Hadi Partovi
@hadip
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Founder #HourOfCode, CEO @Codeorg. Early investor: FB, Dropbox, airbnb, Uber, SpaceX. Board of Directors: Axon.
Joined March 2008
As I watch the Afghan evacuations, I remember being left behind in Iran in 1979, when everybody I knew fled the country at a time of revolution and war. My twin brother and I were 6 years old. This is the story of what happened after everybody left:.
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Median pay in tech jobs:. Snap: $327,710.Google (Alphabet): $295,884.Facebook (Meta): $292,785. All the more reason for public schools to teach computer science so that underserved populations have a chance at these jobs.
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25 years ago Microsoft released Internet Explorer 3.0, its first real salvo in the “Browser Wars”. This launch taught taught me how a giant corporation could move at the speed of a startup. Here’s the story:
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As the world watches the same old story unfold in Afghanistan, I hope we can all remind ourselves of the immeasurable costs of war, not just in lives destroyed, but in the opportunity that is taken away from children everywhere.
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As I think about the children in today’s Afghanistan, I wonder how many millions will go through the same experience and mine, and I wonder if any of them will have a chance to realize their full potential. Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.
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Today in Vatican City, Pope Francis joined 3 young women to contribute a line of code to an app, became the first Pope to program a computer, and called on students globally to learn computer science for world peace.
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Early on, I learned a critical rule about execution. My boss, Chris Jones, told me: “There’s 3 ways to handle work assigned to you. If you say you’ll do it, do it. If you say you can’t, that’s ok. But if you sign up for work and drop the ball, the team fails. Learn to say no.”.
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My family fled a war to come to the US after the Iran hostage crisis when I was 11. I remember being bullied to “go home.” Had we “gone home,” I may not have survived the war. And I wouldn’t have started @codeorg, which has helped hundreds of millions of students globally.
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Nonviolent protest in Bellevue Sq, Washington. Minutes later the national guard drove up and police shot tear gas into the crowd. #ICantBreathe
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2020 annual streaming price:. Netflix $108.Hulu $72.Youtube Red $120.Disney $84.Harvard $50,420.
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My Dad brought home a computer, and with his help my brother and I taught ourselves to code. Decades later, this inspired me to start @codeorg, because not every child has a father who is a physicist and a mother who is a computer scientist. Every child deserves opportunity.
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We’re so excited to announce the launch of in Farsi, to inspire the next generation of Iranian innovators. با افتخار اعلام میکنیم که نسخه فارسی کد دات ارگ راهاندازی شد تا نسل آینده نوآوران ایرانی را الهام بخشد. #codeorgfarsi #کد_ارگ_فارسی
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I’ve always been proud to be an Iranian American immigrant. But to follow Stanford’s new language standards, I would need to call myself an “Iranian US-citizen person-who-immigrated.” . This seems awfully wrong. (Thread).
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To my Farsi-speaking friends — at we’ve begun creating in Farsi, to help Iranian children globally learn computer science in their native language. We can impact 15 million children, but a critical piece will be to spread the word
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A year later, Iraq invaded Iran, starting a bloody war. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was backed by the US, and he used American chemical weapons against Iranians. How ironic that the US would later invade Iraq, accusing Saddam of keeping the same chemical weapons it once supplied.
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What was weird is that Iran’s Revolution was driven by its people. They had overthrown a US-imposed monarchy, to get rid of the Shah. But, as often happens in history, the people who overthrew the bad guys became the new bad guys.
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We were required to pray in school. I learned Arabic and the Islamic prayer. I learned from books that Islam upholds the same standards of nonviolence as every other religion; and I learned from experience that religion is used by governments to justify the worst acts of man.
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As an Iranian American immigrant, I’ve lived the American dream — starting poor, going to the best schools, studying computer science, starting or investing in successful companies, and now running a nonprofit to help schools and students.
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@IvankaTrump @BradSmi @codeorg @Microsoft Thank you for backing computer science in schools, the most bipartisan idea of today. In divided times, 90% of Americans agree it helps kids.
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Soon after, all our school books were changed. I didn’t understand why, but I remember thinking it was weird that we suddenly needed to learn a different history and culture. History is written by the victors, as wars move from the battlefield to the classroom.
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Inspiring immigrant story of Fuzzy Khosrowshahi (my uncle). He started selling insurance, then ran a sandwich shop, then taught himself to code, and became the inventor and founder of Google Spreadsheets. He's now VP of Product Engineering at Slack.
