Hadi Partovi: How I Became an Advisor to Mark Zuckerberg; Lessons from Steve Ballmer | 20VC #961

1. 0:00 – 1:43

   Founding Story of Code.org

   1. HSHarry Stebbings0:00

      Hadi, I'm so excited for this. I spoke to Alfred Lin, I spoke to your brother, I spoke to Emil Michael, I spoke to many others. So thank you so much for joining me today.

   2. HPHadi Partovi0:09

      Thank you for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here, uh, and, and thank you for all the folks you talked to and the research you did before us talking.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings0:16

      I know. As I said, it's, it's so funny, 'cause I know so much about you and you know nothing about me. What a joyous asynchronous, uh, discussion we're gonna have. Uh, but I wanna start with, uh, a fantastic, uh, start, being how did you make your way into the world of startups first? And then most recently, skipping a few steps, uh, how did you come to found code.org?

   4. HPHadi Partovi0:34

      I got into the world of startups first, honestly, s- starting my own or watching my brother start, uh, LinkExchange when, when we were 22 or so. He quit sort of the big company job to start LinkExchange with Tony Hsieh and Sanjay Madan, and Alfred Lin joined that startup then. And when I was 26, I think, I quit Microsoft to, to start my own startup, Tellme Networks, with my former enemies from Netscape. So I'd always had an ent- entrepreneurship in me, uh, but really it was when I turned 30 that I began investing in startups, advising startups, shifting into more angel investing. And the reason I started code.org is after, uh, a decade of working in tech myself and a decade of investing in companies, I realized every single company struggles with the challenge of hiring great talent, and it's not that there's not smart people in the world, it's that our school system isn't teaching the right courses to prepare people for a future of technology. And so I started code.org with the idea of changing the, the curriculum of schools globally so that education better prepares people for a future that's, that's really being invented through technology and software.

2. 1:43 – 4:49

   Hadi’s Early Life & What He’s Running Towards

   1. HSHarry Stebbings1:43

      So we're gonna get to kind of the re-imagining of education. I do, I do wanna ask, in terms of kind of your education and the makings of Hadi, I believe we're all functions of our histories. When you look back, what are you running from, first, and then looking forward, what do you think you're running towards, Hadi?

   2. HPHadi Partovi1:59

      When I look back and what am I running from? Uh, I grew up in Tehran, Iran. Uh, you know, my early childhood from when I was six years old was a childhood of revolution and war, the morality police, worrying about my mother getting arrested, uh, j- just for any random thing, worrying about bombs destroying our household ev- you know, every night we were in the basement while, while the, the neighborhood was getting bombed. And then when we came to the United States, our family as immigrants were poor. We couldn't afford a home. Uh, my mom and dad and my brother and I shared one bed, uh, and, you know-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings2:33

      (laughs) .

   4. HPHadi Partovi2:33

      ... the earliest thoughts I can think of when I was 12 or 13 or 15 was I just wanted the money to afford a house or to have vacations that weren't sort of driving 100 miles to rent a cheap motel room. Uh, and so having financial security was, I, I think a strong motivator, and escaping sort of that past was what I was running away from. And what I'm running towards now at this point in my life I think is... I mean, I've, I've had an incredible life. Starting from where I started to now be at the point to have invested in some of the greatest companies created on Earth, I, I stand now as a, as an embodiment of the American dream, this idea that if you work hard and you work smart, you can achieve anything you want. But I feel like the American dream is broken, and not everybody has that access. And what I'm w- running towards is really creating a world where that American dream works for everybody, where this idea of opportunity is truly available to everybody. And, and the work that I'm doing in code.org is, is to fix something that's wrong in the opportunity system in our, in our country and in our world.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings3:36

      Bluntly, do you feel the lack of resources early on in your life, and lack of money to be clear, um, do you feel that gave you a drive and a grit that you otherwise wouldn't have had?

   6. HPHadi Partovi3:46

      Absolutely growing up with a poor family gave me grit, a- and hunger and ambition, and what's interesting is I came from a family that had a lot of money before the Iranian Revolution.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings3:57

      Huh.

   8. HPHadi Partovi3:57

      Back in Iran, my grandparents and their brothers, they were all, uh, the equivalent of billionaires, uh, you know, in a different currency and a different time. Uh, and so I didn't know that 'cause I was, like, four years old, uh, so it wasn't just that we grew up without money. We grew up without money 'cause it was taken away from us, and when you have your money taken away from your family by the government, uh, and you know that all of your grandparents were entrepreneurs and businesspeople, it has this sense of not just I wanted to succeed, but I, I almost felt like taking something back or winning it back effectively, um, 'cause- or, or righting an injustice that had happened.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings4:35

      I, I, I totally get you. Uh, many people have said on the show about actually Parker Conrad at Rippling that vengeance is what makes him special (laughs) . I'm sure you can imagine as to who. Um, but I to- totally agree with you and get you there.

3. 4:49 – 7:43

   Selling TellMe to Microsoft

   1. HSHarry Stebbings4:49

      I, I, uh, did, did speak to Emil Michael before, and he said you've gotta ask about selling Tellme. It was a big moment for you in your career, in your early career. How d- like, how did it go down? How did the, Emil negotiating it go down? Just walk me through it from your perspective.

   2. HPHadi Partovi5:05

      The actual negotiating, I think, Emil did an incredible job of, and I don't want to, uh, to s- steal any of the spotlight around his incredible art as a negotiator. Uh, my role was in opening the door for the conversation, and, you know, I had spent my early career at Microsoft s- since I was t- uh, since I was 18 years old I'd been an intern, uh, at Microsoft, uh, since freshman year of college. And even in my freshman year of college, I met Steve Ballmer in the cafeteria and said hello to him, uh, you know, and introduced him to my mom who was visiting, and I built a relationship with Steve over the years. And for over a decade, uh, we would have one-on-ones over lunch or we'd go jogging. I just told him, you know, "I'm one of the fastest rising stars in your company, and I'd like to, you know, I'd like to have you as a mentor." Uh, and when Emil told me that Tellme ar- the company that we had- that I'd co-founded with Mike McHugh and Angus Davis...... it, you know, that it had a suitor and he, he told me who the, the alternate buyer was and he said, "We need to get a conversation with Microsoft. We need other potential buyers at the table. Uh, and how can you get me a meeting with Ballmer?" Uh, and getting that meeting, I think, was my role. Uh, and I went jogging with Steve and I told him about the opportunity. He was already familiar with Tell Me because he, he had been trying to recruit me back to Microsoft when I decided to leave. Uh, Mic- I left Microsoft to, to start Tell Me and he had been on the other side trying to prevent me from leaving. And even when... while I was at Tell Me, we were fighting... I was personally fighting Ballmer on recruiting Harvard graduates and MIT graduates. I would call a student, he would call a student. I would call them back, he would call them back. And he knew that this was happening, and he knew that the best and the brightest, uh, graduates were gra- were not going to Microsoft and they were choosing our startup instead. So he had this sort of competitive desire to get that talent, uh, that he had lost earlier back at Microsoft. Had-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings7:05

      I-

   4. HPHadi Partovi7:05

      So during the jog, I basically told him, you know, "Tell Me is now, you know, at the stage where if you want to, to, to have the talent that we hired, it's, it's up for sale and it's a conversation that I think Microsoft belongs in." Um, and so he basically add- said, "Get me connected and let's have the conversation." And, and what's funny is many other Microsoft folks (laughs) afterwards jokingly told me, "You're not allowed to go jogging with Steve anymore."

