The Exchanges

Q I know, as I said, it's so funny because I know so much about you and you know nothing about me. What a joyous asynchronous discussion we're going to have. But I want to start with a fantastic start being, how did you make your way into the world of startups first? And then most recently, skipping a few steps, how did you come to foundcode.org?

A I got into the world of startups First, honestly, starting my own or watching my brother start, uh, Link Exchange when, when we were 22 or so, he quit sort of the big company job to start Link Exchange with Tony Hsieh and Sanjay Madan and Alfred Lin joined that startup then. And when I was 26, I think, I quit Microsoft to, to start my own startup, Tell Me Networks, with my former enemies from Netscape. So I'd always had entrepreneurship in me, uh, But really it was when I turned 30 that I began investing in startups, advising startups, shifting into more angel investing. And the reason I started Code.org is after a decade of working in tech myself and a decade of investing in companies, I realized every single company struggles with the challenge of hiring great talent. And it's not that there's not smart people in the world, it's that our school system isn't teaching The right courses to prepare people for a future of technology. And so I started code.org with the idea of changing the curriculum of schools globally so that education better prepares people for a future that's, that's really being invented through technology and software.

AI assessment note: “I started code.org with the idea of changing the curriculum of schools globally”

Q If you look back on a bet you didn't take, but wish you had, what one are you like? Oh, fuck.

A There are so many of those. Anybody who's had a career in tech has many, many of those. Um, the biggest, oh, was, uh, Mark Zuckerberg at a time was recruiting me to be the CEO of Facebook. Uh, this is before he hired Cheryl for the job. Uh, and I was in a startup together with my twin brother. And basically I decided out of loyalty to my brother and we had just raised around I can't just quit and join this other company, you know, like we're co-founders and he's my twin brother. Um, but that startup, the startup with my twin brother ended up kind of nowhere. Uh, it, it was basically a moderate failure, uh, and being CEO of Facebook would have been an incredible success.

AI assessment note: “Mark Zuckerberg at a time was recruiting me to be the CEO of Facebook.”

Q If you look back on a bet you didn't take, but wish you had, what one are you like? Oh, fuck.

A There are so many of those. Anybody who's had a career in tech has many, many of those. Um, the biggest, oh, was, uh, Mark Zuckerberg at a time was recruiting me to be the CEO of Facebook. Uh, this is before he hired Cheryl for the job. Uh, and I was in a startup together with my twin brother. And basically I decided out of loyalty to my brother and we had just raised around I can't just quit and join this other company, you know, like we're co-founders and he's my twin brother. Um, but that startup, the startup with my twin brother ended up kind of nowhere. Uh, it, it was basically a moderate failure, uh, and being CEO of Facebook would have been an incredible success.

AI assessment note: “The biggest, oh, was, uh, Mark Zuckerberg at a time was recruiting me”

Q What are the core principles that make up that framework?

A Um, well, these are specific to the business of code.org. Uh, but one of them is aiming for the longterm doing what's right for the longterm, not just the short term. Another one is, uh, paying attention to return on investment because there's multiple things we could do that do good and we're a nonprofit, but did how much good did we do and how much did it cost us? Not most, many nonprofits don't measure that. And so I put in place, for example, if we're impacting students at the high school level, the cost for teaching computer science to a student should add up to roughly 10 dollars, 10 to 20 bucks, not hundreds or thousands of dollars. So, for example, if you ask the question, should we give scholarships to students, uh, then I would say, you know, unless it's a 10 dollar scholarship, no, because the amount of the money being spent, it does good, but it doesn't Do enough good. This concept of return on investment is one of the important parts of my framework. Um, a third one is envisioning the ecosystem of partners and where it should be. So we don't need to do everything ourselves, figuring out what are the pieces we uniquely can do so that others can do the rest of what needs to get done. Um, there's multiple parts of this. It's like a 10 page document. I can't summarize it quickly.

AI assessment note: “one of them is aiming for the longterm doing what's right for the longterm”

Q I love that kind of attention to detail, but I'm always told about the importance of delegation and the importance of trust. Like, help me out, help leaders out listening. Does that go against delegation being so focused on the minutiae and so in the weeds? How do you feel about those kind of two opposing ideas?

