Hadi Partovi, Founder of Code.Org’ Vision for Tech Education

hey everyone this is Joe Martin I’m

excited to have hotti with me here he is

the excellent founder of code.org and

has a really great resume as well from

lots of uh fun companies that I’ve

always admired uh in the tech space and

I love code.org this is probably one of

my the favorite interviews that I’ve set

up because my kids use it quite a bit in

school and uh I’ve also been a big

promoter of them for a while on social

media so great F we could get some time

with him today and I’m excited to have

you thank you so much and I didn’t

realize your kids are are students of

ours so that’s wonderful to hear

absolutely yeah they they thought it was

pretty cool that I was gonna be talking

you to to you

today so you know I’d love to hear about

just kind of what inspired uh code.org

what led you to um really wanting to put

that effort into uh bringing that to the

masses and and educating the future

Generations

so you know I started learning to code

on my own when I was nine or 10 years

old and I was growing up my life story

is really what inspired the work that I

do because I was born in tahan Iran and

I grew up in Iran during the Islamic

revolution and the the war with Iraq and

through that time basically learning to

code was my escape from the harsh

reality of the life I was living there

and when I came to the United States as

an immigrant it basically was the the

sort of entryway to the world of

opportunity and the American dream and

after 20 years of building a career in

Tech uh you know working at large

companies founding startups investing in

startups what I realized is everybody in

technology is struggling with this

challenge of how to it’s so hard to find

great software talent and meanwhile at a

time of income in equ equality and all

the problems in our world why is it that

the hard the best paying jobs in the

world are the hard hardest to fill you

know um and it’s because education isn’t

teaching the basics of computer science

to every kid and I you know I grew up

with this so for me computer science was

never like this like mysterious thing it

was just something I that was as easy as

anything else you learn in school but

for most adults computer science and

coding feels like black magic and we’re

used to things that we’ve learned like

if You’ ask somebody about red blood

cells or the digestive system or

photosynthesis

they don’t get confused like oh I don’t

do red blood cells you know or I don’t

talk about plants you know I’m not a

biologist um you’re comfortable talking

about those things because you learned

it in Biology class and people should be

just as comfortable speaking and

discussing technology with the level of

knowledge that you can learn in a 10th

grade classroom and the only way to do

that is for every single school to teach

computer science just like it teaches

biology chemistry algebra that you know

the things that we expect everybody to

know the basics of that’s a really great

point it’s something I hadn’t thought

about is yeah it is is just we learn all

these really basic things that we may

not ever end up using um so you know why

not start people on code and see if they

actually have an affinity for it and get

them moving into the right direction I’d

love to like before we dig in deeply on

like code.org and and Mission and other

things that you’ve created there what

are some of the things you know you’ve

invested in a lot of startups like you

said what are some of the other

qualities other not not hard skills

right like coding obviously if it’s a a

techy person starting a company but what

are some of the soft skills that you

really like uh finding and

Founders so as a investor in startups if

I had to pick one thing that’s most

important to me it’s persistence uh you

know having been a Founder

myself I know that creating a startup is

not easy and seeing it all the way

through success is not easy in fact I’ve

I’ve not been successful every time I’ve

I’ve tried and in fact my least

successful effort of creating a startup

has always been when I gave up and I’ve

done things where I later thought you

know what if I’d stuck with it maybe it

could have turned out better persistence

is so uh important for entrepreneurship

just putting in the hard work knowing

that even when it seems impossible that

we’re still going to do it rallying the

troops with the sort of optimism that

there’s a greater future

possible that’s more important really

than any individual skill I love that

yeah persistence consistency just really

showing up I think it’s so important

with with all the success you’ve been

able to create with code.org is does

anything stand out uh specifically um a

milestone or anything or maybe there’s

something in the future that you’re

really trying to reach for right now

um well if I think had to think of a

speci

Milestone

um you know they I agree with people who

say that you know creating something

isn’t like one flash of a great idea in

a moment it’s like hard work and you

know all the time you put in but there

is one thing for code.org that really

was a special flash which was coming up

with the idea for the hour of code

campaign uh and the hour of code uh the

concept is that anybody can learn just

for one hour Any teacher can host an

hour of code in their class classroom

and so why don’t we get millions of kids

just learning one hour of code and the

reason this is a great idea for us is

both because it’s easy to just give an

hour um but also one hour is enough to

learn that computer science is easier

than you think it’s more fun than you

think it’s more creative it’s more about

expressing yourself it’s less about like

skills and drills and hard work and it’s

more about fun and creativity um the

idea for creating the hour of code is

probably the the greatest idea I’ll ever

have in my life at you know it led to a

global campaign that has had you know I

