Duolingo's founder on billionaire life: ‘I guess it's nice not to worry'
Now 46, and worth $1.4 billion (£1 billion), it's fair to say America exceeded his expectations.
Von Ahn is one of the rare entrepreneurs for whom lightning has struck not once, not twice, but three times — most significantly with his hugely successful learn-a-language app, Duolingo.
If you aren't personally doing Duolingo, chances are someone in your family is.
More than 130 million people around the world, from Bill Gates to Khloé Kardashian, are studying one or more of its 40-plus languages. Of those, 47 million use it every day — a scholarly army nearly 50 per cent bigger than it was a year ago.
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Barclays profit up 23% as Trump tariff turmoil lifts trading
LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - Barclays (BARC.L), opens new tab first-half profit rose by a better-than-expected 23%, the British bank said on Tuesday, with its markets business reaping bumper returns from the frenzied trading activity sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump's trade tariffs. Pretax profit for the January-June period totalled 5.2 billion pounds ($6.94 billion), above analysts' average forecast of 4.96 billion pounds. The bank also announced a share buyback of 1 billion pounds and a half year dividend of 3 pence per share, equating to 1.4 billion pounds of total capital distributions to shareholders, up 21% from the year before. The earnings update from the Britain and U.S.-focused lender showed continued progress in its strategy to cut costs and prioritise spending on its domestic, retail and corporate focused unit above its investment bank. "We remain on track to achieve the objectives of our three-year plan, delivering structurally higher and more stable returns for our investors," CEO C. S. Venkatakrishnan said in the statement. The lender's investment bank nonetheless followed Wall Street peers in reporting a robust second quarter, as market turmoil led to increased trading activity in fixed income products and stocks in particular. Second-quarter income in the investment bank was 3.3 billion pounds, better than the 3 billion pounds forecast by analysts, thanks to strong gains in those trading businesses that offset a decline in fees from advising on deals. ($1 = 0.7492 pounds)
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Sika first half results hit by dollar weakness
ZURICH July 29 (Reuters) - Sika (SIKA.S), opens new tab gave a more cautious full-year sales guidance on Tuesday after a weaker dollar weighed on the Swiss construction chemical maker's first-half sales and profit. The company, which makes products used to strengthen and waterproof walls and floors, became the latest firm to flag the dollar's impact on results, following Nordic industrial companies earlier this month. The dollar lost value during the first half of the year on concerns about U.S. debt and President Donald Trump's unpredictable trade policies, creating problems for companies such as Sika, which counts the United States as its biggest market. "The weaker U.S. dollar, which lost 10% against the Swiss franc in the second quarter, as well as ongoing uncertainties in global markets, had an impact on the results," Sika said. The company, whose additives were used in projects including the Gordie Howe International Bridge between the United States and Canada, now expects only a "modest" sales increase in local currencies. Previously, Sika had guided for an increase of 3-6%. During the first six months of 2025, Sika suffered a foreign currency effect of minus 4.3%, which turned local currency growth of 1.6% into a 2.7% decline when converted back into Swiss francs, the company's reporting currency. Total sales of 5.68 billion Swiss francs ($7.1 billion) in the six months to June 30 fell short of analyst forecasts of 5.72 billion francs, according to a consensus compiled by Vara. The company's core operating profit (EBITDA) fell to 1.07 billion Swiss francs, missing analysts' forecast of 1.09 billion francs. Its shares were indicated 3.4% lower in premarket activity in Zurich. Sika's results offer insight into the health of the broader construction industry, with its chemical additives being used in infrastructure projects such as the Daimer Basha dam in Pakistan. Its local currency growth of 1.6% was better than the 1.5% decline in the market overall, with Sika saying it expects to continue to grow faster than the market in 2025. "In a challenging market environment, we once again outpaced the industry trend and continued to gain market share," Chief Executive Thomas Hasler said. The company also kept its full-year profit guidance to increase core operating profit faster than local sales growth and achieve a profit margin of 19.5% to 19.8%. ($1 = 0.8026 Swiss francs)
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Dollar shedding its tariff risk premium
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The effective U.S. tariff rate is set to end somewhere between 15% and 20%. That may be a possible drag on growth at home and abroad, but tariff income is flattering U.S. government revenues at a relatively low cost. Any U.S. consumer inflation fallout coming down the pike will keep the Federal Reserve cautious for longer about interest rate cuts - but that too may be a lift for the dollar if it's more responsive to the rates picture again. "In terms of domestic political dynamics, Donald Trump is winning the trade war," AXA Group Chief Economist Gilles Moec wrote on Monday. Assuming this is the beginning of the end of the year's big tariff shock, businesses and markets may finally have some degree of certainty about the months ahead and allow a lot of paused planning and activity to resume - even if at measurably higher costs. Fading recession risks further on that, the dollar should again start to revert to more normal behavior tracking relative interest rates and economic signals rather than Truth Social posts. Uncertainty is always hard to quantify, but there are a few ways investors have been capturing it. A closely followed trade component of the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index series - the Baker-Bloom-Davis model - skyrocketed to unprecedented levels in April. But it has since subsided to its lowest point since January and is less than a quarter of April's peak. U.S. stocks have clearly bounced back from the April shock, hitting record highs once again, as recession signs have failed to appear and the artificial intelligence theme has charged forward. Treasury yields, however, do remain elevated by the debt-raising fiscal bill and stubborn Fed stance. But volatility gauges for both equities (.VIX), opens new tab and Treasuries (.MOVE), opens new tab are back near their respective lows for the year. And the dollar, the one clear loser all year, is clawing back ground. Crucially, its recent separation from transatlantic yield trends is slowly being re-established. After April 2, the 2-year yield gap boomed about 40 basis points wider in favor of U.S. Treasuries and remains more than 20 bp wider since that day. But rather than follow that gap in lockstep as usual, the dollar went the other way and lost over 6% - a critical reflection of a building risk premium amid foreign investor concern, hedging and capital switching. Selling has petered out in recent weeks, and Monday's 1% dollar index surge was another indication of a more positive bias that could persist with the big yield premium so large. Whether a recovering dollar is what Trump actually wants is a different question. The running assumption all year has been that Trump favored a weaker dollar as a way of narrowing U.S. deficits and boosting exports, and Trump addressed the issue on Friday. "It doesn't sound good, but you make a hell of a lot more money with a weaker dollar - not a weak dollar but a weaker dollar - than you do with a strong dollar," he said. If the dollar now shows signs of bouncing back sharply, political pressure on the Fed to counter it with much lower interest rates will remain intense. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters -- Enjoying this column? Check out Reuters Open Interest (ROI), your essential new source for global financial commentary. Follow ROI on LinkedIn. Plus, sign up for my weekday newsletter, Morning Bid U.S.