A It is definitely a tough balance, and I gotta say, as a leader, I struggle with that myself, but I think if I had to err, I personally err on the side of being more into the details rather than erring on the side of, oh, I just, the people are getting it done, uh, and, you know, I'll, I'll purely trust them. And if you look at, uh, you know, who are the greatest technologists for consumer companies or, or the greatest technology Consumer technology companies. If you think of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, uh, Elon Musk, none of these folks are just trust that the team will get it done. They're getting very involved in little details. Uh, and it's, it's much harder to point to examples of incredible consumer technology successes where the CEO is just sort of, you know, leaning back and letting everybody else get it done. But that doesn't mean the CEO does every little thing. It just means If you screw up, there's consequences. And as long as the level of, of getting involved in the details isn't enough to do everybody's job for them is to keep them to a high bar. Let me give you an example from a review with bomber. I've seen him in a situation where he's talking to a group and they're sharing the numbers. And then he dives into one number and he's like, wait a second, this number a year ago was blah, blah, blah. And you're just wondering, how does he remember The same…

AI assessment note: “I personally err on the side of being more into the details”

Q So we're going to get to kind of the reimagining of education. I do want to ask in terms of kind of your education and the makings of Hadi, I believe we're all functions of our histories. When you look back, what are you running from first? And then looking forward, what do you think you're running towards Hadi?

A When I look back and what am I running from? Uh, I grew up in Tehran, Iran. Uh, you know, my early childhood from when I was six years old was a childhood of revolution and war. The morality police worrying about my mother getting arrested at just for any random thing, worrying about bombs, destroying our household. You know, every night we were in the basement while, while the neighborhood was getting bombed. And then when we came to the United States, our family as immigrants were poor. We couldn't afford a home. Uh, my mom and dad and my brother and I shared one bed. Uh, and you know, the earliest thoughts I can think of when I was 12 or 13 or 15 was I just wanted the money to afford a house or to have vacations that weren't sort of driving a hundred miles to rent a cheap motel room. Uh, and so Having financial security was, I think, a strong motivator and escaping sort of that past was what I was running away from. And what I'm running towards now at this point in my life, I think is, I mean, I've, I've had an incredible life starting from where I started to now be at the point to have invested in some of the greatest companies created on earth. I, I stand now as a, as an embodiment of the American dream, this idea that if you work hard and you work smart, you can achieve anything you want. But I feel like the American dream is broken, and not everybody has that access, and…

AI assessment note: “what I'm running towards is really creating a world where that American dream works for everybody”

Q Did you feel a mental relief when you accepted the insecurities and then took a step aside?

A A little, but honestly, there was a period of fear from the point of saying, I'm going to step aside before I was successful at social impact, because when I started the work of code.org in the world of societal impact, we were nothing. So there was this period of what if that screws up? What if I've stepped off of this rat race and it was just kind of a mediocre meh, like, oh, great. You did some cool thing, but nobody cares, you know? The, the true, when you're asking, did you feel a real relief? The true relief came when I realized how incredibly globally impactful code.org has been. And we've reached a stage where even if the current organization blows up, you know, if I'm hit by a bus and everything that, that is called code.org disappears, the impact we've already had on hundreds of millions of students and on hundreds of governments, that impact is going to stay forever. And so the real relief comes from knowing that basically I've already done enough, uh, and nobody can take that away from me.

AI assessment note: “The true relief came when I realized how incredibly globally impactful code.org has been.”

Q Bluntly, do you feel the lack of resources early on in your life, and lack of money, to be clear, um, Do you feel that gave you a drive and a grit that you otherwise wouldn't have had?

A Absolutely. Growing up with a poor family gave me grit and hunger and ambition. And what's interesting is I came from a family that had a lot of money before the Iranian revolution. Back in Iran, my grandparents and their brothers, they were all The equivalent of billionaires, uh, you know, in a different currency in a different time. Uh, and so I didn't know that cause I was like four years old. Uh, so it wasn't just that we grew up without money. We grew up without money cause it was taken away from us. And when you have your money taken away from your family by the government, uh, and you know that all of your grandparents were entrepreneurs and business people, it has the sense of not just, I wanted to succeed, but I almost felt like taking something back. Or winning it back, effectively, um, because, or writing an injustice that had happened.

AI assessment note: “Absolutely. Growing up with a poor family gave me grit and hunger and ambition.”

