Ali Rowghani (, born 21 January 1973) is an Iranian-born American businessman. He was raised in

Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, where he attended the St. Mark's School of Texas, graduating in 1991. He received his undergraduate degree from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1996, and his MBA from Stanford in 2002. Rowghani worked in finance at

Pixar Pixar (), doing business as Pixar Animation Studios, is an American animation studio based in Emeryville, California, known for its critically and commercially successful computer-animated feature films. Pixar is a subsidiary of Walt Disney ...

for nine years, serving as

Chief Financial Officer A chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization who is assigned the primary responsibility for making decisions for the company for projects and its finances; i.a.: financial planning, management of financial risks, ...

between 2002 and 2008. He helped with the restructuring of Disney Animation with the entrance of John Lasseter and Ed Catmull. In 2008, he left Pixar to become CFO for

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, a post he held for four years until he became Twitter's

Chief operating officer A chief operating officer (COO), also called chief operations officer, is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the C ...

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology company Apple Inc. Jobs was also the founder of NeXT and chairman and majority shareholder o ...

attempted to dissuade him from joining Twitter. He left Twitter in 2014. In November 2014, Rowghani joined

Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...

as a part-time partner focusing on helping YC alumni scale their companies. He launched Continuity, a $700 million investment growth-stage fund, which was closed in 2015. He is now a managing partner of YC Continuity at Y Combinator.

References

1973 births Living people American computer businesspeople Businesspeople in information technology 21st-century Iranian businesspeople American people of Iranian descent Stanford University alumni Businesspeople from Oakland, California American chief operating officers American chief financial officers St. Mark's School (Texas) alumni Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni 21st-century American businesspeople {{US-business-bio-1970s-stub

See also

References