From coding tests to billions of dollars, Ali Partovi’s eight -year -old experiment is paying

In Silicon Valley, where the same high -water names tend to prevail, Ali Partovi has long had a great impact, despite limited recognition of the name. Harvard graduate of Iranian descent built an impressive resume early-joining the founding team of Linkexchange (obtained by Microsoft in 1998 for $ 265 million), co-founded Ilike (sold in Myspace for a $ 20 million reporting in 2009), and starting his non-profit education code. Hadi. Together, they also became early investors in technology giants like Facebook, Airbnb and Dropbox.

While industry interiors have long seen the involvement of the Partovi brothers at the beginning as a strong signal, Ali’s star is growing only now further beyond technology circuits. This wider recognition stems from NeoHis eight-year-old entrepreneurship firm that promised from the beginning to revolutionize how extraordinary talent is revealed-and is developing some very convincing points of proof.

Among its bets, Neo was the first off -Twitter institution to invested in the decentralized Bluesky social network, which is reported to be estimated at $ 700 million in a round of January funding, and Kale, an online forecast market whose popularity began during last fall presidential elections.

“This year, for the first time, I can finally say that we are discovering the next superstars before anyone else,” Partovi told Friday, known to be equal and patient to Puty’s point on Friday.

Neo’s relationship with Michael Truell, co-worker and CEO of Anysphere-Creator of the popular codification editor of he-cursor, now flirting with a $ 10 billion Evaluation – helps to tell the story.

In 2017, Truell, then beginner at MIT, was interned on Google when another student suggested to meet with Partovi. During that long hour, the partov gave TRUELL a coding test that he ended in 15 minutes. The question was not uncommon for partovi. When investing with his brother, both usually led technology teams through a technological interview as if they wanted to get a Google job. But it illustrates Partovi’s approach to Neo, where he uses technical evaluations not as rigid ratings, but as foundations for deeper conversations.

The moment was also the beginning of a relationship that can prove lucrative for both partovi and truell. Indeed, years later, first supported by Partovi, Truell co-founded Anysphere, the parent company and that assistant Cursor Cursor, which can become one of Neo’s most successful investments. (Fast -growing company is reported to be in talks to raise a round of funds with a $ 10 billion rating.)

Like Y Combinator before him, Neo’s approach represents a fundamental rethinking of the capital of entrepreneurship – focusing on extraordinary individuals than created teams or market trends. Instead of betting on specific topics or teams, the partov focuses on identifying extraordinary individuals, often while they are still in college, and feeding their potential through mentoring before involving a company.

For those college students, Partovi – with his Neo partners, Suzanne Xie and Emily Cohen – run a “Neo Scholars” program that provides a $ 20,000 grant to get a semester GAP, no equity is required. (Thirty people are selected every year.)

In 2022, for the beginning of the early phase, Partov also established a more traditional accelerator program providing funds and instructions for 20 companies each year.

“I try to join them to get a little more danger, going outside their comfort zone, aiming higher than those who are targeting now,” Partovi explained.

Strategy requires patience. Starting from the earliest days of Neo, Partovs traveled personally to the country, interviewing students and administering coding tests to find “tomorrow’s variants”, in his words.

Others clearly think that he is very good at him, and no wonder. In addition to Anysphere and Kalshi, Neo researchers have continued to find coding assistant company Cognition, which was recently estimated at $ 4 billion; Labs point, which makes a tool of text generation in-video and is currently estimated at $ 700 million; And Chai Discovery, who has not shared its rating after money but collected $ 30 million from Openai and Thrive Capital last fall to promote his multi-model foundation model for predicting the molecular structure.

“Last year, each of the new Openai grade employment was a Neo researcher,” Partovi proudly noted when we talked.

When evaluating potential superstars, Partovi mainly focuses on three main qualities: technical skills, entrepreneurial tendency and willingness to challenge the status quo.

Technical ability is important not because the founders will encode all day, but because “Computer science really helps you. This simply helps you think,” Partovi explained, mentioning examples like Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings and Larry Ellison – all computer science students who became legendary business leaders.

The past entrepreneur experience signals the inclination of risk and a hunger to build products that people love. Third quality – challenging the status quo – speaks of the willingness of the founders to question the basic assumptions.

However, there is a fourth quality that Partov considers perhaps more important: magnetism. Says Partovi: “I wonder if (this individual) started something, how likely are their smartest friends to join them?” (This was especially evident in Truell, whose “calm faith” convinced the partner that “his smartest friends of MIT would think of joining him.”)

While Neo’s reputation has increased, so there is competition to get inside. Applications for both Neo programs have doubled each year, according to Partovi, who added that while many venture firms would expand to accommodate the request, Neo made a deliberate choice to maintain selectivity over the scale.

Philosophy lies to the size of the fund. While VVs that can collect increasingly big funds they usually do, Neo-E at the beginning of this month closed with $ 320 million in fresh capital-lifted just a little more than $ 235 million In the capital’s commitments he collected in 2023. Meanwhile, Partovi’s personal shares in the newest fund increased significantly, with him more money in this fund than all three neo funds combined. (Others from Neo supporters include Sheyl Sandberg, Bill Gates and Reid Hoffman, who wrote one of the first checks in Neo again in 2017.)

While Partov is careful to discuss unrealized returns when produced, Neo’s early funds are performing extremely well. The first fund is already between three and four times more than its value, said Partovi, “possible room for it to double or triple again”. He said the second fund has been doubled only by Anysphere investment.

As for a cold exit market and how he advises the founders to sail it, Partovi said he instead encourages the founders to build sustainable values. “I (tell) people not to be fixed to make money and get more fixed to serve other people,” he said. “Build a product that is so wonderful that other people just love it. Money is the result, not the goal.”

In the photo above, Partovi and his two partners in Neo, Suzanne Xie and Emily Cohen.