Q about was your first Facebook meeting with Zuck. Um, and Ali told me, actually, you called him after the meeting, and you said, this guy, this guy is the next Bill Gates. So, Ali asked, and I, I have to ask, how did the meeting go down? What did you see in Mott that made you say he was the next Bill Gates, having worked with Bill for many years.

A So this was in 2005. I was at Microsoft at the time, and I was in charge of the Microsoft Internet portal at the time, uh, back when Microsoft was competing with Yahoo and AOL and, and the upstart Google in the world of search. Uh, and I'd gotten introduced to, to Mark Zuckerberg through Sean Parker, who was, as you may remember at the time, the, the COO or president Uh, you know, and Facebook at this time was nine people. It was a nine person company. They were in a hundred different colleges and it was called the Facebook, not, it wasn't yet Facebook. Uh, and we met the day they got their term sheet from Excel, uh, you know, for the a hundred million dollar valuation. And, uh, Mark had basically just come from the, from the meeting with Excel. My first thing I noticed is that he had like an eye tick. He had just something going on either, even with either with his contact lenses or something. So he was continuously apologizing because something like he was had to rub his eyes and put eye drops in it. And like, you know, he just was not physically very comfortable. And I had been talking to Sean Parker about the company. The thing I noticed is the difference in terms of how Sean spoke. About the vision for the Facebook versus Mark, because what they had built at the time was kind of a chatting and socializing site for like students in college and like fraternities and sororiti…

AI assessment note: “the way Mark talked about it... building the future of identity... extremely far out vision”

Q can imagine as to who. Um, but I totally agree with you and get you there. I did speak to Emil Michael before, and he said, you've got to ask about selling Tell Me. It was a big moment for you in your career, in your early career. Like, how did it go down? How did the Emil negotiating it go down? Just walk me through it from your perspective.

A The actual negotiating, I think Emil did an incredible job of, and I don't want to, uh, to steal any of the spotlight around his incredible art as a negotiator. My role was in opening the door for the conversation. And, you know, I had spent My early career at Microsoft, since I was, uh, since I was 18 years old, I'd been an intern at Microsoft, uh, since freshman year of college, and even in my freshman year of college, I met Steve Ballmer in the cafeteria and said hello to him, uh, you know, and introduced him to my mom who was visiting, and I built a relationship with Steve over the years, and for over a decade, uh, we would have one-on-ones over lunch, or we'd go jogging. I just told him, you know, I'm one of the fastest rising stars in your company, And I'd like to, you know, I'd like to have you as a mentor. Uh, and when Emil told me that, tell me the company that we had, that I'd co-founded with Mike McHugh and Angus Davis, it, you know, that it had a suitor and he, he told me who the, the alternate buyer was. And he said, we need to get a conversation with Microsoft. We need other potential buyers at the table. Uh, and how can you get me a meeting with Balmer? Uh, and getting that meeting, I think was my role. Uh, and I went jogging with Steve, and I told him about the opportunity. He was already familiar with Tell Me because he, he had been trying to recruit me back to…

AI assessment note: “My role was in opening the door for the conversation.”

Q What are the core principles that make up that framework?

A Um, well, these are specific to the business of code.org. Uh, but one of them is aiming for the longterm doing what's right for the longterm, not just the short term. Another one is, uh, paying attention to return on investment because there's multiple things we could do that do good and we're a nonprofit, but did how much good did we do and how much did it cost us? Not most, many nonprofits don't measure that. And so I put in place, for example, if we're impacting students at the high school level, the cost for teaching computer science to a student should add up to roughly 10 dollars, 10 to 20 bucks, not hundreds or thousands of dollars. So, for example, if you ask the question, should we give scholarships to students, uh, then I would say, you know, unless it's a 10 dollar scholarship, no, because the amount of the money being spent, it does good, but it doesn't Do enough good. This concept of return on investment is one of the important parts of my framework. Um, a third one is envisioning the ecosystem of partners and where it should be. So we don't need to do everything ourselves, figuring out what are the pieces we uniquely can do so that others can do the rest of what needs to get done. Um, there's multiple parts of this. It's like a 10 page document. I can't summarize it quickly.