   5. HSHarry Stebbings7:30

      (laughs)

   6. HPHadi Partovi7:30

      Because they, they felt like this short-circuited an entire process that would have otherwise gone through many layers of bureaucracy and corporate development, et cetera. Uh, but that acquisition was clearly one that Steve and Emil drove together.

4. 7:43 – 12:06

   Leadership Lessons from Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer

   1. HPHadi Partovi7:43

   2. HSHarry Stebbings7:43

      Uh, can I ask, uh, y- while we're on Ballmer, I, I wanna stay there. You know, you sat in, in more product reviews with, with, with Steve Ballmer, with, with Bill Gates than, you know, so many other people. Pretty much anyone. Um, so when you think back over those, like, countless product reviews, what are some of your biggest takeaways, Hadi, and how did it shape your mentality in thinking?

   3. HPHadi Partovi8:04

      Um, that's a great question. I should first say Steve Ballmer does not get anywhere near enough credit for having built Microsoft into the powerhouse that it is right now.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings8:15

      Hmm.

   5. HPHadi Partovi8:16

      Uh, you know, I think there's-

   6. HSHarry Stebbings8:17

      Why, why do you say that? Uh, 'cause I- you're right. I don't unlike Gates and Satya and I, I don't.

   7. HPHadi Partovi8:23

      Yeah, the Steve years were not great for Microsoft's stock price. They were fantastic for Microsoft's earnings and earnings growth. And those earnings, it took some time for the, for the stock price to match the earnings, and I think Satya as a CEO has really turned that part around. But earnings ultimately is what a company is about and Microsoft had phenomenal earnings growth during st- the, the Ballmer days.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings8:47

      Huh.

   9. HPHadi Partovi8:47

      Uh, and getting back to your question of what is a review with either Ballmer or Gates? The, the thing that was similar with both of them is both of these folks as executives, and, and Steve wasn't a founder but he acted like a founder, they were so smart and sharp and into the details. And you knew going into a review with either with Steve or with Bill that there's a huge risk that they know your stuff better than you know it yourself. And you better be extremely prepared. It's like the hardest examination of your life, because if they catch you in not knowing your own stuff, you're, you are done for. Uh, and it just created, on the one hand, an element of fear, but on the other hand, this element of I need to be at my A+ game and this, you know, this bar that it made you strive to be the best version of yourself that you could be. Uh, and yes, there was a fear element to that because, you know, I've seen people get emaciated for not knowing their own, their own, uh, materials as well. When, when Bill Gates knows something better than the supposed expert at his own company, uh, it is emaciating, but it also makes everybody else think, "I need to be the best version of myself." Uh, a- and be always prepared to be questioned.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings10:01

       I love that kind of attention to detail. But I'm always told about the importance of delegation and the importance of trust. Like help me out, help lead us out listening, does that go against delegation being so focused on the minutiae and so in the weeds? How do you feel about those kinda two opposing ideas?

   11. HPHadi Partovi10:22

       It is definitely a tough balance and I gotta say as a leader, I struggle with that myself. But I think if I had to err, I personally err on the side of being more into the details rather than erring on the side of, "Oh, I just... the people are getting it done. Uh, and you know, I'll, I'll purely trust them." And if you look at, at, you know, who are the greatest technologists for consumer companies? Or, or the greatest technology, consumer technology companies. If you think of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, uh, Elon Musk, none of these folks are just trust that the team will get it done. They're getting very involved in little details. Uh, and it's, it's much harder to point to examples of incredible consumer technology successes where the CEO is just sort of, you know, leaning back and letting everybody else get it done. But that doesn't mean the CEO does every little thing. It just means if you screw up, there's consequences. And as long as the level of, of getting involved in the details isn't enough to do everybody's job for them, it's to keep them to a high bar. Uh-

   12. HSHarry Stebbings11:25

       Uh-

   13. HPHadi Partovi11:25

       ... let me give you an example from a review with Ballmer. I've seen him in a situation where he's talking to a group and they're sharing the numbers and then he dives into one number and he's like, "Wait a second. This number a year ago was blah, blah, blah." And you're just wondering how does he remember the same nu- this number from one, like, little product from one year ago. He's like, "Last year when u- when we did this review with such and such, what changed?" And then everybody starts looking around, they're like, "I don't remember the previous number. I don't know what changed." And it creates this sense of, on the one hand, fear. But on the other hand, like, "Why aren't you on top of your numbers? Why am I the one who remembers what your business was like a year ago?" Uh, and it forces people to think, "I need to run my business the way a founder would

5. 12:06 – 14:08

   Bill Gates vs Steve Ballmer

   1. HPHadi Partovi12:06

      do it."

   2. HSHarry Stebbings12:07

      Can I ask, when you compare Ballmer and Gates' leadership, how did they differ as leadership styles?

   3. HPHadi Partovi12:12

      Well, Bill was far more into the technology and the products. Steve was far more into the numbers and the, uh, I think the sales. Uh, Steve is also just a motivator. He's an incredible cheerleader. He gets people so excited. He's incredibly charismatic. A- and people make fun of things like him dancing on stage, yelling and screaming, "Developers, developers, developers." But when you're in the moment with Steve Ballmer, he is so on, he is so animated, he is so excited, it is, uh, for me at least, it- it's- it's not something to laugh at. It is, uh... it just fills you up with motivation and inspiration. H- his energy is infectious.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings12:56

      Uh, uh, no, listen, I totally agree. And, um, I think the most important thing is being able to tell a story and inspire people. And I think it's almost what we miss today in a lot of leaders, bluntly. So, I- I totally agree with you there. Was there ever a time when you got absolutely crushed, Hadi? Where everyone was like, "Oh, Hadi, (laughs) you fucked up"?

   5. HPHadi Partovi13:16

      Um, gosh, there's been lots of times I've been- I've felt crushed or thought that I've, uh, I've fucked up.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings13:24

      A- have- have there ever been a little stinger where they were like, "Hadi."

   7. HPHadi Partovi13:28

      Um... oh, in my career, there have been, but with- at Bill Gates or Steve reviews, no, I haven't been crushed in those circumstances.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings13:34

      Oh, well done.

