Ali Partovi

Ali Partovi
Born1972 (age 53–54)
Iran
Alma materHarvard University[1]
OccupationInvestor
SpouseMelissa Partovi
Children4
ParentFirouz Partovi
RelativesHadi Partovi (brother), Dara Khosrowshahi (cousin)
Websitewww.partovi.org

Ali Partovi (Persian: علی پرتووی; born 1972)[1] is an Iranian-American entrepreneur and angel investor. He is best known as a co-founder of Code.org (which he founded with his twin brother Hadi), iLike, LinkExchange, an early advisor at Dropbox, and an early promoter of bid-based search advertising.[2] Partovi currently serves on the board of directors at FoodCorps.[3] He is currently the CEO of Neo, a mentorship community and venture fund he established in 2017. Neo was the first investor in Cursor.[4][5] In June 2026, SpaceX agreed to acquire Cursor for $60 billion, a deal expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.[6]

Early life and education

Ali Partovi was born alongside his twin brother Hadi Partovi amid the White Revolution of Iran and the Iran-Iraq war.[1] Both his parents were intellectuals. His mother studied Computer Science in Boston, and his father Firouz Partovi was a founding member of the Sharif University of Technology and the second employed professor.[1] His father influenced Ali and Hadi to care about education.[1]

Ali and Hadi began coding when they were ten on a Commodore 64 their father had brought from a seminar he had attended abroad. The family fled to the United States during the Iranian Revolution. Ali and Hadi both went on to acquire Bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science from Harvard University,[1] where they were members of Sigma Chi.[7]

Career

LinkExchange

Partovi joined Tony Hsieh and Sanjay Madan in 1996 to co-partner in the establishment of the internet company LinkExchange.[8] The three were later joined by Alfred Lin who served as CFO. Partovi says that he was recruited for his computer programming and business management skills.[9] He worked in sales, marketing, finance, and business management until Microsoft acquired the company in 1998 for $265 million.[10] At the time, LinkExchange reached 400,000 sites and about 21 million consumers.[11]

Partovi was among the first to recognize the commercial potential of paid search, noting that small business owners strongly wanted to appear in search results. In 1998, LinkExchange acquired Submit It!, started by college-dropout Scott Banister, which helped owners submit URLs to search engines.[12] After Microsoft acquired LinkExchange, Partovi stayed with them and became the Lead Project Manager[9] for MSN Keywords. However, executives in Microsoft, Yahoo, Excite, and other search companies had pinned their hopes on banner ads.[12]

iLike

This online platform, meant to help users discover new artists spawned out of GarageBand.[13] GarageBand was established in 1999 as a site where an independent artist could post their music, and other users would discover them. Partovi acquired the assets of GarageBand in 2002. When he and his brother attempted to re-invent the company, iLike was founded in 2006.

The service made use of a sidebar which made it easy for users to discover new artists. Users could directly register on the platform or use third-party networks such as Facebook. iLike had a "post-once publish-everywhere" dashboard for artists. iLike was acquired by Myspace for $20 million.[14]

Neo

From 1998 to 2017, Partovi backed tech companies including Facebook, Airbnb, and Dropbox.[1][4] In 2017, Partovi founded Neo, a venture fund that identifies top computer science students and invests in their startups.[15][16] Partovi stopped angel investing around this time. By 2025, Neo had raised $320 million across its funds.[15][4]

In 2023, Neo led Bluesky's $8 million seed round.[17] Neo wrote the first check into Cursor.[4][5]. In June 2026, SpaceX agreed to acquire Anysphere, Cursor's parent company, for $60 billion in an all-stock deal expected to close in the third quarter of 2026.[4][6][18]

In 2026, Partovi ranked second on Forbes' Midas Seed list of leading early-stage investors, the highest-placed U.S.-based investor on the list, cited for his early investment in Cursor.[5]. Partovi's firm Neo turned $150M into $1.2B, a rare outcome for the 2021 ZIRP era.[19]

Philanthropy

Partovi's philanthropy work is focused on computer science education.[20]

Code.org

Partovi created Code.org in 2013 as a non-profit initiative to promote computer science, and the two brothers funded the initiative.[21] Partovi believes that everyone in the world should be able to read and write code, yet many American public schools do not offer computer science classes.[22] Code.org launched a short video featuring Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey, and others to inspire kids to learn how to code.[23] This video garnered over 15 million views on YouTube.[24] Code.org also established Hour of Code, a tutorial that introduces students to programming.[21]

