Cursor’s First Backer: How to Spot Genius Before the Evidence | Ali Partovi from NEO

Ali Partovi (0:00)

The real mistake I made was, I was trying to deceive Steve Jobs. I was intentionally trying to trick him.

SPEAKER_2 (0:05)

You have spent decades building a reputation as someone who finds people before the evidence was obvious. What are the things you're actually looking for?

Ali Partovi (0:15)

The most important trait I'd say, the word I use is magnetism.

SPEAKER_2 (0:19)

I know for a while you would always tell young people they need to learn how to code. You invested in many startups that make coding a lot easier.

Ali Partovi (0:26)

Or not even necessary. It was quite hard to hire for Cursor in the first 18 months.

SPEAKER_2 (0:31)

Why?

Ali Partovi (0:32)

Everyone said, this is just like GitHub Copilot.

SPEAKER_2 (0:35)

Why don't you tell the story?

Ali Partovi (0:36)

Gary and all the other multiple partners of YCE chimed in and ganged up against me. Since then, I have hugged it out with Gary.

SPEAKER_2 (0:48)

I'm so excited to have Ali Partovi here, fellow Persian, founder of NEO, and also co-founder of multiple companies. I like Link Exchange, Sway, code.org, and his roster of investments is insane. It's Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, more recently Kalshi and Cursor.

After diving deep into who you are over the last week, it's clear that you are one of the best in identifying talent before it becomes talent, and then creating an environment that allows that talent to succeed. So I'm very excited to have you here.

Ali Partovi (1:23)

Thank you. What's up, everybody? Great to be here.

SPEAKER_2 (1:25)

It's great to have you.

So you have spent decades in building a reputation as someone who finds people before the evidence was obvious. But I'm sure this was a muscle that had to be developed over time. So I'm curious, like, when you first started thinking of yourself as someone who could identify talent, what is the thing that has changed the most? Maybe a mental model that you don't think is very useful anymore.

Ali Partovi (1:52)

Interesting. So it is true this is something I've been intentional about.

I remember when I was in college, my mom said to me, like, you're surrounded by some of the smartest people ever. And like, besides whatever you're learning in classes, like, build out your network.

And there are people I'm still friends with from college days. Definitely the moment though that I remember when I was a 23-year-old founder, I remember realizing there were some of my role models who had this magic power that I didn't have of evaluating people in a very short period of time. And Mike Moritz from Sequoia specifically was our lead investor. And when we were trying to interview and hire people, in particular people older than ourselves, I was quite intimidated. I was 23 or 24, and this impressive old person who was 28 or 29 was like, oh my gosh, yeah, exactly. Their resume seemed so, I was just intimidated, and they just all seemed like impressive and strong, and I didn't know how to differentiate. And myself and my co-founders would spend hours with these candidates, then Mike Moritz would spend like 10 minutes with them or 15 minutes, and he would have a more opinionated position. And whether he was right or wrong, I was just like, this is impressive that he feels like he's gotten some signal where I had not.

SPEAKER_2 (3:24)

Enjoying the conversation? Got a question? You can ask Ali's Digital Mind, just check the link in the comments or description.

Ali Partovi (3:32)

And there were other folks who clearly had this, what seemed to me like a superpower, and I decided I want to have that superpower because it's the most valuable meta skill you could have.

I think what has changed for me, I don't think I would say that there's any criterion that I've dropped. But what has changed is I think I've tried in the last few years to put words to what I'm looking for, rather than just like a nebulous vibe. Because I say we all essentially make, when we make gut decisions or instinctive decisions, what that means is a form of pattern matching. I say I've been good at that for my whole career. But now that I manage a team and it's more of an institutional effort, I need to have other people be able to do it.

For them to learn from me or me to learn from them, and that means you need to be able to put words on what specific trait, or what it was about somebody. It can't just be instinct. Yeah, it can't just be like, yeah, the vibe was perfect. That works, it's definitely part of it. But if you can communicate what it was about somebody, then the other people can also look for that in different ways. That's definitely for me been less about changing my criteria, but rather trying to communicate and scale.