Coding tests for $ 1 billion startups, the eight -year experience of Ali Partovi is paid

In the Silicon Valley, where the same high borehole names tend to dominate the headlines, Ali Partovi has long exerted an excessive influence despite the limited recognition of the name. The Harvard graduate of Iranian origin built an impressive CV from the start – by joining the founding team of Linkexchange (acquired by Microsoft in 1998 for 265 million dollars), by co -founding Ilike (sold in MySpace for a twin brother reported in 2009) and by launching the non -profit educational code. Together, they also became the first investors in technology giants like Facebook, Airbnb and Dropbox.

While the initiates of the industry have long considered the participation of the Partovi brothers in a startup as a strong signal, the star of Ali is only spreading now more widely beyond technological circles. This wider recognition stems from NeoHis eight -year -old venture capital company who promised from the start to revolutionize the discovery of exceptional talents – and develops fairly convincing evidence.

Among its bets, Neo was the first institution outside Twitter to invest in the decentralized social network Bluesky, which would have been estimated at $ 700 million in a January funding cycle, and Kalshi, an online prediction market whose rise in popularity began during the American presidential election last fall.

“This year, for the first time, I can say in a conclusive way that we discover the future superstars before anyone,” said parto on Friday, known to be in equal and stubborn parts to the point of making a face.

Neo’s relationship with Michael Truell, co -founder and CEO of Anyspirre – a manufacturer of the popular editor cursor Coding fueled by AI, now flirting with a $ 10 billion Evaluation – Help to tell the story.

In 2017, Truell, then first -year student at MIT, was on an internship at Google when a colleague suggested meeting Partovi. During this one hour sitdown, Partovi gave Truell a coding test that he finished in 15 minutes. The demand was not unusual for Partovi. During the investment with his brother, the two technological teams commonly led through a technological interview as if they wanted to find a job at Google. But that illustrates the approach of Partovi to Neo, where he uses technical assessments not as rigid assessments but as foundations for deeper conversations.

The moment was also the beginning of a relationship that could prove to be lucrative for Partovi and Truell. Indeed, years later, first supported by Partovi, Truell co -founded Anysphere, the parent company of the Assistant Coding Coding of the AI, which could become one of the most successful investments in Neo. (The fast -growing company would be in talks to raise funding for an evaluation of $ 10 billion.)

Like Y combinator before him, Neo’s approach represents a fundamental rethink of venture capital – focusing on exceptional individuals rather than established teams or market trends. Rather than betting on specific themes or teams, Partovi focuses on the identification of exceptional individuals, often while they are still at university and to feed their potential by mentoring before they have consulted a business.

For these students, Partovi – with its partners in Neo, Suzanne Xie and Emily Cohen – is organizing a “Neo Scholars” program which offers a subsidy of $ 20,000 to take a semester of gap, no equity. (Thirty people are chosen each year.)

In 2022, for startups in startup, Partovi also set up a more traditional accelerator program which offers funding and advice to 20 companies each year.

“I try to coax them to take a little more risks, leaving their comfort zone, aimed higher than anything they are at the moment,” said Partovi.

The strategy requires patience. From the first days of Neo, Partovi personally traveled the country, interviewing students and administering coding tests to find “Tomorrow’s Changemakers”, in his words.

Others clearly think that it is quite good in this area, and not surprising. In addition to Anysphere and Kalshi, neo scholars continued to found the assistant coding company, cognition, which was recently evaluated at $ 4 billion; Pika Labs, which manufactures a generative video text tool for video and is currently estimated at $ 700 million; And Chai Discovery, which has not shared its post-money assessment but which lifted $ 30 million from Openai and Thrive Capital last fall to feed its multimodal foundation model for the prediction of the molecular structure.

“Last year, each of OpenAi’s new hires was a neo scholar,” said Partovi proudly when we talked.

During the evaluation of potential superstars, Partovi is largely focused on three key qualities: technical capacity, entrepreneurial inclination and the desire to challenge the status quo.

Technical capacity does not matter because the founders will code all day, but because “IT really helps. This helps you think, “said Partovi, quoting examples like Jeff Bezos, Reed Hastings and Larry Ellison – all computer students who have become legendary business leaders.

The previous entrepreneurial experience points out the propensity for risk taking and the hunger to build products that people love. The third quality – contesting the status quo – testifies to the will of the founders to question the fundamental hypotheses.

However, there is a fourth quality that Partovi may consider the most crucial: magnetism. Said Partovi: “I wonder, if (this individual) started something, what is the probability that their smartest friends would be to join them?” (This was particularly obvious in Truell, whose “quiet confidence” convinced parto that “his most intelligent MIT friends would consider joining him”)))

According to Partovi, as Neo’s reputation has increased, requests for the two NEO programs have doubled each year, according to Partovi, which added that if many venture capital companies are developing to meet demand, Neo has made a deliberate choice to maintain selectivity on the scale.

The philosophy extends to the size of the fund. While the VCs which can collect ever more launchy funds do it generally, Neo – which, earlier this month, ended on $ 320 million in fresh capital – has only lifted more than the $ 235 million In capital commitments, he collected in 2023. Meanwhile, the personal participation of parto in the most recent funds increased considerably, he put more of his own money in this fund than the three previous combined funds. (Others of the donors of Neo include Sheryl Sandberg, Bill Gates and Reid Hoffman, who wrote one of the first checks to Neo in 2017.)

While Partovi is prudent to discuss unrealized yields when produced, the first funds of Neo behave extremely well. The first fund is already between three and four times its value, said Partovi, with “a potential place to double or triple again”. He said the second fund had more than doubled by Anyspirre’s investment alone.

As for a cold outing market and how he advises founders to sail, Partovi said that he rather encouraged the founders to build a lasting value. “I say (I say) to people not to obsessor to earn money and to obsess more to serve other humans,” he said. “Build such a wonderful product that others love. Money is the result, not the objective.”

In the photo above, Partovi and its two partners from Neo, Suzanne Xie and Emily Cohen.