   9. HPHadi Partovi13:35

      Um, I'm sorry. No, I've- I've survived. I think I- I escalated quickly within Microsoft and- and my career rose quickly because not only I didn't get crushed, I- I shined in those reviews. I was ready for the whatever question they asked me, and I did well. So in fact, it got to the point where people would put me forward, um, to like, "Talk to this guy." Um, and that basically was a faster way to promotion.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings13:56

       No, not at all. Listen, I'm- I'm thrilled for you that you didn't get crushed by them. I think it sounds like a terrifying proposition. Um, I do wanna ask you, speaking of, like, incredible people that you've worked with, another that a lot of people told me I had

6. 14:08 – 17:50

   Working with Mark Zuckerberg

   1. HSHarry Stebbings14:08

      to ask about was your first Facebook meeting with Zuck. Um, and Ali told me actually, you called him after the meeting and you said, "This guy- this guy is the next Bill Gates." So, A- A- Ali asked, and I- I have to ask, how did the meeting go down? What did you see in Mark that made you say he was the next Bill Gates having worked with Bill for many years?

   2. HPHadi Partovi14:28

      So this was in 2005. I was at Microsoft at the time, and I was in charge of the Microsoft internet portal at the time, uh, back when Microsoft was competing with Yahoo and AOL and- and the upstart Google in the world of search. Uh, and I'd gotten introduced to- to Mark Zuckerberg through Sean Parker, who was, as you may remember, at the time, the- the COO or president at... you know, and- and Facebook at this time was nine people. It was a nine-person company. They were in a hundred different colleges, and it was called TheFacebook, not... it wasn't yet Facebook. Uh, and we met the day they got their term sheet from Excel, uh, you know, for the $100 million valuation. And, uh, Mark had basically just come from the- from the meeting with Excel. My first thing I noticed is that he had, like, an eye tick he had, just something going on either, even with, either with his contact lenses or something. So, he was continuously apologizing 'cause something, like, he was- had to rub his eyes and put eyedrops in it, and like, you know, he just was not physically very comfortable. And I had been talking to Sean Parker about the company. The thing I noticed is the difference in terms of how Sean spoke about the vision for TheFacebook versus Mark-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings15:44

      Mm-hmm.

   4. HPHadi Partovi15:44

      ... because what they had built at the time was kind of a chatting and socializing site for, like, students in college and, like, fraternities and sororities, um, but the way Mark talked about it, he was like, "We're building the future of identity. We're building the future of connection. We're building a platform for everything on the internet," and this extremely far out vision, but also this level of seriousness and drive was very, very clear in him, uh, where-

   5. HSHarry Stebbings16:15

      How did that differ from the way Sean described it?

   6. HPHadi Partovi16:18

      When Sean was talking about it, it felt more like a sales pitch.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings16:21

      Mm.

   8. HPHadi Partovi16:21

      Uh, and when Mark was des- describing it, it just felt more like, "This is- this is my manifest destiny." Like, in- almost like, "It doesn't matter whether you're here or not, I'm just telling you what I'm about. Uh, th- this is me." You know what I mean? Uh, the singular focus was that, uh... like, he didn't care whether I was... it wasn't- he wasn't selling me. He was just like, "This is the path I am on. This is what we are going to get done." Uh, and-

   9. HSHarry Stebbings16:46

      Did you in- did you in- did you invest on first meeting?

   10. HPHadi Partovi16:49

       Uh, I ended up becoming an advisor, which was actually slightly better than investing 'cause I ended up getting in at the- at a $10 million valuation rather than at the 100 mil valuation, which was-

   11. HSHarry Stebbings16:59

       (laughs)

   12. HPHadi Partovi16:59

       ... probably an insanely good opportunity.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings17:02

       Hadi, I'm gonna be honest. It's one of those ones where it really doesn't matter. You know when they say it doesn't matter-

   14. HPHadi Partovi17:07

       (laughs) Yes.

   15. HSHarry Stebbings17:07

       ... and you're like, "Well, it kind of does, actually"? No, it really doesn't. Like... (laughs) Um, what did you advise them on?

   16. HPHadi Partovi17:13

       I was helpful in terms of helping them early on with recruiting. Uh, there was... you know, when you're a nine-person company and your main product is for 18 and 19-year-olds, it's harder to get serious software folks en- engaged. Whether it was recruiting in, like, customer support, in marketing, uh, also in engineering. You know, the guy who was the main architect for the future Facebook platform, Ari Steinberg, is a guy who I, uh, helped introduce them to.

   17. HSHarry Stebbings17:39

       I heard also from Arash and from Drew that you were instrumental in their engineering hiring process. Talk to me, what does a great hiring process then look like for you?

7. 17:50 – 20:50

   Advice on the Hiring Process

   1. HSHarry Stebbings17:50

      How do you think about advising founders on their hiring, and where do you see many go wrong?

   2. HPHadi Partovi17:54

      This is very near and dear to my heart, and it's linked to the work that I do now at code.org, uh, in terms of education and preparing people. Uh, you know, ultimately, the greatest technology companies are built by incredible people, and it's not just incredible software engineers. In- you know, every job has people who are outstanding and people who are medium and then people who are just phoning it in. Uh, and that- that's true with engineering, it's true with product management, product design, sales, marketing, even...... an executive assistant, the person taking care of the office. Uh, the level of sort of, uh, of passion and grit and results people deliver can really vary, and in the early days of a startup, most people don't realize the incredibly magnified impact of the first five or ten hires. Because the first five or ten people you bring on board, it's not just what those people do. That's gonna basically determine what the next 100 or the next 1,000 will look like. And so in every single role, you should aim to get the best of the best of the best people, because then when that's who you start with, that group won't allow in much more mediocre and, and just sort of dispassionate people. And the best of the best is not just about their IQ, it's also about their passion, their commitment to the mission. Uh, both of those things need to be there.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings19:21

      As a startup, you can't get the head of sales from Slack to join your PLG company. You can't get the head of sales from Fa... You can't... So do you just constantly have to be the best talent identifier? How do you advise founders, and when you look back at, you know, the Facebook, on getting incredible A star people when you're a random college site for communicating with nine people and a very young founder?

   4. HPHadi Partovi19:48

      So it is not easy, but this is, I would say, the hardest and most important challenge for founders. So much attention is put on h- raising funds, and when you're fundraising, you're basically selling your idea. You're selling yourself to a, to a venture capitalist. Those same skills are important where selling your idea, selling yourself, selling the company to a prospective hire, uh, and the first five or ten prospective hires are at least as important as the first person writing a check. Uh, and the... in both cases, you need to convince the person this is worth investing in. In, in one case, the VC is investing their money. Uh, in the other case, you know, the amazing employee you want to hire is investing the next three, four years of their life and making a major bet, you know, a life bet on you. It is far easier for a VC to write a check with somebody else's money than to get a stellar engineer who has 100 options but can only pick one of them, uh, to basically say, "You're gonna be the company that I'm gonna

8. 20:50 – 25:12

   Do companies have too many people?

   1. HPHadi Partovi20:50

      make my bet on."

   2. HSHarry Stebbings20:51

      Do you agree that the majority of companies today are overweight in terms of people? We're seeing obviously this kind of mass reductionism. Do you agree that we got too overweight in our organizations?

