Iranian-born brothers big names in SIlicone Valley
Like many other Iranian-Americans, Partovi brothers are not that involved in the Persian-American community but according to an article in San Jose Mercury News, Partovi twins have quietly emerged as top Silicon Valley angel investors. Hadi Partovi and his twin brother Ali snapped up early stakes in Dropbox and Facebook. And while they're both still active angel investors, they've gotten increasingly involved in philanthropic work, including founding Code.org. The nonprofit, which encourages kids to learn software development, made a splash last year with a video that featured tech celebrities such as Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Bill Gates.
The following is a select part of the interview by San Jose Mercury News:
Q: Your family fled Iran during the revolution?
HADI: Five years later, in 1984. Our father had co-founded Sharif University, the top tech university in the Middle East. Advertisement
ALI: And our mom actually had been a computer scientist who had studied at Boston University, but in post-revolution Iran she had to give up her career. It was a hard place to be; we lived close to the main TV station, so every other evening there'd be bombing attacks, and we were in the basement holding our ears.
HADI: Then when we got to the States, our family had to split up, because Dad got a job at MIT and our mom wanted us to stay close to family in Tarrytown, N.Y. Our parents worked three different jobs in two different cities to stay afloat.
Q: You both ended up at Harvard and majored in computer science. Ali, how'd you come to start LinkExchange in 1996?
ALI: I was 23, a year and a half out of school. Tony and Hadi had been on the computer programming team in college, which I thought was too nerdy. Then Tony tried to get Hadi to join his startup, and Hadi at the time had a high-profile position as part of Microsoft's top team for Internet strategy. He said, "I can't leave, but here's my brother."
Q: And after LinkExchange was bought in 1998, Hadi left Microsoft to start Tellme. Did he want to emulate your success?
ALI: We consciously viewed our careers as helping each other; I think we were both motivated by wanting to take care of our parents. Hadi was in a safe job, so I could do a very risky venture. And then once LinkExchange was acquired, I stayed at Microsoft while he went to do his venture.
Q: Was it coincidence that both companies were sold to Microsoft?
HADI: When I was certain that Netscape was going to buy LinkExchange, I went right to (Microsoft president) Steve Ballmer and said, "I haven't talked to you about my brother's company before, but they're about to get acquired, and I've spent the last five years competing with Netscape." Then, after the Tellme acquisition (in 2007), somebody on the Microsoft board told Ballmer, "Next time you talk with Hadi, don't take your wallet."
Link to the complete Interview.
Five things about the Partovi twins:
They're avid musicians and grew up playing piano duets together.Ali enjoys rock climbing at a gym every week; Hadi has climbed Mount Rainier. Ali's youngest child is the same age as Hadi's oldest. The twins drive matching, colorful VW Beetles that are replicas of the "shagadelic" Austin Powers Bug.
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»This is a summary of the original feature in Farsi. To request a more extensive translation of the Farsi text, please contact us.