AI assessment note: “one of them is aiming for the longterm... Another one is, uh, paying attention to return on investment”

Q No, I, I love that. And so few people codified in such a way. Can I ask Hadi, when you think about. One of the most seismic decisions you've made that sticks with you. It could be good or it could be bad. Can you take me to that and how it impacted your decision making as a result?

A I think there are two seismic decisions I've made in my career and life. The biggest one was the decision that I wanted to take a backseat from the corporate rat race that I didn't want to aim to be the wealthiest I could be, but that I actually wanted to optimize my impact. Uh, this was, I was about 40 years old. I hadn't yet started code.org. I didn't even know what arena I wanted to, to have social impact, but I decided I'm not going to be the wealthiest. And if I'm not going to be the wealthiest, whether I'm second or third or fourth or a 100th or whatever, everybody who's measuring their value based on money is behind somebody else. And it really doesn't matter. You can't take it with you. We grew up in life being told that you can't take it with you. That doesn't mean I don't care about material things, but I wanted something else that really drives me. Uh, and so I made this very deliberate decision to say, I'm going to first and foremost measure my self-worth in my own eyes based on my societal impact. Uh, and that drove me, uh, to not, you know, go into like get recruited to be CEO of a new startup. And the next company I started code.org was a nonprofit rather than a for-profit and. Whether it's for-profit or not wasn't important. What mattered to me is how much impact does it have?

AI assessment note: “The biggest one was the decision that I wanted to take a backseat”

Q Who's the best board member that you've ever worked with and why them?

A Uh, Jeff Wilkie is definitely the best board member. Uh, Jeff Wilkie, uh, was the number two at Amazon, uh, before he left a few years ago. He, he was the CEO of worldwide consumer at Amazon. So everything they sell at all of the Amazon stores and marketplaces, uh, but There's a couple of things that make him an amazing board member and he's on my board. He's my vice chair at code.org. One, first of all, is he is so available. Even when he was running a million person organization, uh, he would, if I had a question or I needed something, I would, I would text him on a Saturday and he'd be like, let's meet at such and such time on Monday, you know? Uh, and I'm like, obviously he has lots of other important things on his schedule. He'd make time for me. Uh, and. I thought it was just me, but he makes time for so many people, and I don't even know how. The second way is he does what I'm trying to learn to do as a board member, which is teaching through asking questions rather than just giving you the answer. Uh, so, uh, you know, an important role of a board member isn't just to say, here's what you should do, but is to ask questions to, to help, you know, a leadership team come up with that answer and come up with their flavor of that answer.

AI assessment note: “Jeff Wilkie is definitely the best board member.”

Q Bluntly, do you feel the lack of resources early on in your life, and lack of money, to be clear, um, Do you feel that gave you a drive and a grit that you otherwise wouldn't have had?

A Absolutely. Growing up with a poor family gave me grit and hunger and ambition. And what's interesting is I came from a family that had a lot of money before the Iranian revolution. Back in Iran, my grandparents and their brothers, they were all The equivalent of billionaires, uh, you know, in a different currency in a different time. Uh, and so I didn't know that cause I was like four years old. Uh, so it wasn't just that we grew up without money. We grew up without money cause it was taken away from us. And when you have your money taken away from your family by the government, uh, and you know that all of your grandparents were entrepreneurs and business people, it has the sense of not just, I wanted to succeed, but I almost felt like taking something back. Or winning it back, effectively, um, because, or writing an injustice that had happened.

AI assessment note: “Absolutely. Growing up with a poor family gave me grit and hunger and ambition.”

Q Can I ask, I read, I think it was GitHub's survey, that 41% of code today is now generated by AI. What does the future of code look like coming from code.org founder?

A That's a really good question. The future of code and the past of code have all had this progressive, it gets easier and easier to code. You know, when my dad started coding, it involved punching little holes in cardboard cards and putting those in a computer, and those holes represented zeros or ones, and then you could type the zeros or ones, and then you could type the machine, you know, three letters for each machine code that goes directly onto the CPU, and now today you have languages that are more like the English language. We're getting closer and closer and closer To giving the computer instructions in a natural language, and then it figures out the underneath code. So every decade there's a leapfrog in terms of how much easier it is to code. Uh, so generative AI is going to make it possible to use much higher level commands than today's languages. Uh, and computer science education needs to adapt to that. Uh, it hasn't yet adapted to that. Now that doesn't mean that we won't need to understand computer science. It means that the level at which you learn to code is going to be different. Just like if you were teaching coding in the 19 seventies, you, you would be teaching punching holes in a, in a card and ones and zeros, and nobody uses that anymore. And, and we may be at a, at a higher level. Um, but understanding the code is still important. Think if you use generat…

AI assessment note: “generative AI is going to make it possible to use much higher level commands”

Q How do you advise founders today? You're an advisor to me. How do you advise founders today? Like many say cut deep, cut once. That's kind of the common saying, like, how do you advise founders on how to think about their orgs today in terms of cutting, not cutting, how to think that through?