   3. HPHadi Partovi21:03

      Well, Twitter certainly is no longer overweight.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings21:06

      (laughs)

   5. HPHadi Partovi21:06

      And, um, but, uh, the changes in interest rates instantly changes just the reality of where things are at. In a world where interest rates are zero or even negative, nobody was overweight. When suddenly interest rates go up and there's inflation, instantly when that changes, people needed to think, "Our approach to spending is for a world that no longer exists." Uh, when the, when the cost of borrowing is zero, why not add more stuff? There's, there's practically no cost to it. Suddenly when there's the cost, uh, of an interest rate, you need to have a different bar for which you, you evaluate every investment. And during those heady days with zero investments, I think people just made financially poor decisions, uh, b- it just there wasn't as much of a accountability or e- or an impact if you made a financially poor decision. And so suddenly, the rising of interest rates forces... It's, it's equivalent of the, the Warren Buffett quote of, "When the tides go out, you see who's swimming naked." When the interest rates go up, you, it, it basically washes out, it forces accountability on, on financial rigor.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings22:13

      How do you advise founders today, your advisors may... How do you advise founders today? Like many say, "Cut deep, cut once." That's kind of the common saying. Like how do you advise founders on how to think about their orgs today in terms of cutting, not cutting, how to think that through?

   7. HPHadi Partovi22:29

      I would definitely say that if you're cutting, cut deep and do it only once. Multiple rounds of cutting or like just dribbling it out destroys morale and it also destroys credibility. Uh, it is far better to build back after you've... uh, from an organization that's too small than to just continuously whack to, like shave your organization down to the, to the right size. You know? If you're like, if you're shaving-

   8. HSHarry Stebbings22:56

      (laughs) One gone today, one gone tomorrow, one, one, one. (laughs)

   9. HPHadi Partovi22:58

      Yeah, if people are dropping that way, everybody wonders when... who, who's next, who's next? Am I next? And just the people you want to keep start looking. Whereas if you do a deep cut and you lose some people that you really, really shouldn't have, it, that's sad, but it's definitely better than the alternate, uh, mis- error on cutting not enough and then having to do it again. Um, the other thing I would advise is, I don't think it's good to stockpile cash right now. Uh, a lot of people think... you know, in the old days you'd say raise, you know, the en- raise the largest amount you can when you can. Uh, that makes a lot of sense when inflation was zero and interest rates were zero. Whereas today, holding onto cash at a, at a time of high inflation and, and higher interest rates, cash alone doesn't produce value. Uh, if you can... uh, you don't need next year's cash this year. Uh, the... what you're gonna spend it on next year's... (laughs) basically the, the natural impact of inflation is that cash is gonna be worthless one year from now. So why would you sell today's stock to get cash that you don't need for a year?

   10. HSHarry Stebbings24:04

       But, well, I think really for certainty, so you have more certainty today because the world has not collapsed. We don't have civil unrest and, you know, supermarkets running out of food, and gas and energy breaking down, which people think could be possible next year with, you know, Putin and with many political conflicts and with energy crises. And actually the certainty of a bad deal today is better than the uncertainty of what could happen next year.

   11. HPHadi Partovi24:35

       Yes, I agree with that but I think that doom and gloom, sort of, risk reduction is more appropriate if you're like at a series C or series D startup.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings24:46

       Yeah.

   13. HPHadi Partovi24:46

       If you're a series seed startup, the doom and gloom that exists is you screwing up your own startup in the next 12 months. (laughs) That's, like, the higher order chance of just total failure is just your relationship with your co-founders, do you find product market fit, can you double or triple within the next year. You know, the macroeconomic stuff is real but the (laughs) , the gyrations in your little company are actually gonna be a bigger thing when

9. 25:12 – 28:06

   What does high performance mean to you?

   1. HPHadi Partovi25:12

      you're early.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings25:12

      Well, speaking of the gyrations, they're the things that you do control, they're your execution. And, you know, you've, you've founded, uh, multiple different companies, you've advised some of the best. When you think about leadership and high performance, what does high performance mean to you, Hadi, and has it changed over time having seen different leaders?

   3. HPHadi Partovi25:30

      Um, that's a really good question. You know, I, myself, I work extremely hard and one of the things that's changed that's, uh, difficult is basically there f- it feels like there's a cultural change in terms of the expectations of how hard somebody should work or how s- how hard, if somebody wants to work very hard, is that okay or not. You know, I'm, uh, I, myself am a self-professed workaholic so for me, high performance comes from both working smart and working hard, giving it my all literally all the time. Uh, and in every job I've worked, even when I worked at Microsoft at a tens of thousands of person, people company, I would pull all-nighters, I would stay up late, uh, uh, you know, I would work through weekends. I don't expect that of everybody who works for me but that's what I do because I del- I expect the highest performance of myself.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings26:20

      Well, is that high performance to you then, respectfully?

   5. HPHadi Partovi26:23

      So, so that's-

   6. HSHarry Stebbings26:23

      Hours spent in a chair.

   7. HPHadi Partovi26:24

      So that's what I was gonna get to. I, I'm now older and as I've aged, I recognize I need to do much more to take care of my body and my mind because I can actually perform at a higher level if I'm also balancing my work with just the things that basically keep me mentally fit, physically fit. You know, when I was in my 20s, I wasn't nearly as physically fit as I am right now. I, I didn't exercise as much. I just didn't have time for it. It was work, work, work, and I was on this hungry drive, frankly, to get money because my family didn't have any, you know? Uh, I was worried whether my parents would die without a home, uh, and so I was, it was my job to make enough money so my parents could have a stable, uh, you know, later stage of their lives. Uh-

   8. HSHarry Stebbings27:08

      Did you ever go through burnout? Everyone's always said to me, you know, I started very, very young, like 17, and I worked very hard, um, and they say like, "Oh, Hari, our fear for you is burnout." And I'm kind of like, "Fuck you. Like, that's really not very helpful." (laughs) Um, but did you ever go through burnout or, like, depression in those insane days?

   9. HPHadi Partovi27:29

      I haven't gone through burnout, but this is really important. Uh, uh, there's a big distinction. If the work you do is something you love and something that inspires you, it isn't really work, you know? And because of that, if you do more of it, you get more inspired and more driven and, and you're safe from burnout. Whereas if the work you're doing is 'cause somebody else is cracking a whip and telling you to put in more hours, you can get burned out. Uh, and I've chosen to work on projects that really drive me. And so, working more actually makes me more excited, more inspired, more energized rather than burnt out or

10. 28:06 – 30:38

    Speed of Execution

    1. HPHadi Partovi28:06

       spent or de-energized.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings28:08

       Speaking of more energized, I spoke to Alfred Lin, a mutual friend, before the show, and he said one of the special things about Hadi is the speed, uh, with which he works. He said specifically, "Hadi moves with lightning speed." Uh, how do you think about the importance of speed of execution and, I guess, how do you think about the balance between moving insanely fast and when actually it's better to go slow and get it perfect?