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Big win for students! Thank you @usedgov for prioritizing CS. And thanks for tireless advocacy of @cameronpwilson, @bradsmi; support from orgs like @Microsoft, @Amazon, @Google, @csteachersorg; administration support of @IvankaTrump, Julie Radford, Ebony Lee; and many others.
Responding to calls from the White House and from the public, U.S. Dept of Education prioritizes funding for computer science. This is a great victory for K-12 computer science. Thank you to all @codeorg supporters and partners.
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In 1980s Iran, I lived in the ultimate extension of “cancel culture”: political incorrectness or vocal criticism of anybody in power could get you arrested and lead to torture or death.
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For the next 5 years, I spent over 1,000 nights of my childhood that way, hiding in the basement holding my ears while Iraq was bombing Iran with US-supplied weapons.
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Sadly, there were divorces and broken families and bad things that came out of that. But I also learned that even at a 20,000-person company, you can get a team of 100 people to work like their lives depend on it.
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This Thanksgiving, I’m especially thankful for teachers — for doing the most important job in our society.
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I was permanently scared of saying anything that could be taken the wrong way. Even being indoors wasn’t safe. My parents would say “the walls have mice, and mice have ears.” I learned to keep my mouth shut and my head down.
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Every morning we would chant “death to America” for 20 minutes. While I shouted at the top of my voice, I secretly knew it was brainwashing, and I wished I could one day be safe and join the rest of my family in America. I feared for my life that my teachers would find out.
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My father taught at what is now Sharif University. He was the founding professor and chaired the Physics department. When our extended family had fled Iran, he had chosen to stay, to help protect the education system from revolution and ultimately war.
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I lived a block away from Pahlavi avenue in Tehran, one of the largest streets where the crowds of the revolution began. My parents told us to stay indoors. There was a lot of shouting and loud noise. I was too young to realize my life was about to turn upside down.
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This wasn’t just about hijab. If you criticized the government or the Revolution, you could be “disappeared”. My dad’s best friend was seized on the street and jailed for no reason. A year later, he was released — they had arrested him by mistake. Others weren’t so lucky.
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Sadly for me, Microsoft broke up the IE team because it thought “we won.” As Andy Grove once said, only the paranoid survive. And Microsoft had stopped being paranoid. Years later, Internet Explorer would plummet in marketshare and become a sad joke among Web developers.
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Six years after the Revolution, we finally left Iran. It took years to get Iran’s permission to leave, and it was even harder to enter the US. When we tried to stay in the US we were deported, but we were eventually accepted back, and began the next chapter of our lives.
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The streets of Tehran were patrolled by the Revolutionary Guard: 20-year-olds with machine guns who would beat, whip, or “disappear” women who didn’t wear proper Islamic hijab. Anytime a police car would pass us in the streets, my mom’s hand would tighten around mine.
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My parents didn’t own any rock music, but they had lots of Western books. My twin brother and I knew English, so we read every book we could find at home, including Shakespeare, Dickens, or even the encyclopedia. We wanted to learn what we were missing in school.
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Btw, on the team at @codeorg 62% are women. The leadership: 55% women. Our tech staff: 51% women, .Our extended team of facilitators: 66% women. Our teachers: 86% women. Our work wouldn't be possible without these amazing women. #WomensHistoryMonth.
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Iran’s new Islamic leaders seized all the family property. My grandparents and their siblings had lived in beautiful homes built on their hard work. Now those homes housed the Islamic clergy.
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My mother had studied computer science and worked as a systems analyst, but she quit her career and stayed home to focus on my brother and I. Even the simplest things became difficult. Even to buy milk we would wait in line for hours for our weekly allotment.
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I came from a family of entrepreneurs who had built one of Iran’s largest industrial businesses. My entire extended family fled, leaving everything behind when they heard about people being executed in the name of the Revolution. Countless Iranians left at the same time.
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Iran’s youth-led Revolutionary Guard set up checkpoints on major highways and traffic intersections. They would search every car to find anything anti-Revolutionary — such as cassette tapes with rock music. Everything Western was illegal, including music and movies.
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My school turned into an anti-US propaganda machine. The entrance of our school had an American flag on the ground, so that every student would step on the flag as we walked in.
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Fun fact: the word “algorithm” is named after its inventor, Persian (Iranian) mathematician Al Khwarizmi, who lived 1300 years ago. He is also the father of algebra (named after his book Al Jabr) and popularized the number system we all use today.
