The Child Prodigy Teaching Other People How To Learn

Andrew Hsu has been something of a legend for most of his life.

In 2007, The Seattle Times published a story documenting Hsu’s graduation from the University of Washington. He was only 16 and had just picked up three degrees in neurobiology, biochemistry and chemistry.

But stories of Hsu’s academic feats had already been circulating for years. He’d won science contests, written an award-winning autobiography and started a foundation to help children in need as an adolescent. Hsu’s family hails from Taiwan, and the young man often found himself being interviewed on TV and touring the country to tell his story.

After graduating from college, Hsu pursued a PhD at Stanford before dropping out and using some Thiel Fellowship money to start an ed-tech company called Airy Labs.

That company struggled, but Hsu’s latest venture – Speak – has been booming. It’s an AI-powered language tutor that enjoyed immense success first in South Korea and then beyond. It’s been valued at more than $1 billion after a $78 million funding round closed near the end of last year.

In this episode, Hsu graciously tolerates my child prodigy questions and then gets into how he hit on AI and language before it was cool and how people can learn better.

This episode was made possible by E1 Ventures, backers of bold people and bold ideas.