A I would definitely say that if you're cutting, cut deep and do it only once. Multiple rounds of cutting or like just dribbling it out destroys morale and it also destroys credibility. Uh, it is far better to build back after you've, from an organization that's too small than to just continuously whack to like shave your organization down to the, to the right size. You know, if you're like, if you're shaving. If people are dropping that way, everybody wonders when, Who, who's next? Who's next? Am I next? And just the people you want to keep start looking. Whereas if you do a deep cut and you lose some people that you really, really shouldn't have it, that's sad, but it's definitely better than the alternate error on cutting not enough and then having to do it again. Um, the other thing I would advise is I don't think it's good to stockpile cash right now. Uh, a lot of people think, you know, in the old days, you'd say raise. You know, raise the largest amount you can when you can. Uh, that makes a lot of sense when inflation was zero and interest rates were zero. Whereas today holding onto cash at a, at a time of high inflation and, and higher interest rates, cash alone doesn't produce value. Uh, if you can, you don't need next year's cash this year. Uh, What you're going to spend it on next year. Basically the natural impact of inflation is that cash is going to be worth less o…

AI assessment note: “if you're cutting, cut deep and do it only once.”

Q Lovely. I like that. I should start a parenting show too. Uh, brought to you by Nordstrom. Um, a final one, my friend, uh, next five years for you and what's the plan ahead?

A Well, right now my time is split mostly on code.org and then also on the two boards that I serve on Mountain and on On an axon, ah, What's most important for me in the next five years is the work of code.org getting computer science to being a requirement for high school graduation in US schools. There's, there's five states in the US that require every student must learn computer science to graduate high school. At five years from now, I hope that it's going to be 25 states and that we've, we've tipped the, the point that, you know, the majority of states have this requirement, and then we'll get to the point where the ones that don't feel on the outs.

AI assessment note: “What's most important for me in the next five years is the work of code.org”

Q Do you agree that the majority of companies today are overweight in terms of people? We're seeing obviously this kind of mass reductionism. Do you agree that we got too overweight in our organizations?

A Well, Twitter certainly is no longer overweight. Um, but, uh, The changes in interest rates instantly changes just the reality of where things are at in a world where interest rates are zero or even negative. Nobody was overweight. When suddenly interest rates go up and there's inflation instantly when that changes, people needed to think our approach to spending is for a world that no longer exists. Uh, when the, when the cost of borrowing is zero, why not add more stuff? There's, there's practically no cost to it. Suddenly when there's the cost of an interest rate, you need to have a different bar for which you, you evaluate every investment. And during those heady days with zero investments, I think people just made financially poor decisions. Uh, it just, there wasn't as much of a accountability or, or an impact if you made a financially poor decision. And so suddenly the rising of interest rates forces, it's, it's equivalent to the Warren Buffett quote of when the tides go out, you see Who's swimming naked? When the interest rates go up, you, it basically washes out. It forces accountability on, on financial rigor.

AI assessment note: “during those heady days with zero investments, I think people just made financially poor decisions.”

Q Do you not think, do you not think we're socially ingrained or indoctrinated with wealth title looks physique as like the status symbols of self-worth? So that's all we know though. I didn't like, I don't think we know what our own self-worth is compared to what other people view us.

A Agreed. That is why I said this was the most seismic decision for me. It was this recognizing that American society is such a consumerist society and fame, followers, and dollars, fancy cars, fancy clothes. These are the things that symbolize who's doing the best in everybody else's eyes. And I made this proactive decision that that's not the most important thing for me. And I don't want to, I don't want to measure myself first and foremost. I don't want to play that game. Uh, and it bums me out when I see people who I consider my peers much wealthier and getting a level of attention. And I think, oh, I could have done the same thing. And then I tell myself, eh, I do. I don't, I don't mean to suggest I'm just because I made that decision doesn't mean I'm not walking back from that decision. I don't have any regrets, but it was a proactive decision To basically say whatever insecure demons I have, I'm going to recognize those as insecure demons. I'm not going to feed them by, by orienting my life around feeding them, but they still exist.

