Promoting Ali Afridi to Principal

I first met Ali nearly 5 years ago. He was finishing his senior year at the University of Illinois and was referred to me by Spencer Lazar…

By: Rick Zullo, Co-Founder & GP @ Equal Ventures

I first met Ali nearly 5 years ago. He was finishing his senior year at the University of Illinois and was referred to me by Spencer Lazar, who was a VC at General Catalyst at the time. Ali had spent his summer working with the team at GC and Spencer had suggested that I get to know Ali given that we were both in the Chicago area (I was at Lightbank at the time). We had no intention of hiring anyone at the time but were blown away by Ali’s intelligence, maturity and intellectual curiosity. We offered Ali a position to join us full-time as an Analyst, presumably upon graduation. Ali countered, he wanted to start immediately. He was so eager to join the venture community that he dropped out of college to join us, reasoning that he’d learn more as part of our firm than he would in the classroom and that he would finish up his degree online later.

Ali’s fervor in those first few months blew me away. He had the excitement and enthusiasm that comes with only the most determined individuals. More impressive, however, was the uncanny perspective he brought that was wholly different from my own. He became engrossed in the interest areas we pursued, researching even the most complicated and mundane subjects with the fervor of a freight train (I’d wager that Ali knows more about airline customer information systems than 99% of investors out there).

Ultimately, I moved on from Lightbank to launch Equal with Richard and Ali left to pursue his own entrepreneurial interests. He was an early believer in crypto (well ahead of the curve) and fascinated by incubation opportunities, ultimately taking part in what was one of the closest approximations of a hacker house in NYC that you could have imagined (working out of a Soho loft with a collective of operators and investors that have all gone on to do amazing things).

As Richard and I crystallized our positioning with Equal, I knew I wanted Ali to be part of our team. Ali is smart, hard-working and well-connected, but so are so many others. What is special about Ali is everything else he brings to the table. He brings a perspective that I learn from every day. “Cognitive Diversity” is a core tenet of our values system and Ali demonstrates why. He frequently makes me feel dumb in the best way possible, humbly bringing deeply, impactful insights that I’ve missed — exposing my blind spots and making us a smarter, better firm.

5 years later, Ali is still a few courses shy of his computer science degree. I’m sure he’ll finish those credits at some point, but for the time being wears his “college dropout” tag as a badge of honor. Meanwhile, Ali’s reading list dwarfs my own and his relentless pursuit of knowledge has our firm constantly learning from him every day. Needless to say, we’re lucky to have him and consider his development one of the finest investments we’ve made as a firm.

With that, we’re excited to announce that we’ve promoted Ali to Principal. We’re honored to have Ali take the next step of his career with us and know that he’ll continue to have a tremendous impact on our firm and the companies he works closest with.

Please join us in congratulating Ali!