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My interview on @FoxNews, addressing @LindseyGrahamSC joking how “terrible” it would be if he turned out to be part Iranian. I spoke not only for Iranians but also for the 1M teachers on @codeorg who want better role models for students.
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During the bombings, we’d take candles to the basement and hold our ears for hours, hoping our home would be spared. The next morning, my dad would climb to the roof to survey the damage in our neighborhood.
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We lived near Tehran’s TV station, a primary target in the war. At night we’d hear the “red siren” warning that Iraqi bomber planes were coming. All of Tehran’s electricity would shut down to turn off all the lights, making it harder for the bombs to find their target.
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The Internet Explorer team was the hardest-working team I’ve ever been on. And I’ve worked at multiple start-ups. It was a sprint, not a marathon. We ate every meal at the office. We often held foosball tournaments at 2 am, just to get the team energy back up to continue working!.
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@nima @Twitter @omidkordestani @jack @TwitterSupport Just saw this. Will get the message to the right person. 🙏.
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Hey @LindseyGrahamSC why is it “terrible” to be Iranian? Some of the greatest businesspeople, scientists, athletes, and leaders in America are of Iranian descent. By calling us terrible you insult everything that makes America great.
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Coding is dead. Long love coding!. Rise of ChatGPT, Generative AI, and “no code” platforms has caused some to question the long term demand for coders and software engineers. In many ways this is a story as old as time… (thread).
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People work hardest when they love their team and truly love what they do, and we did.
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I was proud to accept the Ellis Island Medal of Honor tonight on behalf of our team’s work at @codeorg. As an immigrant, I’m lucky to have had a chance to give back to the country that welcomed my family with open arms 34 years ago when we escaped the brutal Iran/Iraq war.
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I spent the last 2 hours signing letters of recognition to @codeorg champions of diversity: classroom teachers teaching computer science for the first time who helped break records in participation in CS, especially among young women and students of color. #HourOfCode #CSforAll
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Learn how ChatGPT works, in 7 mins, from the person who built it!. I am so proud to share this video. We spent weeks fretting over every detail to make a video fit for all ages. Starring @miramurati from OpenAI and @c_valenzuelab from Runway, this is the best way to grasp how
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Schools banning ChatGPT? Instead of banning technology, here’s an example of how schools can adjust to the reality of generative AI. Consider a high school history class, and a typical assignment: to read a history book, and write an essay… (thread).
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Stayed up until 2:45am Friday night to prep for #HourOfCode. I think this will be our biggest year yet. 600M served. Help us reach 1B.
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I also learned the value of motivation. Bill Gates wrote a memo to all of Microsoft, saying the Internet Explorer project is critical and asking every team to reorient their work to help us. Our inboxes exploded, but it made us feel important, and we worked even harder.
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Growing up, I watched the chilling effect of policing speech. During Iran’s Islamic Revolution, the morality police would brutally punish all speech critical of the Revolution. The same occurred during China’s Cultural Revolution, and has repeated throughout history.
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Must watch: An Iranian woman peacefully removes her hijab in protest, approaches the police with her arms open, and is beaten up. Iran has now killed 57 protesters and imprisoned 1200. Enough is enough. #MahsaAmini.
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With schools closing for the year and working families stuck without childcare, let us teach your children computer science. My team and I will host a weekly Code Break, an interactive webcast to engage all students, even those without computers. #CSforGood.
Today @Codeorg is launching Code Break: a live weekly webcast where our team will teach students computer science at home while school is closed, and a weekly challenge for students of all abilities, even those without computers! Starts March 25.
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🤯 Human brain cells grown in a petri dish learn to play pong faster than computer AI. This raises such interesting questions. Like, could datacenters one day use living human brain tissue to accelerate AI and machine learning?
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To motivate us more, I plastered the hallways with quotes from Netscape’s founder, Marc Andreessen: “Netscape will soon reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of device drivers.” It reminded us that this new startup threatened to destroy all of Microsoft.
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Democracy cannot survive in a world of misinformation. If you love democracy, invest in education.
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A first in computer science at global scale.
For the first time ever, the #HourOfCode saw 50:50 balanced gender participation in computer science! This is an amazing achievement. Read more here ➡️
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It took Netflix 3.5 years to hit 1 million users. It took Twitter 24 months. It took Pinterest 20 months. It took Facebook 10 months. It took Spotify 5 months. It took Instagram 2.5 months. It took ChatGPT 5 days. It took #HourOfCode 1 day. The power of classroom teachers. 💪.