AI assessment note: “Agreed. That is why I said this was the most seismic decision for me.”

Q No, I, I love that. And so few people codified in such a way. Can I ask Hadi, when you think about. One of the most seismic decisions you've made that sticks with you. It could be good or it could be bad. Can you take me to that and how it impacted your decision making as a result?

A I think there are two seismic decisions I've made in my career and life. The biggest one was the decision that I wanted to take a backseat from the corporate rat race that I didn't want to aim to be the wealthiest I could be, but that I actually wanted to optimize my impact. Uh, this was, I was about 40 years old. I hadn't yet started code.org. I didn't even know what arena I wanted to, to have social impact, but I decided I'm not going to be the wealthiest. And if I'm not going to be the wealthiest, whether I'm second or third or fourth or a 100th or whatever, everybody who's measuring their value based on money is behind somebody else. And it really doesn't matter. You can't take it with you. We grew up in life being told that you can't take it with you. That doesn't mean I don't care about material things, but I wanted something else that really drives me. Uh, and so I made this very deliberate decision to say, I'm going to first and foremost measure my self-worth in my own eyes based on my societal impact. Uh, and that drove me, uh, to not, you know, go into like get recruited to be CEO of a new startup. And the next company I started code.org was a nonprofit rather than a for-profit and. Whether it's for-profit or not wasn't important. What mattered to me is how much impact does it have?

AI assessment note: “The biggest one was the decision that I wanted to take a backseat”

Q What are you smoking, Hadi? I'll take some of this. Why, why is it going to be so good?

A I would start by saying our, the news we spread, which therefore becomes the news we read, is the worst stuff. That doesn't mean the world is so terrible around us. Poverty is at its lowest wars despite the war in Ukraine or the war in Yemen is at its lowest. If you look at most of the measures of prosperity, they've gotten better and better every year for decades. And so we're already the best we've ever been despite all the terrible news. But when you open social media, the news that gets clicks, the news that gets liked and retweeted is the terrible news. So code.org has taught hundreds of millions of students, computer science. That's not spreading on Facebook nearly as much as Sam Bankman freed losing billions of dollars. But if you add up the good and the bad news, the total has been a story of great prosperity for the human race.

AI assessment note: “most of the measures of prosperity, they've gotten better and better every year”

Q As a leader today, how do you assess your own decision-making frameworks?

A So one of the things I've been doing at Code.org is to actually put into writing What I think is the thought process I go through so that I can pass down the framework I use rather than making a decision, you know, because I realized we were in a situation where people on my team were judging, you know, their decisions by saying, by trying to predict what Hathi would want. You know what I mean? Which is common in organizations where you, you're trying to guess what is the CEO going to want so you don't end up with a disappointing situation where he decides something else. And I've tried to figure out how to delegate the decision, but also with it, delegate the framework I use. And so in fact, I made a 10 page document laying out the different things I balance when I make a decision. And then I had my leadership team play act five or six sample scenarios to see the conversations they would have when discussing, should we do this or should we do that, uh, to make sure the discussion would have, they'd have used the same framework as me. And that doesn't mean they'll make the same decision as me, but as long as they're using the same framework, as long as they're balancing and as long as we're playing on the same field with the same idea of what a scoring a goal is and what is a foul, uh, at least they might come up with a different way to score a goal, but we have an agreement on…

AI assessment note: “I had my leadership team play act five or six sample scenarios”

Q We mentioned kind of the change of content type. In terms of the change of how it's taught, does that need to be changed as well? I know Elon's spoken extensively about his school, which changes how things are taught specifically. How do you feel about that?

