Fireside Chat: A Life in Mobile: From Games to Music to Apps – 15 Years of Wins, Losses and Learns.
summary
Built a hit music game Beat Star that sold into Next Beat then into Duolingo, spent a year securing music licensing and a publisher, and prototypes in Unity to embed Unity within native apps so full 3D mechanics ship inside a native product. That unlocks features like an isometric RPG lesson called adventures. Platform stats are eye watering: 50 million daily users and more than 10 million 365‑day streaks, proving engagement works at scale.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:14Career journey: games to Duolingo
- 3:00Favorite and least favorite roles
- 3:43Lessons from Space Ape Games
- 5:25Supercell acquisition and culture
- 6:50Innovation versus focus in games
- 8:55Beat Star and Next Beat success
- 11:42Transition to Duolingo
- 15:14Bringing game development to Duolingo
- 17:42Why join Duolingo
- 20:53Q&A
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