From Coding Tests to Billion-Dollar Dreams: How Ali Partovi’s Big Bet is Finally Paying Off

In Silicon Valley, where the same famous names seem to steal the spotlight again and again, Ali Partovi has quietly built a reputation that carries real weight — even if he isn't a household name. Born in Iran and a Harvard graduate, Ali’s journey started strong. He was part of the founding team at LinkExchange (which Microsoft bought for $265 million), co-founded the music platform iLike (sold to MySpace for $20 million), and even launched the educational nonprofit Code.org with his twin brother, Hadi. Along the way, they became early investors in future giants like Facebook, Airbnb, and Dropbox.

Insiders have long seen the Partovi brothers as secret weapons in the startup world. But now, Ali's impact is becoming clear even to people outside of tech — thanks to Neo, the venture firm he founded eight years ago with a bold dream: to find and nurture tomorrow’s tech superstars before anyone else even noticed them. And today, it's obvious — that gamble is paying off.

One of Neo’s early moves was backing Bluesky, a decentralized social network that’s now valued at around $700 million. They also invested in Kalshi, a prediction market that exploded in popularity during the last U.S. elections.

When we spoke with Ali recently, you could hear the excitement in his voice:

"This year, for the first time, I can truly say we’re finding future superstars before anyone else."

 

The Story of a Chance Meeting

Ali’s way of discovering talent is personal — and sometimes even a little old-school. In 2019, Michael Truell was just a freshman at MIT, interning at Google, when a friend urged him to meet Ali. During their hour-long chat, Ali handed Michael a handwritten coding test. Michael finished it in just 15 minutes.

It wasn’t a typical investor meeting — but that’s Ali’s style. He doesn’t just want to check your resume. He wants to understand how you think, how you solve problems, and who you really are. That meeting planted a seed. Years later, Truell co-founded Anysphere, the company behind the AI-powered coding editor Cursor — a startup now flirting with a jaw-dropping $10 billion valuation. For Ali and Neo, it could turn out to be one of their biggest wins yet.

Changing How Venture Capital Works

Neo isn't just another venture fund throwing money around. It’s a rethink of what venture capital can be. Ali, along with his partners Suzanne Xie and Emily Cohen, believes in betting on people first — often before they even know what company they’ll build.

They run the Neo Scholars Program, offering selected college students a $20,000 grant to take a gap semester — no strings attached. It’s an invitation to dream bigger, to take risks they might otherwise avoid.

In 2022, Neo added a traditional accelerator program too, supporting about 20 young startups a year with funding and mentorship.

Ali explained it simply:

"I try to encourage them to step a little outside their comfort zone — to aim higher than they thought possible."

 

It takes real patience. For years, Ali crisscrossed the country, sitting down with students, giving out coding tests, and searching for the rare individuals who he believed could truly change the world.

And it’s working. Neo’s "graduates" have gone on to create companies like Cognition (a $4 billion coding assistant company), Pika Labs (an AI text-to-video platform valued at $700 million), and Chai Discovery (a biotech AI company backed by OpenAI and Thrive Capital).

Ali beams with pride when he says:

"Last year, every single one of OpenAI’s new grad hires was a Neo Scholar."

 

What Makes a Future Superstar?

When Ali looks for future founders, he’s not just checking off skills. He’s looking for a special mix of things:

• Technical brilliance — not because founders have to code forever, but because computer science shapes how people think and solve problems.

• Entrepreneurial fire — a hunger to take risks and build things that people love.

• A rebellious spirit — a willingness to challenge old assumptions and think differently.

• And maybe most importantly: magnetism — the quiet power to inspire friends, classmates, and future teammates to follow their vision.

It was that quiet confidence that caught Ali’s eye when he first met Michael Truell at MIT — the feeling that if Michael started something, his smartest friends would want in.

Growth Without Losing Their Soul

Neo’s success has created huge demand. Applications to join their programs have doubled every year. Most firms would jump at the chance to scale bigger, faster. But Neo made a different choice: to stay small and selective, even when it would have been easy to expand.

They did raise a new fund recently — $320 million — but stayed close to their earlier size. In fact, Ali himself put more of his own money into this latest fund than he had into all three previous ones combined.

Neo’s backers read like a who's who of Silicon Valley legends: Sheryl Sandberg, Bill Gates, and Reid Hoffman all believed in Ali’s vision early on.

Although Ali is careful when talking about profits (he knows it's still early days), he quietly shared that Neo’s first fund has already tripled or quadrupled in value — and could grow even more.

The Real Goal: Building Things People Love

In today’s tough market, where exits are harder and valuations are shaky, Ali’s advice to founders is simple — and heartfelt:

"Don’t obsess over making money. Obsess over serving people.
Build something so amazing that people fall in love with it.
If you do that, the money will come."

 

That’s the soul behind Neo. And maybe, just maybe, it’s the reason Ali Partovi’s biggest experiment is turning into something even bigger — a new way to discover and inspire the dreamers who will shape our future.