A Yes, education needs to both change what we teach and how we teach it. In terms of changing what we teach, we should include computer science for sure, as well as the other things I mentioned. Uh, in terms of changing how we teach it, school should be more student driven, curiosity driven, project based, creative, uh, and collaborative. If you look at what employers are looking for and what the workforce of today wants, they want problem solving, creativity, and collaboration. And yet our school system in many classes repeats the sort of, you're going to listen to a lecture and write notes and then memorize it and then answer questions on a test. Uh, it is way better to say, instead of listening to a lecture, here's a blank canvas. What can you create? Uh, and that relates better to projects driven, you know, that, that is part of why computer science is a better thing to teach because it is project driven. It is a collaborative, creative problem solving type of thing. Whereas. You know, uh, many other projects in school aren't that way.

AI assessment note: “Yes, education needs to both change what we teach and how we teach it.”

Q What are you smoking, Hadi? I'll take some of this. Why, why is it going to be so good?

A I would start by saying our, the news we spread, which therefore becomes the news we read, is the worst stuff. That doesn't mean the world is so terrible around us. Poverty is at its lowest wars despite the war in Ukraine or the war in Yemen is at its lowest. If you look at most of the measures of prosperity, they've gotten better and better every year for decades. And so we're already the best we've ever been despite all the terrible news. But when you open social media, the news that gets clicks, the news that gets liked and retweeted is the terrible news. So code.org has taught hundreds of millions of students, computer science. That's not spreading on Facebook nearly as much as Sam Bankman freed losing billions of dollars. But if you add up the good and the bad news, the total has been a story of great prosperity for the human race.

AI assessment note: “If you look at most of the measures of prosperity, they've gotten better”

Q Why do you say that? Cause I, you're right. I don't, I'm like Gates and Satya and I don't.

A Yeah. The Steve years were not great for Microsoft's stock price. They were fantastic for Microsoft's earnings and earnings growth. And those earnings, it took some time for the, for the Stock price to match the earnings. And I think Satya as a CEO has really turned that part around, but earnings ultimately is what a company is about. And Microsoft had phenomenal earnings growth during the, the Balmer days. And getting back to your question of what is a review with either Balmer or Gates, the, the thing that was similar with both of them is both of these folks as executives and, and Steve wasn't a founder, but he acted like a founder. They were so smart and sharp and into the details. And you knew going into a review with either with Steve or with Bill, that there's a huge risk that they know your stuff better than you know it yourself. And you better be extremely prepared. It's like the hardest examination of your life, because if they catch you and not knowing your own stuff, you were, you were done for. Uh, and it just created On the one hand, an element of fear, but on the other hand, this element of, I need to be at my A plus game and this, you know, this bar that it made you strive to be the best version of yourself that you could be. Uh, and yes, there was a fear element to that because, you know, I've seen people get emaciated for not knowing their own, their own, uh, m…

AI assessment note: “The Steve years were not great for Microsoft's stock price. They were fantastic for Microsoft's earnings”

Q I love that kind of attention to detail, but I'm always told about the importance of delegation and the importance of trust. Like, help me out, help leaders out listening. Does that go against delegation being so focused on the minutiae and so in the weeds? How do you feel about those kind of two opposing ideas?

A It is definitely a tough balance, and I gotta say, as a leader, I struggle with that myself, but I think if I had to err, I personally err on the side of being more into the details rather than erring on the side of, oh, I just, the people are getting it done, uh, and, you know, I'll, I'll purely trust them. And if you look at, uh, you know, who are the greatest technologists for consumer companies or, or the greatest technology Consumer technology companies. If you think of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, uh, Elon Musk, none of these folks are just trust that the team will get it done. They're getting very involved in little details. Uh, and it's, it's much harder to point to examples of incredible consumer technology successes where the CEO is just sort of, you know, leaning back and letting everybody else get it done. But that doesn't mean the CEO does every little thing. It just means If you screw up, there's consequences. And as long as the level of, of getting involved in the details isn't enough to do everybody's job for them is to keep them to a high bar. Let me give you an example from a review with bomber. I've seen him in a situation where he's talking to a group and they're sharing the numbers. And then he dives into one number and he's like, wait a second, this number a year ago was blah, blah, blah. And you're just wondering, how does he remember The same…

AI assessment note: “I personally err on the side of being more into the details”

Q How do you advise founders today? You're an advisor to me. How do you advise founders today? Like many say cut deep, cut once. That's kind of the common saying, like, how do you advise founders on how to think about their orgs today in terms of cutting, not cutting, how to think that through?

