Mathieu Perez (E ’25) sheepishly admits that as a sophomore, he didn’t know what “Stommons” was.
“I was a first–generation international student that barely spoke English. I had so many dumb questions I couldn’t ask my friends.”
The irony? Mathieu is now the creator of Lucy, an AI–powered adviser app designed precisely to help students like his past self—those caught in the churn of a campus that assumes you already know what you’re doing.
Mathieu previously attended an academy in France, where he lived in a world defined by discipline and preprogrammed days. A high–level soccer player, he followed a tightly regimented schedule built around practices, games, and academic excellence. “There was always someone watching—your coach, your recruiters. Everything was structured.”
Eventually, Mathieu chose to attend Penn precisely because it didn’t force him into the binary decision that many European systems demanded: athletics or academics. In the United States, he saw the opportunity to pursue both at a high level without sacrificing one for the other. What especially appealed to him was the flexibility: the ability to explore different disciplines, to shift paths if needed, and to compose a more personalized journey through school. Unlike the rigid tracks in France, Penn offered room to pivot and experiment. And he saw a U.S. degree as a kind of passport—one that could open doors not just back home, but in any number of countries, giving him a kind of global mobility he didn’t find in the French system.
Once in college, it felt like no one was watching for the first time. No coaches, no recruiters, no school staff, no constant pressure to perform. “I realized I could finally try things—mess up, figure it out, start over,” he says.
On a whim, he took an introductory computer science course. But he continued along the course track, even though he had never coded before, simply saying it was “just because I enjoyed it.” He admits that he was by no means a natural. Taking note that he was average—if not below average—in a lecture hall with hundreds of people, Mathieu knew he needed to do something different.
“How can I stand out in the tech environment without being the best in coding? I do it by having side projects,” he says.
While many of his classmates rushed between coffee chats and case prep in Huntsman Hall, Mathieu found himself drawn instead to the Venture Lab at Tangen Hall—a newer hub on campus where innovation trumps tradition. Unlike Huntsman, where you can follow the well–trodden path—from classrooms to consulting offers, looking to predecessors as blueprints for success—Tangen pulses with the energy of ideas in motion with no predestined roadmap. There, Mathieu found a culture more aligned with his curiosity: students prototyping, building, failing, and trying again.
In 2021, while COVID–19 testing was still in effect, Mathieu and his brother built a secure automation system for French pharmacists to send in COVID–19 test results virtually, who at the time had to manually report results to the government. The project brought in $3.5 million in revenue.
Later ventures didn’t always succeed. A gourmet French food truck concept inspired by his disappointment with Penn Dining never took off. An app for nurses inspired by the struggles his aunt encountered floundered. But the failures didn’t deter him.
Mathieu’s most recent project is Lucy.
The idea for Lucy came during a rough patch. As a first–generation international student, Mathieu took a gap year during his junior year, during which he had started filling out the paperwork to leave Penn and return to France, feeling isolated and miserable.
“No one was helping me,” he says. “So, I thought, ‘OK, if the school won’t give me the support, I’ll make it myself.’”
That instinct became Lucy, which now supports over 5,000 students at Penn, Harvard University, Bryn Mawr College, and Holy Family University. It’s part chat tool, part mentor, and part survival guide.
Despite the app making it to the final round of the President’s Innovation Prize, Mathieu discovered an hour before our interview that the app didn’t win. But he remains undeterred. “Startups are like life, but life on steroids,” he says. “The ups are really high, and the downs are really low.”
When he first started, he worried about people seeing him fail. “Early on, I did my projects all on my own because I was afraid of getting rejected, or someone seeing my failures,” he admits. “But the more I was doing ideas, the more I was like, OK, if I want something to actually work, I need to talk about it.”
This shift paid off as professors reached out to Mathieu as investors, stating that they believed wholeheartedly in Lucy and emphasizing how this service needed to be in universities everywhere. This type of feedback ties into why Mathieu loves the uncertainty of startups. “Startups are a good combination of having very high ambitions and very high ethics of wanting to do good in the world. When people are using your product, actually enjoying it, and telling someone else to try it—that’s when I remember why I love the everyday work of this.”
Thus, with the uncertainty of his visa status looming over him, Mathieu still plans to move forward.
Mathieu flexibility has become one of his greatest strengths. While his original plan centered on growing Lucy within the United States, shifting immigration policies and uncertainty around international student visas have forced him to rethink the “how.” He says, “The more we see changes in policy in the U.S., the more startup people are looking to Europe, Australia, Canada.” A recent conference with Paul Graham, co–founder of Y Combinator, confirmed that sentiment for Mathieu. “He said, ‘with how things are now, you’re better off starting your company outside the U.S.’” Mathieu took it in stride. Now, with early traction and venture conversations happening in France, he’s preparing to pivot operations if needed.
As for what he’s doing in the meantime? “I’m waiting for my visa. But the company that’s sponsoring me? It’s my company.” In order to stay in the United States, Mathieu now needs approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to be recognized as a valid employee of the very company he created—a situation he never imagined when he first arrived.
He turned down a full–time offer from McKinsey & Company three times. “In September 2024, I said no. Then I pushed it to January 2025. Then January 2026. And now I’m calling them back and saying, actually, never mind. I want to work on Lucy full time.”
It’s a bold move—especially now, with the looming instability of his visa status and increasing pressure on international students to choose stable, corporate paths. On paper, staying with McKinsey would be the safest, smartest choice. But for Mathieu, it doesn’t align with his goals. “I want to help people. I want to build. I want to do Lucy,” he says. And so, even as the world nudges him toward predictability, he continues to choose the path that feels true to his mission.
“I used to stress so much. About games, about grades. But now, I don’t give a fuck. And that’s when the good stuff started to happen.”
At the end of our conversation, Mathieu laughs, “Did I tell you that now I don’t give a fuck?”