think 1.8 billion times students have

now tried an hour of code uh never in my

wildest dreams would I’ve envisioned

creating something that that has had

that level of educational impact so that

is for sure the the in the rearview

mirror the most incredible Milestone of

my code.org journey and and honestly my

life that’s so cool yeah um I worked

with scottt bsky he’s a founder of beh

and and his SVP at Adobe or whatever

nowadays and he called it the messy

middle uh you know when he was when he

was uh founding behance and I think to

your point like that campaign was

probably the child of like 10 other

campaigns that led to it right you can’t

sometimes you can’t get straight there

you’ve got to kind of Zig and zag and

eventually you land on something that

really works well but it’s that

persistence that you mentioned and kind

of continuing on

um you highlighted kind of the

importance of teaching cyber security um

obviously

with AI and lots of other things coming

about what do you think that can do to

really help uh the future of

technology um I would say in general you

know code.org the name suggests coding

but we’re about computer science and

computer science includes coding

computational thinking artificial

intelligence cyber security these these

are all different fields of of of

computer science and uh so we aren’t

just teaching coding in schools we’re

teaching kids you know how computer

viruses work how to protect your

software computer your digital identity

even digital safety digital citizenship

uh you know these are things that

everybody needs to know I think

everybody right now is has like a fear

of getting hacked or getting you know

digital crime is is a greater fear

people have than fear of burglary or

sort of physical crime people are more

concerned about losing their online

identity than they are about losing

their physical Goods at least in the

United States um and if you think about

it the greatest risk to our cyber safety

is our own uh lack of proper cyber

hygiene or just lack of knowledge you

know uh and the reason it’s important to

teach is because even one person can be

the weak link that causes things to

break if you have one person in your

household that isn’t doing the right

things with installing software updates

they could cause your network to you

know they could get a virus on their

device which then infects your computer

because you’re on the same network right

you know we need our parents and

grandparents to all learn so the only

way to get everybody safe is to make

this part of the school system so that

everybody learns basically cyber safety

just like we teach things like fire

drills that’s a really good point yeah I

think cyber safety um Finance like

there’s some of these little little

things that are not taught that really

should be and really should be build

building blocks for a lot of other

things where do you kind of see AI

fitting in as a teacher and in the

school system and how that kind of

develops I mean my oldest son is in

middle school they all have

Chromebooks um you know and that’s

obviously foreign to me um so where does

where does AI fit into the Next

Generation AI is such a

horizontal thing changing all sorts of

things that it’s going to fit in in many

many different ways like it’s going to

make teachers lives easier because it

automates some of the things that

teachers do it takes it’ll take out the

busy work of things like lots of

homework rating for example can be done

by AI or preparing lesson plans can be

made easier with AI Etc um the the most

important thing though I would say is

you know there’s individual applications

of AI like making it a personal tutor or

making it a teacher’s assistant Etc but

I would say with the rise of AI we need

to start questioning the purpose of

education and even moving the goalposts

not just of how we teach but changing

what we teach uh many of the things

we’re teaching you know many of the

things that we’re aiming to learn we

don’t even need to learn anymore because

AI is going to do it for us we can learn

a little bit of it but then rely on AI

you know just like when the calculator

has came around we don’t do long

multiplication over and over you know 40

years ago everybody needed to do all the

addition and multiplication in their

lives they needed to do by hand now you

use a phone or a calculator to do it you

still learn it in math class but you’re

like as soon as you learn this all right

you’re done now let the calculator do

that for you the same is going to happen

with lots of other skills where you

learn the basics in school but you don’t

need to memorize it because after you

got it inside you you can rely on AI to

do things for you and I think changing

um really not just how we learn but what

it is that we need to learn uh is going

to be pretty important less memorization

less wrote repetition you know when I

was growing up homework meant doing

something over and over again until you

got good at it you know what the rote

repetition stuff computers are going to

be doing the things that are roote

repetitive yeah that’s really

interesting like I obviously chat GPT is

something I use as a marketer regularly

and I imagine having that as a student

and how how dangerous that could be

right like uh just basically not having

to do too much so I think it’s a matter

of like but let me ask you this tool

right if you imagine a school where it’s

cheating to use AI exactly now you as a

marketer you have two different

graduates one of them basically did all

the reading and all the work to get good

grades the other one is a whiz at

learning how to you do anything and

everything using AI and gets done way

faster and you have a choice you can

only hire one of them which one which

one sounds like the more attractive

candidate to you yeah I think I think

exactly right like there just has to be

a almost like a generational adjustment