    3. HPHadi Partovi28:34

       Uh, this is a good question and I'm, I gotta say, I'm not the best at going slow to go far. I'm far better at going fast to get something from zero to one. Uh, the thing that for me, the speed that is most important to me is the speed of decision-making and, you know, making decisions when you have 60% of the information to make a decision. Uh, especially with decisions that aren't one-way doors, decisions where you can do it and then if you got it wrong, you make adjustment, and if you got that wrong again, you, you can make another adjustment. Uh, I, I saw this in the difference between, um, working at TellMe, the startup I started, and then I returned to Microsoft and to the MSM group where it was this giant organization and we were having meetings to prepare the slides for another meeting. And (laughs) I was in a meeting to prepare for a meeting and I'm like, "Why are we meeting to prepare for the meeting? Let's just do the next, let's do the meeting instead of..." (laughs) like, I don't even understand what, why, why we're meeting to prepare for another meeting. Let's just have that conversation now and save all this time. Uh, and I immediately said, "From now on, there will be no meetings to prepare for meetings." Uh, I just said-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings29:41

       Hadi, that is outrageous. How could you? Uh-

    5. HPHadi Partovi29:44

       (laughs)

    6. HSHarry Stebbings29:45

       ... terrible.

    7. HPHadi Partovi29:46

       Yeah.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings29:46

       And, and so, okay.

    9. HPHadi Partovi29:48

       Yeah. So for me, the most important thing about speed is making decisions quickly and having a sense that if an idea is really good, we're just gonna do it. Uh, the, a predisposition to action rather than too much planning. Uh, uh, but this doesn't work in all circumstances. You know, this works well if you're small, the Facebook, and you move fast and break things. You know, this idea of, uh, shoot first, aim later. Uh, that works well when the consequences are smaller or when you can undo the mistakes 'cause then you correct them. It doesn't work when you're running a multi-billion dollar company and things like global democracy are impacted by your actions. So, uh, the larger you get, the greater your impacts, the more you need to take things slower, and that balance is something that I'm

11. 30:38 – 33:22

    Hadi’s Decision Making Framework

    1. HPHadi Partovi30:38

       s- myself-... uh, learning as I get older myself.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings30:41

       As a leader today, how do you assess your own decision-making frameworks?

    3. HPHadi Partovi30:45

       So, one of the things I've been doing at code.org is to actually put into writing what I think is the thought process I go through so that I can pass down the framework I use rather than making a decision, you know. Because I realized we were in a situation where people on my team were judging, you know, their decisions by saying, by trying to predict what Hadi would want. You know what I mean? Which is common in organizations where you, you're trying to guess what is the CEO gonna want so you don't end up with a disappointing situation where he decides something else. And I've tried to figure out how to delegate the decision, but also with it, delegate the framework I use. And so in fact, I made a 10-page document laying out the different things I balance when I make a decision, and then I have my leadership team play act five or six sample scenarios to see the conversations they would have when discussing, "Should we do this or should we do that?" Uh, to make sure the discussion would h- they'd have used the same framework as me. And that doesn't mean they'll make the same decision as me, but as long as they're using the same framework, and as long as they're balancing, and as long as we're playing on the same field with the same idea of what a, scoring a goal is and what is a foul, uh, at least... They might come up with a different way to score a goal, but we have an agreement on the high-level framework.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings32:00

       What are the core principles that make up that framework?

    5. HPHadi Partovi32:04

       Um, well, these are specific to the business of code.org, uh, but one of them is aiming for the long term, doing what's right for the long term, not just the short term.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings32:15

       Mm-hmm.

    7. HPHadi Partovi32:15

       Another one is, uh, paying attention to return on investment because there's multiple things we could do that do good, and we're a nonprofit, but did... How much good did we do and how much did it cost us? Not most... Many nonprofits don't measure that. And so I've put in place, for example, if we're impacting students at the high school level, the cost for teaching computer science to students should add up to roughly $10, 10 to 20 bucks, not hundreds or thousands of dollars. So for example, if you ask the question, should we give scholarships to students? Uh, then I would say, w- you know, unless it's a $10 scholarship, no, because the amount of the money being spent, it does good, but it doesn't do enough good. This concept of return on investment, uh, is one of the important parts of my framework. Um, a third one is envisioning the ecosystem of partners and where it should be so we don't need to do everything ourselves. Figuring out what are the pieces we uniquely can do so that others can do the rest of what needs to get done. Um, there's multiple parts of this (laughs) . It's like a 10-page document. I can't summarize it quickly. Uh-

    8. HSHarry Stebbings33:21

       No,

12. 33:22 – 39:42

    Biggest Decisions in Hadi’s Life

    1. HSHarry Stebbings33:22

       I- I- I love that, and so few people codeify it in such a way. Can I ask, Hadi, when you think about one of the most seismic decisions you've made that sticks with you, it could be good or it could be bad. Can you take me to that and how it impacted your decision-making as a result?

    2. HPHadi Partovi33:39

       I think there are two seismic decisions I've made in my career and life. Uh, the biggest one was the decision that I wanted to take a backseat from the corporate rat race, that I didn't want to aim to be the wealthiest I could be, but that I actually wanted to optimize my impact. Uh, this was, I was about 40 years old. I hadn't yet started code.org. I didn't even know what arena I wanted to- to have social impact, but I decided I'm not gonna be the wealthiest, and if I'm not gonna be the wealthiest, whether I'm second or third or fourth or 100th or whatever (laughs) , everybody who's measuring their value based on money is behind somebody else, and it really doesn't matter. You can't take it with you. We grow up in life being told that you can't take it with you. That doesn't mean I don't care about material things, but I wanted something else that really drives me. Uh, and so I made this very deliberate decision to say, "I'm gonna first and foremost measure my self-worth in my own eyes based on my societal impact." Uh, and that drove me, uh, to not, you know, go into a, like, get recruited to be CEO of a new startup, and the next company I started, code.org, was a nonprofit rather than a for-profit. And whether it's for-profit or not wasn't important. What was- mattered to me is how much impact does it have.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings35:00

       Ego-wise, everyone does it for ego really in many ways, not everyone, but 90% of people, whether it's the money, whether it's the badge that they represent. Do you just not have an ego? How-

    4. HPHadi Partovi35:12

       I definitely have an ego. That's such a good question. Um-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings35:16

       Well, no, I'm just saying, like, no offense. You were like, "No, everyone's running on these fucking treadmills. I'm gonna go off to the side and not play this game." And I'm like, "Wh- why?" (laughs) you know?

    6. HPHadi Partovi35:27

       I definitely have an ego, and it constantly nags at me. Um, but what's important to recognize is the difference between your own self-worth versus what other people value. And so many people measure themselves through the eyes of other people, and then lose sight of measuring themselves through their own eyes. You know what I mean? And y- the... It's an important skill to learn that your own self-measurement of yourself is more important. If everybody else thinks he's doing something not as good, but you think what I'm doing is really, really good, that's more important than if everybody's like, "Oh, he's very wealthy, good for him," and inside you feel like shit. That's no good. And-

    7. HSHarry Stebbings36:10

       Do you not think, do you not think we're socially ingrained or indoctrinated with wealth, title, looks, physique as, like, the status symbols of self-worth so early?

    8. HPHadi Partovi36:23

       Absolutely.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings36:24

       But that's all we know though. I didn't... Like, I don't think we know what our s- own self-worth is compared to what other people view us.