Personal life

Partovi grew up playing the piano with his brother and is an avid musician.[1]

As an immigrant himself, he has spoken publicly about legislation affecting immigrant populations, including immigration and educational policies.[25] In his op-ed "Immigrants are Humans," Partovi wrote that he and other immigrants had been deported as 12-year-olds and that such policies do not help anybody and hurt America.[26]

As of 2019, Partovi has four children from two marriages.[27] Partovi's cousins include Dara Khosrowshahi, Amir Khosrowshahi (co-founder of Nervana Systems), and Farzad "Fuzzy" Khosrowshahi (co-founder XL2Web which was acquired to become Google Sheets).[28][29]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Partovi twins quietly emerge as top Silicon Valley angel investors". The Mercury News. 2014-03-07. Retrieved 2020-04-15.
  2. ↑ Guth, Robert A. (2009-01-17). "Microsoft Bid to Beat Google Builds on a History of Misses". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
  3. ↑ "Ali Partovi | GreenBiz.com". Archived from the original on 2014-08-26. Retrieved 2014-08-23.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Loizos, Connie (2025-04-27). "From coding tests to billion-dollar startups, Ali Partovi's eight-year experiment is paying off". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2026-06-02. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
  5. 1 2 3 "Midas Seed List 2026". Forbes. 2026-05-27. Archived from the original on 2026-06-22. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
  6. 1 2 "SpaceX agrees to acquire Cursor maker Anysphere for $60 billion". CNBC. 2026-06-16. Archived from the original on 2026-06-22. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
  7. ↑ "Sigma Chi Purchases Million-Dollar House".
  8. ↑ Bort, Julie (2023). "Before Zappos: The inside story behind Tony Hsieh's first millions". Fast Company. Archived from the original on 2026-02-03. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
  9. 1 2 "Linkedin". Archived from the original on 2007-11-02. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  10. ↑ Rosoff, Matt. "Microsoft's Biggest Acquisitions And What Happened To Them". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  11. ↑ Sullivan, Jennifer. "Microsoft Buys LinkExchange". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-10-14.
  12. 1 2 "Bubble Blinders: The Untold Story of the Search Business Model". TechCrunch. 2010-08-29. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  13. ↑ "After More Than 10 Years, Indie Music Community GarageBand.com Folds". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  14. ↑ "MySpace to acquire iLike for $20 million (take that Facebook)". www.campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  15. 1 2 Nieva, Richard (2025-04-16). "This Tech Incubator Is Harder To Get Into Than Harvard". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2026-05-18. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
  16. ↑ "Neo". Neo. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  17. ↑ Perez, Sarah (2023-07-05). "Bluesky announces its $8M seed round and first paid service, custom domains". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2026-05-17. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
  18. ↑ O'Kane, Sean (2026-06-16). "SpaceX to acquire Cursor for $60B in stock, days after blockbuster IPO". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 2026-06-20. Retrieved 2026-06-22.
  19. ↑ "Neo Turned a $150 Million Fund Into $1.2 Billion, Rare for the 2021 Vintage". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 30 July 2026.
  20. ↑ "Ali Partovi: Why Learning to Code Is Imperative In Public Education". KQED. Retrieved 14 February 2026.
  21. 1 2 "Learn today, build a brighter tomorrow". Code.org. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  22. ↑ "Coding the Future: A Q&A With Hadi Partovi of Code.org". Discover Magazine. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
  23. ↑ "Watch Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey, & Others In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code". TechCrunch. 2013-02-26. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
  24. ↑ What Most Schools Don't Teach, 26 February 2013, retrieved 2021-10-15
  25. ↑ Lee, Thomas (2015-12-25). "Code.org founder a second-class citizen under visa change". San Francisco Chronicle.
  26. ↑ "Immigrants are humans". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  27. ↑ East, Forbes Middle. "An Early Facebook Investor Is Creating A Scouting Network For Brilliant Engineers". Forbes ME. Retrieved 2021-10-13.
  28. ↑ Akhtar, Allana. "Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is part of a family of impressive tech leaders, founders, and CEOs — here's who they are". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
  29. ↑ Walker, Joseph (2012-07-05). "A Googler's Recipe for Success". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
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