A I would definitely say that if you're cutting, cut deep and do it only once. Multiple rounds of cutting or like just dribbling it out destroys morale and it also destroys credibility. Uh, it is far better to build back after you've, from an organization that's too small than to just continuously whack to like shave your organization down to the, to the right size. You know, if you're like, if you're shaving. If people are dropping that way, everybody wonders when, Who, who's next? Who's next? Am I next? And just the people you want to keep start looking. Whereas if you do a deep cut and you lose some people that you really, really shouldn't have it, that's sad, but it's definitely better than the alternate error on cutting not enough and then having to do it again. Um, the other thing I would advise is I don't think it's good to stockpile cash right now. Uh, a lot of people think, you know, in the old days, you'd say raise. You know, raise the largest amount you can when you can. Uh, that makes a lot of sense when inflation was zero and interest rates were zero. Whereas today holding onto cash at a, at a time of high inflation and, and higher interest rates, cash alone doesn't produce value. Uh, if you can, you don't need next year's cash this year. Uh, What you're going to spend it on next year. Basically the natural impact of inflation is that cash is going to be worth less o…

AI assessment note: “if you're cutting, cut deep and do it only once.”

Q Do you not think, do you not think we're socially ingrained or indoctrinated with wealth title looks physique as like the status symbols of self-worth? So that's all we know though. I didn't like, I don't think we know what our own self-worth is compared to what other people view us.

A Agreed. That is why I said this was the most seismic decision for me. It was this recognizing that American society is such a consumerist society and fame, followers, and dollars, fancy cars, fancy clothes. These are the things that symbolize who's doing the best in everybody else's eyes. And I made this proactive decision that that's not the most important thing for me. And I don't want to, I don't want to measure myself first and foremost. I don't want to play that game. Uh, and it bums me out when I see people who I consider my peers much wealthier and getting a level of attention. And I think, oh, I could have done the same thing. And then I tell myself, eh, I do. I don't, I don't mean to suggest I'm just because I made that decision doesn't mean I'm not walking back from that decision. I don't have any regrets, but it was a proactive decision To basically say whatever insecure demons I have, I'm going to recognize those as insecure demons. I'm not going to feed them by, by orienting my life around feeding them, but they still exist.

AI assessment note: “Agreed. That is why I said this was the most seismic decision for me.”

Q Can I ask, I read, I think it was GitHub's survey, that 41% of code today is now generated by AI. What does the future of code look like coming from code.org founder?

A That's a really good question. The future of code and the past of code have all had this progressive, it gets easier and easier to code. You know, when my dad started coding, it involved punching little holes in cardboard cards and putting those in a computer, and those holes represented zeros or ones, and then you could type the zeros or ones, and then you could type the machine, you know, three letters for each machine code that goes directly onto the CPU, and now today you have languages that are more like the English language. We're getting closer and closer and closer To giving the computer instructions in a natural language, and then it figures out the underneath code. So every decade there's a leapfrog in terms of how much easier it is to code. Uh, so generative AI is going to make it possible to use much higher level commands than today's languages. Uh, and computer science education needs to adapt to that. Uh, it hasn't yet adapted to that. Now that doesn't mean that we won't need to understand computer science. It means that the level at which you learn to code is going to be different. Just like if you were teaching coding in the 19 seventies, you, you would be teaching punching holes in a, in a card and ones and zeros, and nobody uses that anymore. And, and we may be at a, at a higher level. Um, but understanding the code is still important. Think if you use generat…

AI assessment note: “generative AI is going to make it possible to use much higher level commands”

Q If you could join any startup today, what would it be, and why then?

A If I could join a company today, this isn't really a startup, but it would be Axon, which is the company I'm on the board of. Uh, Axon's a ten billion dollar public company, but it still has 100 X growth potential. And the reason is it's not just a company that's reinventing technology or making a lot of money, but Axon is also having incredible societal impact. Axon is basically the, the company that creates technology for law enforcement, like body cameras for police. To keep police more accountable or VR training for police so that they're not scared of running into the mass shooting at a school and not standing outside the door. You know, every time you hear about deaths caused by law enforcement or deaths that were caused by lack of law enforcement, you think, God, our society could be better. And Axon is a technology company that's trying to use technology to, to improve how society works. Uh, and it's something I love.

AI assessment note: “this isn't really a startup, but it would be Axon, which is the company”