    10. HPHadi Partovi36:33

        Agreed. Th- that is why I said this was the most seismic decision for me. It was this recognizing that American society is such a consumerist society, and fame, followers, and dollars...... fancy cars, fancy clothes. These are the things that symbolize who's doing the best in everybody else's eyes, and I made this proactive decision that that's not the most important thing for me, and I don't wanna, I, I don't wanna measure myself first and foremost. I don't wanna play that game. Uh, and it bums me out when I see people who I consider my peers much wealthier and getting a level of attention, and I think, "Oh, I coulda done the same thing."

    11. HSHarry Stebbings37:13

        Do you?

    12. HPHadi Partovi37:13

        And then I tell myself... Uh, I do. I don't, I don't mean to suggest... I'm-

    13. HSHarry Stebbings37:17

        No.

    14. HPHadi Partovi37:18

        Just because I made that decision doesn't mean... I, I'm not walking back from that decision. I don't have any regrets, but it was a proactive decision to basically say, "Whatever insecure demons I have, I'm gonna recognize those as insecure demons. I'm not gonna feed them by, by orienting my life around feeding them." But they still exist.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings37:38

        Respectfully, do you think it's so much easier that you have money, that you were very successful before? You can be like, "Oh, now I can do this but and still live a really nice life?"

    16. HPHadi Partovi37:49

        For sure.

    17. HSHarry Stebbings37:50

        Yeah.

    18. HPHadi Partovi37:51

        Uh, I reached a level of wealth where I decided the material things I could spend more money on to get aren't as important to me. Uh, you know, if I was still, (laughs) you know, worrying about paying rent and wishing I had a, you know, nicer house, I probably would still be on the, on the financial treadmill. But, you know, many of my friends, many of the folks that you interviewed are wealthier than I am, and I don't spend my days thinking, "How do I get just as much money as they do?" Uh, I spend much more time thinking, "How do I get the, the computer science impa- impact of Code.org to one billion students?" Because I know if I had double the money, I'd spend the extra money on Code.org to have that, that societal impact.

    19. HSHarry Stebbings38:33

        Did you feel a mental relief when you accepted the insecurities and then took a step aside?

    20. HPHadi Partovi38:41

        A little, but honestly, there was a period of fear from the point of saying, "I'm gonna step aside," before I was successful at social impact, because when I started the work of Code.org and the world of societal impact, we were nothing. So there was this period of, "What if that screws up? What if I've stepped off of this rat race and it was just kind of a, a mediocre, meh, like, 'Oh, great, you did some cool thing, but nobody cares'"? You know?

    21. HSHarry Stebbings39:09

        Mm-hmm.

    22. HPHadi Partovi39:10

        The, the true... When you're asking, "Did you feel a real relief?" the true relief came when I realized how incredibly globally impactful Code.org has been, and we've reached the stage where even if the current organization blows up, you know, if I'm hit by a bus and everything that, that is called Code.org disappears, the impact we've already had on hundreds of millions of students and on hundreds of governments, uh, that impact is gonna stay forever. And so the real relief comes from knowing that basically I've already done enough, uh,

13. 39:42 – 45:36

    The Future of Education

    1. HPHadi Partovi39:42

       and nobody can take that away from me.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings39:44

       Okay. So we've spoken about kind of, um, reimagining education. We've spoken about Code.org. We look at society today, and I'm pretty worried (laughs) about the future of education as... and it fits perfectly in with what you do every day. I think generative AI makes life even more challenging when you look at the future of work and skills gaps. How do you think about how we need to rethink school for a future of automation?

    3. HPHadi Partovi40:10

       Um, this is a fantastic question.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings40:13

       It's also a very broad question. (laughs) That's like-

    5. HPHadi Partovi40:15

       So there's so many people who have opinions on education. Uh, I've spent now 10 years in the world of what, what you could call modernizing education, and the first thing I'd say is almost everybody else who thinks about the world of education thinks about how to teach better rather than questioning what to teach, and, uh, the world is changing so quickly that teaching the same things that we taught 100 years ago no longer makes sense. A student starting kindergarten today is gonna begin their career in the late 2030s. At that point, is speaking foreign languages gonna be relevant when your AirPods automatically translate the words that somebody else says to you or when your AR glasses can translate the words that you see on a s- on a screen? Uh, is... How much math will you need to learn at a time when to the- even today, your iPhone can scan an algebra problem and give you the answer, (laughs) including the explanation and showing you the work? Uh, how much writing will you need to do when today you can have your college essay written by an AI for you? Uh, and I'm not saying we shouldn't teeth ma- teach math or we shouldn't teach English or that we shouldn't teach foreign languages, but I do think we should start from a blank slate and question, "What are the skills that kids are gonna most need in the late 2030s?" Start from a bra- a blank slate rather than from the curriculum that has been handed down year over year, and then add to that blank slate.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings41:44

       But is that not gambling children's educations on the future of how we perceive society will be? I mean, like, let's be honest, Hadi. I've got no fucking idea where late 2030s will be. I mean, generative AI could be at a place where actually it's not that far from where we are now. It could be at a place where you're totally right and I can't see what, what we would teach. (laughs) So, like-

    7. HPHadi Partovi42:05

       There's a-

    8. HSHarry Stebbings42:06

       ... it's a bet.

    9. HPHadi Partovi42:07

       Everything we do is a bet. Not acting is also a different bet. And so we have been betting on inaction. We've been betting on non-change in terms of our curriculum while the world is changing at the fastest pace ever, and not changing what we teach is its own different gamble. Uh, and now, I'm not saying we shouldn't teach kids reading or that we shouldn't teach math. For sure, we should teach those things. Uh, I'm saying we should ask the question of, what should school teach them? M- now, my own life mission is that schools should teach computer science. The reason we should teach computer science is it is an incredibly safe bet that some form of computer science is gonna be not only relevant in the late 2030s, it'll be increasingly more and more relevant because all of the things that are changing the world around us are changes caused by software, uh, whether it's coding, whether it's AI and machine learning, whether it's data science. Uh, these things are changing the world around us. Uh-But there's, besides computer science, there's other things that our school system should emphasize more than it does, whether it's statistics, financial literacy, understanding civics, uh, and preparing people for citizenship. You know, we don't do those things n- w- we don't teach statistics as much as we teach calculus, and that, that seems crazy to me 'cause everybody uses statistics in their daily lives and, and maybe 5% of people use calculus in their daily lives.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings43:35

        Would you homeschool your children?

    11. HPHadi Partovi43:38

        Um, (laughs) I wish I had the time and patience to do it.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings43:41

        (laughs)

    13. HPHadi Partovi43:41

        I've considered it. Certainly during the pandemic, I considered it. Uh, but, you know, another point of view I have as an educator is that the most important act of education is to inspire. Uh, Socrates once said that education isn't the filling of a pail, it's the lighting of a fire. Uh, and so what I do as a parent is I try to... I don't homeschool my kids. I ask them questions or point them in directions to sort of inspire their own curiosity, and then I know that they'll go find their way through, (laughs) through YouTube and the internet to, to learn the things that, you know, that, that I think they're missing in school.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings44:19

        Uh, we mentioned kind of the change of content type. In terms of the change of how it's taught, does that need to be changed as well? I, I know Elon's spoken extensively about his school, which changes how things are taught specifically. Uh, how do you feel about that?

