is an amazingly powerful tool to bootstrap you from "I cannot understand a single word of this language" to "I can pick up a newspaper and get a vague idea of what they're talkin…

The old FSI language courses are very effective. And free and in the public domain. FSI combines hundreds of pages of print materials with hundreds of verbal audio drills. I used it to supplement a French course in college and my professor asked me how I advanced so quickly. The course materials were doing very little for the rest of the class because they didn't force natural language thinking. FSI grammar drills ma…

If you search, you’ll find plenty of people willing to sell you some “FSI” courses for hundreds of dollars. Is there an official source for FSI courses?

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#216

Post by ZephyrBlu »

Sightline wrote: post #170
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a liquidity event. Why are you surprised that people are selling? Even if the IPO didn't pop as much people would still probably be selling because their equity has likely been illiquid for years, especially if they were a founder, early investor or early employee.

He didn't say anything about being surprised.

You're right. The notion of "if they believe in the company so much why are they selling?" implied to me that it was unexpected for people to be selling their shares.

That is what I meant by "surprised", though in hindsight my choice of wording was poor.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#217

Post by least »

davidzweig wrote: post #184
least wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immersion is absolutely essential to language learning and English has an abundant amount of resources, as you say. I understand the difficulties you've had with getting immersed with German, given that my target language while in the military had very little content period, let alone things I was particularly interested in. It might be worthwhile to look for German translations of works you've read/watched in your n…

We're expanding LLN into this: https://www.languagereactor.com/ "Language Reactor ... helps you to discover, understand, and learn from native materials." It's still rough. TurtleTV is kind of useful already. (P.S. looking for a good mobile dev in Europe).

Learning Language with Netflix is a great resource and I'm really happy to see you're expanding! This looks awesome!

And yeah, anyone that's trying to learn a language should definitely try immersing with a tool like this. Connecting words with things on screen and hearing different people speak are really useful, and your retention of vocabulary is going to be better when you can see it in different contexts.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#218

Post by mabub24 »

jeofken wrote: post #148

For any language learners out there, my method of learning to communicate quite freely in two foreign languages in adulthood has been going to bars, and asking tipsy strangers in very friendly ways about words, such as on the menu, or something you’re wondering about. Let them be the expert they are. You must enjoy learning and sounding like an idiot for a couple of years. I’ve done courses, Duolingo etc, self study…

This is similar for me, though with language meetups or literally just paying someone to talk with me in the language I want to learn.

Nothing beats seeing the language used as a living thing, as a part of human behavior within a form of life. Immersion, in person, is also essential for understanding the ways that people speak in a language, all the different connotations and tricks to words. Also, jokes. Attempting to tell jokes in a 2nd language, and also getting a laugh out of people (perhaps at you, but same feeling) is really rewarding feeling. I often tell people to start trying to tell jokes in a 2nd language right away. It immediately gives you a sense of play in the language and jokes are often direct references to common human experience. In a way, a lot of jokes are universal.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#219

Post by ZephyrBlu »

shapefrog wrote: post #194
Sightline wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't say anything about being surprised.

No shock at all this is how the game works! You slap out a float, ideally small enough so that the supply and demand inbalance pushes the price up. So 3.7mil shares were issued at $102, and opened at $140, so that is a 'cost' to the company of $140 million + underwriting fees etc (probably another $30mil + the 700k shares they have options on at issue price). Additionally insiders dumped out 1.4mil shares at the issu…

What I meant is that regardless of the financial situation of the company or whether shareholders still believe in it, don't you think insiders would be selling at IPO because it is probably the first major liquidity event ever?

Even if you completely believe in the future of the company, locking in returns and getting some liquidity (Even if the stock didn't pop heaps) would be nice for people who have been illiquid for years.

Re: Duolingo reaches $6.5B valuation on day of IPO

#220

Post by patentatt »

mrweasel wrote: post #36
selectodude wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Every company at this stage loses money The company is ten years old. I would have to imagine almost zero companies lose money ten years in because they literally do not exist anymore.

There’s a ton of companies which exists solely to burn other peoples cash. I think VC funding makes IPOs a bit more confusing. It makes sense to IPO, if you need to money to boost your business. Duolingo needs money to update their app, so they can use the IPO to fund it. The problem is that if you’re VC funded it now looks like the VCs have lost faith in the company. They paid for the bill for ten years and now they…

I think it was a typo, but I agree that the IPO is their “exist” strategy as in the purpose of the companies existence is to IPO, lol.
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