Ali Rowghani (Persian: علی روغنی, born 21 January 1973) is an Iranian-born American businessman.[1]

Ali Rowghani
Born (1973-01-21) January 21, 1973 (age 51)
Iran
NationalityAmerican
Alma materStanford University (B.A., M.B.A.)
OccupationCOO of Twitter
EmployerTwitter

He was raised in Dallas, Texas, where he attended the St. Mark's School of Texas, graduating in 1991.[2] He received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 1996, and his MBA from Stanford in 2002.

Rowghani worked in finance at Pixar for nine years, serving as Chief Financial Officer between 2002 and 2008.[3][4] 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, a post he held for four years until he became Twitter's Chief operating officer.[3][4] Steve Jobs attempted to dissuade him from joining Twitter.[5] He left Twitter in 2014.[6][7]

In November 2014, Rowghani joined Y Combinator as a part-time partner focusing on helping YC alumni scale their companies.[8] He launched Continuity, a $700 million investment growth-stage fund, which was closed in 2015.[9][10] He is now a managing partner of YC Continuity at Y Combinator.[11]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "If U.S. travel ban crushes Silicon Valley, can Asia pick up the pieces?". South China Morning Post. 2017-02-03. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  2. ^ "Alumni Return to Campus". 3 May 2016.
  3. ^ a b "Former Twitter COO Ali Rowghani To Lead Y Combinator's $700 Million Growth Fund". TechCrunch. 15 October 2015. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  4. ^ a b "Ex-Pixar And Twitter Exec Ali Rowghani Joins Y Combinator As A Part-Time Partner". TechCrunch. 7 November 2014. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  5. ^ "10 People Who Actually Said "No" to Steve Jobs". Complex. Retrieved 2022-06-03.
  6. ^ "Meet Twitter's Mr. Fix-It: Ali Rowghani", April 29, 2014, Yoree Koh, WSJ.com
  7. ^ Yarow, Jay (June 12, 2014). "Twitter COO is out". Business Insider.
  8. ^ "Former Twitter exec Ali Rowghani joins Y Combinator as a part-time partner", November 6, 2014, Kia Kokalitcheva, VentureBeat.com
  9. ^ "Garry Tan Says Goodbye to Y Combinator". TechCrunch. 6 November 2015. Archived from the original on 2020-10-27. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  10. ^ Peisner, David (2018-10-23). "Dara Khosrowshahi and 39 other Iranians who power Silicon Valley". Fast Company. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  11. ^ "People". www.ycombinator.com. Retrieved 2019-03-18.