    15. HPHadi Partovi44:35

        Yes. Education needs to both change what we teach and how we teach it. In terms of changing what we teach, we should include computer science, for sure, as well as the other things I mentioned. Uh, in terms of changing how we teach it, school should be more student-driven, curiosity-driven, project-based, creative, uh, and collaborative. If you look at what employers are looking for and what the workforce of today wants, they want problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration. And yet our school system, i- in many classes repeats the sort of, you're gonna listen to a lecture and write notes and then memorize it and then answer questions on a test. Uh, it is way better to say, instead of listening to a lecture, here's a blank canvas. What can you create? Uh, and that relates better to projects-driven... You know, that, that is part of why computer science is a better thing to teach, because it is project-driven, it is c- a collaborative, creative, problem-solving type of thing, whereas, you know, uh,

14. 45:36 – 47:43

    The Role of AI in Coding

    1. HPHadi Partovi45:36

       many other pr- projects in school aren't that way.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings45:39

       Can I... I read, I think it was GitHub's survey that 41% of code today is now generated by AI. What does the future of code look like (laughs) , coming from Code.org founder?

    3. HPHadi Partovi45:52

       That's a really good question. The future of code and the past of code have all had this progressive... it gets easier and easier to code. You know, when my dad started coding, it involved punching little holes in cardboard cards and putting those in a computer, and those holes represented zeros or ones, and then you could type the zeros or ones, and then you could type the machine, you know, the, a f- a f- three letters for each machine code that goes directly onto the CPU. And now today, you have languages that are more like the English language. We're getting closer and closer and closer to giving the computer instructions in a natural language, and then it figures out the underneath code. So every decade, there's a leapfrog in terms of how much easier it is to code. Uh, so generative AI is gonna make it possible to use much higher level commands than today's languages. Uh, and computer science education needs to adapt to that. Uh, it hasn't yet adapted to that. Now, that doesn't mean that we won't need to understand computer science. It means that the level at which you learn to code is gonna be different. Just like if you were teaching coding in the 1970s, you, you would be teaching punching holes in a, (laughs) in a card and ones and zeros, and nobody uses that anymore, and, and we may be at a, at a higher level. Um, but understanding the code is still important. Think if you used generative AI to write an essay, you still need to read that essay. You don't just say, "Please write me a blog post," and then, "Okay, it's done. Ship it." You wanna read it and confirm it's a thing... that the AI did the thing that you wanted, and that's gonna be true for a while too.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings47:34

       Uh, Adi, Adi, clearly you don't, you d- you don't know Gen Zs today. I think they would just put down... say, "It's fine."

    5. HPHadi Partovi47:39

       (laughs) It's good to go. (laughs)

    6. HSHarry Stebbings47:41

       Um, good to go. It's better than I would have done it 'cause

15. 47:43 – 50:07

    Retraining the Workforce for the Future

    1. HSHarry Stebbings47:43

       I wouldn't have done it all, so great. Fantastic. Um, th- we've spoken about kind of like the shaping of, like, children's minds and the next generation's minds. I think the worrying thing for me is actually the reshaping of existing minds in the workforce. Uh, you know, I, I really do believe that, you know, we, we... I think OpenAI today released, uh, incredible new development, um, which is very exciting and very terrifying at the same time, I think. Um, but like, when we think about reshaping existing workforces, how do you think about what needs to happen for the existing workforce to reshape their skills and actions to accommodate a very new economy and technology stack?

    2. HPHadi Partovi48:25

       Uh, well, before I, I answer your question, I wanna say there's one and a half billion students in our education system, and we are shaping their minds as we go. It's important to do what you call the reskilling of the workforce-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings48:40

       Yeah.

    4. HPHadi Partovi48:40

       ... which is another three billion people.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings48:43

       (laughs)

    6. HPHadi Partovi48:43

       Uh, but basically, the, the student force right now is roughly half the size of the workforce, and the... and we are spending the money to educate them. Let's spend that money to educate them on the stuff they're gonna need to know. In terms of reskilling the current workforce, it's hard to know what the jobs of the future are gonna be, but what's very clear is that they're gonna be increasingly digital, increasingly more creative. Uh, and so teaching creativity, problem-solving, and digital skills, especially digital skills, is, is a must. Uh, and there's many efforts being done by the largest tech companies, by Microsoft, by Google, by Amazon, to spread basic digital skills. Uh-At the same time, I also think, you know, automation isn't just gonna destroy jobs, it's gonna change jobs. You know, there's jobs that we have shortages of that suddenly more people will be able to do. So, there's a teachers shortage, there's a nursing shortage. Uh, having more nurses would be great for everybody's healthcare. Uh, there's... So some jobs will go away, which will mean people will be able to fill the jobs that we have, that we struggle to fill today.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings49:49

       Adam Smith's invisible hand. Big believer in it. Totally with you. Uh, listen, Hadi, I wanna move into my favorite. So it's a quick fire. So I say a short statement, uh, 60 seconds you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

    8. HPHadi Partovi50:02

       In 60 seconds per question, or 60 seconds for the whole thing?

    9. HSHarry Stebbings50:05

       No, no, per question. It

16. 50:07 – 51:10

    Quick Fire Round

    1. HSHarry Stebbings50:07

       really would be fast. I mean, crikey.

    2. HPHadi Partovi50:09

       Okay. (laughs)

    3. HSHarry Stebbings50:09

       Um, no, so I'm gonna start with, what's your favorite book and why?

    4. HPHadi Partovi50:13

       My favorite book is Sapiens, and the reason why is because it really changed how I think about the history of humanity and gave me a framework for looking at both the past and the present that I didn't have before.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings50:26

       Are you ever planning to go back into the tech for-profit business from Emil Michael? (laughs)

    6. HPHadi Partovi50:33

       Uh, I'm not planning to go back into the for-profit business, but I wouldn't... I never say never, so, uh, we'll see.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings50:40

       Do you get tempted by cash?

    8. HPHadi Partovi50:43

       I definitely get tempted by cash.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings50:44

       (laughs)

    10. HPHadi Partovi50:44

        Everybody gets tempted by cash.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings50:46

        (laughs) I had to ask it. What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started in startups many years ago?

    12. HPHadi Partovi50:53

        Um, what I wish I knew now is the value of betting on myself, betting bigger. Uh, you know, I started out with too much fear of failure, and I took bets, but I wish e- if every bet I took, I had bet twice as much,

17. 51:10 – 52:10

    Almost Becoming Facebook’s COO

    1. HPHadi Partovi51:10

       uh, I think I would be more successful in every way.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings51:13

       If you look back on a bet you didn't take but wish you had, what one are you like, "Oh, fuck. I wish I'd never done that."