to how we educate and how we use it as a

tool um just like you know the

calculator when that kind of came out

maybe by the way I’m not suggesting we

don’t teach the regular it needs like

there’s almost no more important skill

we can teach kids than learning how to

be creators with

technology I’d love to like I’m sure

this is a really passionate uh portion

of your you know C code.org Focus I’d

love to ask you about as an immigrant

yourself you’ve done a lot to help uh

girls who code and underrepresented

minorities as well how has that kind of

come about for you um what are some

future goals you might have from that

um so computer science is interesting in

that almost every group of students is

underrepresented in computer science

it’s there’s such a small percentage of

people learning it that almost all of us

are the underrepresented you know we in

many other subjects you could say only

certain groups are underrepresented but

basically girls are underrepresented

black students are under represented

Latino students are underrepresented

lowincome students are underrepresented

rural students are underrepresented so

in a country like the United States

roughly 90% of the population are in the

are underrepresented in computer science

um the the greatest way to write the the

the the wrong or to balance it out is by

teaching this as part of the school

system so that everybody has access but

just providing access isn’t enough

because this is a field that has been

for so long dominated by white and Asian

men that we need to go the extra mile to

make sure girls feel welcome feel

included so that black or Latino

students see Role Models so they see

folks like melany Perkins the founder of

canva who’s a woman and is one of the

the most successful female CEOs of all

time where they see black entrepreneurs

or Latino entrepreneurs as as Role

Models as examples to know that this

isn’t just a field for sort of the nerdy

white teenage boy uh but for really

anybody of any age can become a creator

with computer science that’s really

really near and dear to my heart my

daughter started learning on code.org

when she was four years old uh and she’s

now you know she’s in a program that

that is doing computer science in high

school but you know it makes me very

happy to see how how confident she is in

her coding skills and I hope that with

time we’ll reach a point where this next

Generation doesn’t think of Technology

as something that’s only for the few

shouldn’t be a limiter I I love that you

kind of focused on that you you’ve been

at the leadership Helm of of a lot of

companies a lot of different boards and

startups and c.org

obviously what’s what’s your leadership

principles that you want to share like

what’s something that consistently you

bring to a new company or to a new advis

advisory position that you really like

to pass

on I have a couple thoughts on that

that’s a great question one is that um a

great leader needs to be a great is is

really an act of service um being a

great leader isn’t for me just saying do

this do that do this but is really like

demonstrating themselves and being a

doer themselves my second thought which

comes right out of that is that a great

leader especially in technology needs to

be in the details rather than just like

I’m just going to give you the high

level vision and then you all go off and

do your things great leaders know how to

hone in on things to like get them just

right um

you know just like Steve Jobs very

personally worked on the very all sorts

of details of the iPod or the iPhone

even though he was managing you know

almost a 100,000 people in the company

uh the things that matter he’d get into

the details and I think getting into the

details is really important

um uh and then my third thought is that

big Visions are almost easier than small

Visions it’s much better to dream big uh

it’s easier to Rally people people

around a big Vision as long as you have

the persistence to to stick with it

until you realize it you know our vision

at code.org was that every student in

every school should learn computer

science that’s not a small Vision it’s a

global change of the trillion

multi-trillion dollar Global education

system but it’s something that basically

inspires people to to to to follow yeah

I mean I love that because especially in

businesses you know it’s it’s just you

get stuck in the Perpetual growth like

oh well we need to raise revenue 10%

like it’s just not as uh like you said

motivational um so having those visions

and how you get there is really cool I’d

love to break into a little bit of just

the differences between the companies

you’ve run and the nonprofit like what

what was kind of an adjustment for you

and how that kind of leads to people

that are thinking they may want to take

the social impact route versus uh

traditional Corporation Route so the

first thing I’d say is traditional

corporations can have social impact and

in

fact it’s I think it’s better to start

by thinking what footprint do you want

to leave in the world rather than do you

want to do a corporation or a nonprofit

like what’s the change you want to

create what’s the service you want to

provide to society and then decide is it

better to do that for-profit or

nonprofit and I can guarantee you if

there’s a for-profit way of doing it

it’s better to do it that way it’ll be

much much easier to reach scale it’s

very hard to scale an idea in a

nonprofit route with code.org the reason

I made it nonprofit is we wanted to do

things that would be just really

difficult for for a for-profit to do um

for-profits have a struggle with

basically reforming education policies

we wanted to change the actual education

policies of the world it’s hard to make

money doing that and if and if you have

a for-profit incentive it’s hard to get

trust from governments um and we also

wanted to get Bill Gates delivering

video lectures for our students or let

