From coding tests to billion-dollar startups, Ali Partovi’s eight-year experiment is paying off

In the Silicon Valley, where the same high -power names tend to dominate the titles, but the Parti has long had a huge impact despite the limited name recognition. Bachelor of Iranian born Harvard early built an impressive CV, Producing the founding team of Linkexchange (bought by Microsoft in 1998 for $ 265 million), co-founders of Ilike (sold to MySpace for a reported $ 20 million in 2009) and launching an educational non-profit codex. Together they became early investors in technological giants like Facebook, Airbnb -ai Dropbox.

Although the insiders in the industry have long stared at the participation of the Parti brothers in the startup as a strong signal, Ali’s star is only spreading beyond technological circles. This wider recognition stems from NeaHis eight-year venture, which from the very beginning, promised to revolutionize how exceptional talent is revealed to develop some rather convincing proven points.

Among its bets, Neo was the first institution beyond Twitter to invest in a decentralized social network Bluesky, which was allegedly estimated at $ 700 million in the January Financing Circle, and Kalshi, an internet prediction market whose popularity began during the US presidential election last fall.

“This year, for the first time, I can finally say that we are discovering future superstars before anyone else,” Parti said, known for his equal parts by gracious and persistent to the Pushy point, he said on Friday.

Neo’s connection with Michael Truell, co-founder and executive director Anysphere-Professor of the popular AI Power Coding editor of the pointer, who allegedly flirts with $ 10 billion Valuation – helps tell the story.

In 2017, Truell, then a grinder at the myth, interned at Google when a colleague of student suggested that he meet with couples. During this hour, Parti gave Truella a coding test that ended in 15 minutes. The question was not unusual for the ports. When they invested with their brother, the two usually led technological teams through a technological interview as if they wanted to get a job at Google. But this shows Parti’s approach to Neo -in, where he uses technical estimates not as rigid estimates, but as a foundation for deeper conversations.

The moment was also the beginning of a relationship that could be lucrative for both Parts and Truell. Indeed, years later, he supported the Parts for the first time, Truell faced Anysphere, the home company Ai coding the assistant cursor, which could become one of the most successful Neo investments. .

Like the Y Combinator before him, Neo -O’s approach represents a fundamental re -examination of risky capital – focusing on exceptional individuals, not on established teams or market trends. Instead of betting on certain themes or teams, Parts focus on identifying exceptional individuals, often while still in college and nurturing their potential through mentoring before they included the company.

For those students, Parts – with their partners in Neou, Suzanne Xie and Emily Cohen – launching the “Neo Scholars” program, which provides support of $ 20,000 to take a gap semester, no capital is required. (Thirty people are elected per year.)

In 2022, for early stages, Parts further set up a more traditional accelerator program, which offers funding and guidelines for 20 companies each year.

“I try to persuade them to take a little more risk, going out of their comfort zone, aiming more than what they are currently targeting,” Parts explained.

The strategy requires patience. Starting with Neo’s earliest days, Parts personally traveled the country, interviewing students and managing coding tests to find “tomorrow’s Changemakers”, in his own words.

Others clearly think that he is pretty good at it, and it’s no wonder. In addition to Anysphere and Kalshi, Neo scientists have found a companion company, a contact, which was recently estimated at $ 4 billion; Pika Labs, which consists of a generative AI tool for text-video and is currently estimated at $ 700 million; And Chai Discovery, who did not share his estimate after the money, but last fall raised $ 30 million from Openi and Thriive Capital to encourage his multi-modal model of foundation for predicting molecular structures.

“Last year, each of the new Openai new employees was Neo scholars,” Parts said proudly when we talked.

When evaluating potential superstar, Parts are largely focused on three key qualities: technical capacity, entrepreneurial preference and willingness to challenge the status quo.

The technical capacity does not matter not because the founders will encode all day, but because “IT helps. It only helps you think,” Parts explained, citing examples such as Jeff Bastings, Reed Hastings and Larry Ellison – all IT students who became legendary business leaders.

So far, entrepreneurial experience signals a tendency to take risks and hunger for the construction of products that people love. The third quality – which causes the status quo – talks about the willingness of the founder to question the basic assumptions.

Still, there is a fourth quality that Parts considers perhaps the most important: magnetism. Says Parti: “I wonder if [this individual] Something, how probably would their smartest friends be able to join them? “(This was especially obvious in Truella, whose” quiet confidence “convinced Parts that” his smartest friends of MIT would consider joining him. “)

As Neo’s reputation has grown, so is the competition to enter. Applications for both programs of NO doubles have doubled annually, according to the Parts, which added that many entrepreneurial companies would expand to demand, nee has brought a deliberate choice to maintain selectivity over the scale.

Philosophy is expanded to the size of the fund. While VCs that can usually collect increasing funds, neo-Koji has closed $ 320 million earlier this month in a fresh capital-trained only slightly more than $ 235 million In the capital obligations he collected in 2023. In the meantime, Partovi’s personal share in the latest fund has increased significantly, and he has inserted more of his money into this fund than all three previous NE NE Fund in combination. (Other Neo -ova supporters include Sheryl Sandberg, Bill Gates and Reid Hoffman, who wrote one of the first Neo -U in 2017 check)

Although the Parts are cautious in discussing unrealized vomiting when they are penetrated, neo -‘s early funds work extremely well. The first fund is already between three and four times more than its value, Parti said, with “a potential space to re -double or triple.” He said that the second fund was more than doubled from Anysphere investment.

As for the cold output market and as the founders advise to move, Parts said to encourage the founders to build lasting value instead. “I [tell] People who have not obsessed with making money and more obsessed with other people’s service, “he said.” Build a product that is so wonderful that other people simply love it. Money is a result, not a goal. ”

Pictured above, Parts and his two partners in Neo, Suzanne Xie and Emily Cohen.