    3. HPHadi Partovi51:20

       (laughs) There are so many of those. Anybody who's had a career in tech has many, many of those. Um, the biggest oh fuck was, uh, Mark Zuckerberg, at a time, was recruiting me to be the COO of Facebook. Uh, this is before he hired Sheryl for the job, uh, and I was in a startup together with my twin brother, and basically I decided out of loyalty to my brother, and we had just raised a round, I can't just quit and join this other company, you know, like, we're co-founders and he's my twin brother (laughs) . Um, but that startup, the startup with my twin brother ended up kind of nowhere. Uh, i- it was basically, uh, a moderate failure. Uh, and being COO of Facebook would have been an incredible success.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings52:04

       I would sell my brother to be COO of Facebook (laughs) .

    5. HPHadi Partovi52:07

       (laughs) It was very clear at the time it was a bad financial

18. 52:10 – 53:29

    Jeff Wilke - Best Board Member

    1. HPHadi Partovi52:10

       choice. It was a, it was a choice for family and loyalty.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings52:13

       Who's the best board member that you've ever worked with and why them?

    3. HPHadi Partovi52:18

       Uh, Jeff Wilke is definitely the best board member. Uh, Jeff Wilke, uh, was the number two at Amazon, uh, before he left a few years ago. He, he was the CEO of Worldwide Consumer at Amazon, so everything they sell, uh, all of the Amazon stores and marketplaces. Uh, but there's a couple things that make him an amazing board member, and he's on my board. He's my vice chair at Code.org. One, first of all, is he is so available. Even when he was running a million-person organization, uh, he would... If I had a question or I needed something, I would, I would text him on a Saturday and he'd be like, "Let's meet at such and such time on Monday (laughs) ," you know? Uh, and I'm like, obviously he has lots of other important things on his schedule. He'd make time for me. Uh, and I thought it was just me, but he makes time for so many people and I don't even know how. The second way is he does what I'm trying to learn to do as a board member, which is teaching through asking questions rather than just giving you the answer. Uh, so, uh, you know, an important role of a board member isn't just to say, "Here's what you should do," but it's to ask questions to, to help, you know, a leadership team come up with that answer and come up with

19. 53:29 – 54:29

    Axon

    1. HPHadi Partovi53:29

       their flavor of that answer.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings53:32

       If you could join any startup today, what would it be and why them?

    3. HPHadi Partovi53:36

       If I could join a company today, this isn't really a startup, but it would be Axon, which is the company I'm on the board of. Uh, Axon's a $10 billion public company, but it still has 100X growth potential, and the reason is, it's not just a company that's reinventing technology or making a lot of money, but Axon is also having incredible societal impact. Axon is basically the, the company that creates technology for law enforcement, like body cameras for police-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings54:05

       Mm-hmm.

    5. HPHadi Partovi54:05

       ... to keep police more accountable, or VR training for police so that they're not scared of running into the mass shooting at a school (laughs) and not standing outside the door. You know, every time you hear about deaths caused by law enforcement or deaths that were caused by lack of law enforcement, you think, "God, our society could be better." And Axon is a technology company that's trying to use technology to, to improve how

20. 54:29 – 57:22

    Why will the next 5-10 years be the best ever?

    1. HPHadi Partovi54:29

       society works. Uh, and it's something I love.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings54:32

       What do you believe that few around you believe?

    3. HPHadi Partovi54:37

       Um, I believe that the next 5 to 10 years are gonna be the best 5 to 10 years for humanity, and I think we, we are surrounded by doom and gloom because our news-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings54:48

       Okay, why? Wh- wh- what are you smoking, Hadi? I'll take some of this. Why? Why (laughs) is it gonna be so good?

    5. HPHadi Partovi54:53

       I would start by saying our... The news we spread, which therefore becomes the news we read, is the worst stuff. That doesn't mean the world is so terrible around us. Poverty is at its lowest. Wars, despite the war in Ukraine or the war in Yemen, is at its lowest. If you look at most of the measures of prosperity, they've gotten better and better every year for decades. And so we're already the best we've ever been, despite all the terrible news. But when you open social media, the news that gets clicks, the news that gets liked and retweeted, is the terrible news. So, Code.org has taught hundreds of millions of students computer science. That's not spreading on Facebook nearly as much as Sam Bankman-Fried losing billions of dollars. But if you add up the good and the bad news, the total has been a story of great prosperity for the human race.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings55:45

       Well, the truth is, humans are inherently bored.... beings. And actually, crisis and disaster is entertainment-

    7. HPHadi Partovi55:54

       Yes.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings55:54

       ... of some sort. Do you know what I mean? It is fulfilling, not happiness-wise, but it fills time and discussion in an otherwise monotonous and boring life (laughs) .

    9. HPHadi Partovi56:05

       It is, it is way more... When you read a terrible story, you're much more driven to retweet it 'cause, "Did you hear this incredible story?" This schadenfreude of this terrible guy who destroyed so many people's lives, you know, or did, did Elizabeth Holmes get sentenced, et cetera. That's the news you wanna retweet, that's the news you hear, so it makes you feel like the world is a terrible place. Uh, so the thing I believe that nobody else does is that the world is actually getting much better. And 10 years from now, it'll be even more so.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings56:33

        What does great fatherhood mean to you, Hadi?

    11. HPHadi Partovi56:37

        Oh my gosh, uh, you know, my father is one of the most important figures in my life, uh...

    12. HSHarry Stebbings56:42

        Mm-hmm.

    13. HPHadi Partovi56:43

        The most important role, I think, of a father is to set a good example for your children. Uh, it's not measured in how many hours you spend but in the quality of those hours. Uh, and the other thing is making sure your kids know they, that you love them truly, that you accept them. 'Cause so many kids feel dis, th, th, their father's disappointment as this stress that they're trying to resolve tens of years later in their lives. Uh, and instead just knowing that, nope, that... I'd rather my kids deal with their own self-disappointments rather than worrying about what I, what I think.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings57:15

        Do you tell your children that you love them often?

    15. HPHadi Partovi57:18

        All the time.

    16. HSHarry Stebbings57:19

        Ah, lovely. I like that. I should start

21. 57:22 – 58:18

    The Next Five Years for Hadi and Code.org

    1. HSHarry Stebbings57:22

       a parenting show, too. Uh, brought to you by Nordstrom! Um, a final one, my friend. Uh, next five years for you, and what's the plan ahead?

    2. HPHadi Partovi57:30

       Well, right now, my time is split mostly on Code.org, and then also on the two boards that I serve on, Mountain and on, on Axon. Uh, what's most important for me in the next five years is the work of Code.org getting computer science to being a requirement for high school graduation in US schools. There's, there's five states in the US that require every student must learn computer science to graduate high school. Uh, five years from now, I hope that it's gonna be 25 states and that we've, we've tipped the, the point that, you know, the majority of states, uh, have this requirement, and then we'll get to the point where the ones that don't feel on the outs.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings58:07

       Hadi, I absolutely loved this conversation. Thank you so much for putting up with my very, very direct (laughs) questions.

    4. HPHadi Partovi58:13

       (laughs)

    5. HSHarry Stebbings58:13

       Um, you've been a fantastic guest.

    6. HPHadi Partovi58:16

       Thank you so much.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings58:17

       You are a star, my friend.

Episode duration: 58:18