#10 - Office Hours with Ali Rowghani

**Craig Cannon** (0:00)
Hey, this is Craig Cannon, and you're listening to Y Combinator's Podcast. Today's episode is our second edition of Office Hours, and this time we're joined by Ali Rowghani, who's the CEO of YC Continuity. Before YC, Ali was COO at Twitter and CFO at Pixar. Because Ali invests in growth stage companies, today's Office Hours feature questions from growth stage founders. All right, here we go.
How's it going?

**Ali Rowghani** (0:24)
Terrific, thanks for having me.

**Craig Cannon** (0:25)
No problem. So the first couple of questions are just mine.
I wanted to ask you about your background. So the first one is, how'd you get a job at Pixar?

**Ali Rowghani** (0:36)
It's actually an interesting story. The short version is, when I was in school, I started researching. First of all, I loved the Pixar movies. I loved the product. And I loved it because I felt it was unique in that it was entertaining both for kids and for adults. And so there was an appeal that crossed generations with the Pixar films, and I didn't really see that anywhere else in children's entertainment at that quality. So after sort of falling in love with the films, I started doing some research on the company, and I discovered like, wow, I really believe this company's story. I believe what they're trying to do. I think this is gonna be a big business that they can kind of defend and continue to innovate on.
And after I'd done that research, I wrote a blind letter, believe it or not, to the woman who was the CFO of Pixar at the time. I went on their website. She was the only person who had a kind of a business background, and I wrote her a blind letter to ask for an internship. And then I followed up with her a week or so later.
And unfortunately, she was going on maternity leave, her assistant told me. But she said that she'd read my letter, and she asked me to come in to interview. And I sort of went in and talked, and talked myself into an internship there, and then that became what was the beginning.

**Craig Cannon** (1:53)
Was that your first job?

**Ali Rowghani** (1:55)
It wasn't my first job. I was at business school at the time, and I'd worked for a few years beforehand.
But I would say it was my first, it was certainly my first post-business school job, and it was my first kind of career job, meaning the first place I'd worked that I could imagine spending a long, long time.

**Craig Cannon** (2:12)
And how long did you end up spending there?

**Ali Rowghani** (2:13)
I spent almost 10 years there, believe it or not.

**Craig Cannon** (2:17)
So just for my context, what movie to what movie is that, roughly?

**Ali Rowghani** (2:21)
Yeah, good question. I think about it the same way. So I joined as they were finishing Monsters, Inc. which they released in 2001 And I left in early 2010 when they had finished Toy Story 3 So in order, I was there when they made Monsters, Inc.
Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, and Toy Story 3

**Craig Cannon** (2:50)
I was gonna say Glory Days, but I feel like everything is Glory Days at Pixar. It's one home run after the next.

**Ali Rowghani** (2:55)
It was certainly a great period of time. It was a wonderful environment to work in, wonderful company to be associated with, and part of me feels like I always work there.

**Craig Cannon** (3:05)
Yeah, you're definitely a proud Pixar employee. And so then how did you go about transitioning to Twitter?

**Ali Rowghani** (3:11)
Well, I got a call from Headhunter. I had a friend who worked at Twitter, and she had submitted my name to the Headhunter. And he called me out of the blue, and he asked me if I'd be interested, and I said no. And he was persistent, and he sent me the job description and so on. And it's a funny story. I spoke to my brother, who was an investor, and I said, hey, I have the opportunity to interview for a position at Twitter, to be their CFO, and I think I'm gonna turn it down.
Would that be a bad idea? And he said, listen, Ali, you're not gonna get the job. Just go talk to them.
So with that vote of brotherly confidence in my abilities, I went confidently into the interview room. But in all honesty, it was kind of the perfect thing to say, because he was right. It's an interesting company. I had nothing to lose. And why was I taking it so seriously, the decision to interview there? And I went in and I really liked the people I met, and sort of one thing led to another. And unexpectedly, they did make an offer, and I ended up accepting.