From coding testing to billion-dollar startups, Ali Partovi’s eight years of experiments pays off

In Silicon Valley, where names with the same high-wattage tend to dominate headlines, Ali Pertvi has long been a major influence despite limited name recognition. The Iranian-born Harvard graduate created an impressive resume early on. It joined Linkexchange’s founding team (acquired by Microsoft for $265 million in 1998) and launched Ilike (sold to MySpace with a $20 million report in 2009) and non-educational code code.org with Twin Brother Hadi. Together, they also became early investors in high-tech giants such as Facebook, Airbnb, and Dropbox.

Industry insiders have long viewed Partovi Brothers’ involvement in startups as a powerful signal, but the Ali star is now rising more widely beyond the tech world. This broader perception arises NeoHis eight-year-old venture company revolutionizes how extraordinary talent was discovered from the start, developing some rather persuasive points of evidence.

Among the bets, Neo was the first institution outside of Twitter to invest in the decentralized social network Bluesky; 700 million dollars At the fundraising round in January and Kalshi, an online forecast market that began a surge in popularity in the US presidential election last fall.

“For the first time this year, we can conclude that we are discovering a future superstar before anyone else,” Partovi, known for being an elegant, persistent and equal part of the point of push, told the editor on Friday.

Neo’s relationship with Michael Truell helps tell the story.

In 2017, Truell, a freshman at MIT, was intern at Google when a fellow student suggested meeting Partovi. During that hour of sit-down, Partovi gave Truell a coding test that was completed in 15 minutes. For Partovi, that question was not uncommon. When investing with his brother, the two generally ran the team Technical interview As if they wanted to get a job at Google. But it illustrates Partovi’s approach in Neo. At Neo, he uses technical assessments not as a rigorous assessment, but as a basis for deeper conversations.

That moment was also the beginning of a relationship that could prove to be beneficial for both Partovi and Truell. Certainly, years later, first supported by Partovi, Truell co-founded Anysphere, the manufacturer of popular AI-powered coding editor cursors. 10 billion dollars It could be one of the valuations and NEO’s most successful investments.

Like the previous Y Combinators, Neo’s approach represents a fundamental rethink of venture capital. This focuses on exceptional individuals rather than established teams or market trends. Partovi focuses on identifying extraordinary individuals rather than betting on a specific theme or team.

For those university students, Partiv will run the “Neo Scholars” program, along with partners from Neo, Suzanne Xie and Emily Cohen, which offers a $20,000 grant to win the gap semester. (30 people are selected each year.)

In 2022, for early stage startups, Partovi also set up a more traditional accelerator program that provides funding and guidance to 20 companies each year.

“I’m trying to take a little more risky and take them a little more risky, aiming for a higher perspective than what they’re aiming for now,” explained Partovi.

Strategy requires patience. From the early days of Neo, Partovi personally traveled the country, interviewed students, managed coding tests and found “Tomorrow’s Changemakers” in his words.

Others clearly think that he is pretty good at it and not surprising. Neo Scholars found Cognition, a recently-rated coding assistant company, in addition to Anysphere and Kalshi. $4 billionPika Labs has created a text-to-video generation AI tool and is currently being evaluated 700 million dollarsAnd Chai’s findings do not share its postmoney rating, but it raised it. $30 million Last fall, Openai and Thrive Capital fueled a multimodal foundation model for molecular structure prediction.

“Last year, all the recruits of Openai’s new alumni were Neo Scholar,” Partovi proudly said when we spoke.

When evaluating potential superstars, Partovi focuses primarily on three key qualities: technical capabilities, entrepreneurial tendencies, and willingness to challenge the status quo.

Technical capabilities aren’t because founders code all day long, but “computer science really helps. It just helps you think,” Partvi explained, citing examples such as Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings, and Larry Ellison.

Past entrepreneurs’ experiences demonstrate a tendency to take risks and a hunger to build products that people love. The third quality – challenging the status quo – speaks to the founder’s willingness to question the basic assumptions.

But there is a fourth quality Partovi, which I consider to be most important: magnetism. Partovi said: (This was especially evident in Truell, where “quiet confidence” convinced Partovi that “his cleverest MIT friend would consider joining him.”)

With Neo’s growing reputation, applications for both NEO programs double each year as competition progresses. Partovi added that while many venture companies expand to meet demand, Neo made intentional choices to maintain selectivity beyond scale.

Philosophy extends to fund size. VCs that can usually raise large funds are usually closed at $320 million with fresh capital – $235 million Capital Commitment was collected in 2023. Meanwhile, Partovi’s personal interest in the latest fund has increased significantly, and he has put more money into this fund than all three NEO funds that combined the previous three NEO funds. (Other Neo supporters include Sheryl Sandberg, Bill Gates and Reid Hoffman.

Partovi is cautious about discussing unrealized returns when expected, but Neo’s early funding is working very well. The first fund already has between three or four times its value, saying “the potential room will again be doubled or tripled.” He said the second fund has more than doubled with Anysphere’s investment alone.

As for the chilly exit market and how he advises founders to navigate it, Partovi said instead he would encourage founders to build lasting value. “I’m people who (say) not become more obsessed with making money and not more obsessed with serving other people,” he said. “Build a product that’s great enough that others love it. Money isn’t a goal, it’s the outcome.”

Photo above, two partners, Partovi and Neo, Suzanne Xie and Emily Cohen.