students write the code to control the

Star Wars droids you know you can’t

license Bill Gates or Star Wars as as a

for-profit startup but as a nonprofit

you can get those things as a sort of as

a you know we’ve been getting those

benefits for free because we’re not

making any money off of it listeners who

are thinking you know about the balance

it should be first about what change you

want to create what service do you want

to provide to society um and for me even

though code.org is structured as a

nonprofit I try to make the culture as

much like a for-profit as possible

meaning let’s measure our outcomes let’s

figure out what has the highest return

on investment you know let’s try to keep

costs slow let’s worry about 10% growth

you know even though our vision is a big

Vision we need to know the way we get

there is through percentages and things

like that um lots of nonprofits have

more of a sort of a feel-good culture

and a and it’s great to feel good but a

feel-good culture what I mean by that is

like everybody’s part of a happy family

and every idea is good and everybody

gets a pat on the back and if you have

too much of that then you don’t really

have Excellence uh whereas

for-profits have a little bit more of a

championship team mindset meaning like

we want the best of the best and if you

don’t make the cut then you’re out um

and uh for me running code.org has been

much more of trying to keep that

championship team culture uh you know

we’re we’re aiming for changing the

world but we can’t that that means we

can’t just say that every mistake is

okay some mistakes aren’t okay and we

need to sort of have

accountability yeah I love that I love

that you brought in because there are so

many obviously so many benefits to

having the corporate structure and kind

of bringing in goal structure and and

other other things to drive a nonprofit

business what do you kind of you know

let’s say if you could design the ideal

classroom at 2035 what would look like

how would technology fit into that

vision and uh you know the Ever Ever

Changing landscape this is your chance

to look into a crystal ball and make it

exactly the way you want

it I mean there’s a difference between

predicting what will happen versus what

I wish would

happen so I’ll tell you what I wish

would be possible but I don’t know if

it’s going to be um 2035 so we’re

talking 10 years

um in my dream

classroom uh the focus is much more on

creativity and projects and less on

memorization and sort of like a you have

to learn this and then you have to learn

that and then you have to learn that um

and with a lot more technology and a lot

more collaboration so in other words

instead of first we’re going to learn

math then we’re going to learn history

make sure you memorize all those things

then we’re GNA you know instead it

should be like what do you want to make

today we have seven projects you know

get on teams one project is an app

project another project is a movie

Project another is a music project

another one is start your own business I

don’t know what it is yeah you know like

school should be startup School you know

people talk that about you know nobody

teaches entrepreneurship I’m almost not

sure there’s anything more important

that we can teach than creativity and

Entrepreneurship which are kind of the

same thing so uh if if people graduated

from school learning how to make an app

how to make a movie how to start a new

business how to write a book uh things

like that how to make things they’ll

learn the math along the way they’ll

learn reading and writing all the other

sort of skills we want to teach kids

they would learn but in the context of

creativity okay I love AI should be a

tool not sort of cheating it’s like use

everything you got use the internet use

AI H do it however however you make it I

love that it’s really and it again

that’s almost like a corporate principle

I it’s more outcome driven um than input

driven so it’s it’s like yeah what is

your outcome that you’re hoping to do

with learning the math and then that’s

going to drive their desire to actually

do that I love that looking back on your

career what’s one lesson or experience

that you’ve had the greatest impact on

your journey and this is kind of how

we’ll wrap things up with a nice little

bow

um my biggest lesson has been

that big Visions are almost easier to

pursue H and it just almost contrarian

you know you usually think walk crawl

then walk then run uh

and with code.org we took a different

approach we said you know when we

launched the hour of code we said we

want to get 10 million students to learn

in one week uh and I basically said

let’s just shoot straight for the stars

and we were at that point a five person

company uh you know we we were just

getting off the ground floor and I

realized that with a very big Vision it

is a lot easier to get everybody aligned

people come out of the woodwork to help

you uh you know if you look at SpaceX if

if Elon Musk was just saying we’re going

to make space travel cheaper that’s not

as big a vision as making Humanity a

multiplanetary species bigger vision

gets people just root for that to

succeed even people who don’t like Elon

Musk they’re like but I do want Humanity

to be multiplanetary like that’s that’s

kind of cool um so my my top lesson has

been to make a big bold vision and it

takes courage it takes courage to say

that this is what I’m about I’m going to

make this happen um you know for me

starting code.org and saying we’re going

to make every student in every school

learn computer science uh and then

sticking with it for 12 years that’s not

easy it takes courage and bravery and

persistence but I think it’s one of the

most critical elements of success I love

it well thank you so much for your time

and definitely for starting code.org

again I’m a big fan and uh we’re

grateful that you were able to join

inside the workflow today thank you so

much