Duolingo CEO’s taxi driver test decides who gets hired—before the interview even starts

At Duolingo, job interviews start the moment a candidate steps into a car.

Luis von Ahn, the billionaire cofounder and CEO of the language-learning app, revealed on Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni’s The Burnouts podcast how a job candidate treats their driver from the airport to the office can make or break their chances of getting hired—regardless of how impressive their résumé looks or how much they like the candidate in the interview process.

Entrepreneur von Ahn, who cofounded Duolingo in 2011 with Severin Hacker...