Hadi Partovi Was Raised in a Revolution. Today He Teaches Kids to Code.

The founder and chief executive of Code.org, who was born in Iran, says computer science is a “foundational skill,” one that future doctors, lawyers and politicians should all possess, writes David Gelles for the New York Times

Just how much influence should Silicon Valley have over the classroom? It’s a question roiling educational circles, and one The New York Times explored in a recent series of articles.

At the center of the debate are organizations like Code.org, a nonprofit group that advocates computer science training and provides coding curriculum for schools around the country.

Founded by Hadi Partovi, an Iranian immigrant who had an enormously successful career in the technology industry, Code.org is backed by companies including Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

Mr. Partovi grew up in Iran during the revolution, moving to the United States when he was 11. He attended Harvard, then joined Microsoft, where he worked on Internet Explorer during the browser wars.

After leaving Microsoft he founded Tellme Networks, which was acquired by Microsoft for $800 million. He is also an angel investor, and was an early backer of Facebook, Dropbox and Airbnb.

Mr. Partovi’s relatives are similarly precocious. His twin brother, Ali, also founded a company that was sold to Microsoft. And his cousins include Dara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber, as well as senior executives at Intel, Google and Allen & Company, the influential investment bank.

Read the full article from The New York Times