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Chile on the left, Lebanon on the right. I wish Western media spent more time covering how in both countries millions of people are marching for reform in their governments.
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It's online: @60Minutes on @codeorg! The feature showcases the work of so many amazing educators whose passion and drive powers the movement to teach computer science in every school, for every child. So proud and thankful.
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Can teachers without a CS background teach computer science? Yes, and here are the test results.
#ThursdayThoughts: Hey teachers, have you been thinking about teaching CS? Go for it! Teachers from all backgrounds make great CS teachers. Sign up for one of our Professional Learning programs to get started 👉
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I didn’t have the heart to watch the slow death of my baby. I left Microsoft in 1999 and joined my former competitors from Netscape to start a startup together, Tellme Networks. I finally had a chance to apply all the lessons I had learned at Microsoft.
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Instead of banning AI in education, schools should teach about AI, how it works, and how to use it as an amplifier of human potential. If we ban students from using computers, the Internet, or AI, what future career are we preparing them for?
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When IE3 launched 25 years ago, it didn’t win the browser war, but it made a serious dent, and Netscape began to worry. Two years later we shipped IE5, which became the dominant web browser of its time.
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Home-schooling parents all around the world are learning just how hard it is to be a teacher and to keep students engaged. We don't thank teachers enough. Please share this (or write your own note) to appreciate teachers for all they do. 🤓.
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A great primer on “what is machine learning” for non-computer scientists, by MIT.
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Instead of hiring too fast, we kept a super-high bar for talent, betting that everybody would want to work for this new exclusive team at Microsoft that was so hard to get into. It worked.
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When you watch Rings of Power, as you watch @NazaninBoniadi’s character Bronwyn lead the defense against the dark army, remember the women in Iran who are *currently* standing up to an Islamic regime that has now arrested or even killed over 1,000 protestors.
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What’s ironic is to see the rise of forbidden language in the USA, where the university system once led the way to protect speech in the pursuit of truth and enlightenment. Now it is leading the opposite.
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Thank you @soh3il for featuring me on your podcast to share my experiences in immigration and entrepreneurship. I hope our conversation plays a small role in inspiring future Iranian entrepreneurs. Podcast linktree:
من دیگه اجازه بدید توضیح ندم. EP 142 - Hadi Partovi - سرمایهگذاری در فیسبوک و هدایت پروژه اینترنت اکسپلورر در مایکروسافت. @hadip @codeorg @codeorgfarsi .
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I had joined the IE team a year earlier, at age 22. The team was only 9 people and trying desperately to grow as quickly as possible. I remember one question I was asked in every interview: “How soon can you start?”.
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Some said it couldn’t be done, some said it wouldn’t be done, but most said it shouldn’t be done. Wake-surfing in 20F weather. #LetItGo #TheColdNeverBotheredMeAnyway
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Bitcoin is up over 50% in the three weeks after being completely banned in China. Did not see that coming. What a testament to the global demand for financial independence from governments and banks.
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With the inspirational 21-year-old Nobel Laureate @Malala at #PluralsightLIVE, talking girls’ education. 🤓
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There’s a misconception that computer science can only be taught on screens. @codeorg has an entire course full of “unplugged” lessons for teaching computational thinking in elementary school.
"Songs and games can be used to teach the basics of computer science to young students in age-appropriate ways—without a screen." #CodeBreaker. Computational Thinking for Kindergartners:.
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I encourage other immigrants and children of immigrants to share their stories. The USA is a nation of immigrants.
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The IE3 team had the highest morale of any team I’ve seen. Decades later this group still gathers as a team and looks back on those years fondly.
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Tech history explains this to be about Microsoft’s Windows monopoly, which surely played a role. But it wouldn’t have been possible if Microsoft didn’t also learn how to work on “Internet time.”.
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Also, I wasn’t the boss then, I was 22. I wasn’t exploited, I chose to work my hardest and loved my managers. As an immigrant who grew up poor and wanted to advance quickly and pay off college debt, it was absolutely what I wanted.
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This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for teachers — for doing the most important job in the world. 🙏❤️🙏.
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For me personally, this was the launch point for my career. I got a chance to learn from the best leaders at Microsoft, such as Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Brad Silverberg.
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If your students (or you) are staying home due to #coronavirus, consider using the extra time to learn computer science. Most schools don't teach CS, and this is a unique opportunity for most students. Some options:.
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Exactly 4 years ago we had the idea for the Hour of Code. 4 years later, 120 cities, 31 states, and over a dozen countries have embraced CS!
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