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1:00

listening to Soul Boom.

1:03

We were beaten, however you can

1:05

imagine. We were spit

1:07

on. I was angry primarily. I

1:09

was bleeding, but I was angry. You know,

1:11

I remember that about 10 minutes

1:14

into it, I was kind of like

1:16

in a twilight zone. I could not really fully grasp

1:18

what was going on anymore. I couldn't feel the pain.

1:21

But I remember looking across the street and

1:23

looking at all these parents that were passing

1:25

by and thinking that what

1:27

has happened to this population? That

1:30

they become like this. They're just

1:32

watching. They're seeing them. They're killing two

1:34

boys. They just don't care.

1:38

Has God forgotten these people? What has happened

1:40

to them? Life,

1:56

meaning, and idiocy. Welcome

1:58

to Soul Boom. The Soul Boom

2:00

Podcast. Hey

2:07

everybody, in this episode of

2:10

Soul Boom, I'm really

2:12

excited to talk to a dear

2:14

friend of mine, someone that I've

2:16

known at least for 15 years.

2:20

Payam Zamani is

2:23

a tech entrepreneur, a

2:25

fellow member of the Baha'i Faith, philanthropist,

2:29

so many things, a great dad. And

2:32

how exciting is this that I have

2:34

my podcast and guess what, I can

2:36

bring my friends on my podcast and

2:38

he's written a book that is fantastic.

2:42

And I'm not just saying that, it's a page turner.

2:45

It's really exciting, it's called "'Crossing

2:47

the Desert, the Power of Embracing

2:50

Life's Difficult Journeys." Oh

2:53

look, it's got a little quote on the

2:55

front cover. Who's this? A must

2:57

read big hearted book, harrowing and yet

3:00

full of hope, Rainn Wilson.

3:03

I got blurbed baby. It's

3:05

an incredible story, he's got an incredible story.

3:08

I'm really excited to talk to him about it.

3:12

Payam, welcome to Soul Boom. Thank you, Rainn.

3:14

It really feels good to be in a

3:16

place that I have

3:18

been welcomed with so much love. So

3:20

thank you. Really your story comes

3:23

in three or four main parts.

3:26

Spoiler alert, you flee

3:28

Iran after the Iranian

3:30

revolution and

3:34

then you come to the United States, a

3:36

very, a dirt poor refugee

3:39

living in the Central Valley,

3:41

Modesto, California, get yourself an

3:43

education. And then 10, 12

3:46

years later, you've got an IPO going,

3:48

you started an online business,

3:51

autoweb.com and

3:53

you have an IPO of almost a billion

3:55

dollars. That right there is an incredible

3:57

story and there's a whole other parts

3:59

of you. that we hope to get to know.

4:02

For folks who don't know,

4:04

Baha'is in Iran, members of

4:06

the Baha'i faith, are

4:09

treated very poorly, especially

4:12

by the clergy

4:15

and the current theocracy,

4:18

but it has had a

4:20

checkered and tragic past over the past

4:22

150, 170 years, tens

4:27

of thousands of early members of the Baha'i faith put

4:29

to death, and just a

4:32

constant kind of living in trauma

4:35

with the Baha'i faith. But

4:37

can you give us a little bit of

4:39

background of the Baha'is in Iran? I

4:41

mean, as you mentioned, Baha'is have been persecuted

4:44

for a very long time in Iran from

4:46

the inception of the faith in

4:49

the mid-1800s. But

4:51

then a lot of people, they

4:53

tend to believe that if they know

4:55

the Baha'is and they know a little

4:57

bit about the Baha'i faith, that before

4:59

the Iranian Revolution, life must have been

5:01

good for them. Not really

5:03

so, unless you lived in

5:05

Tehran, and not just in Tehran, but

5:08

northern Tehran. If you lived there, the

5:10

chances are life was acceptable. But

5:12

outside of Tehran, where my

5:15

family lived, it was

5:17

very different. There's no question that there is a

5:20

correlation between the

5:23

less educated, unfortunately you are, and the

5:25

further away you are from these centers

5:27

of culture and, you know,

5:29

kind of like wordliness, you're

5:32

more likely to support that

5:34

traditional way of thinking that

5:37

the clergy brought. Now, what's interesting is that I

5:40

would say that today's Iranians

5:43

in Iran, even in

5:45

those small villages, are by far

5:47

more accepting of Baha'is than

5:50

they were during the Shah's regime. Because

5:52

they saw what the clergy are capable of

5:54

when they were put in charge, and they

5:57

also controlled their lives too, not just the

5:59

lives of the Jews. of the Baha'is. Yeah,

6:01

and what are the top three reasons that

6:04

the clergy of Iran and

6:06

so much of the population

6:08

of Iran are just

6:10

are anti-Baha'is. I mean, Baha'is, for people

6:12

who don't know, like peace

6:15

loving, it's about peace and unity. It's

6:17

about serving the poor. It's about getting

6:19

an education. There's nothing in the Baha'i

6:21

faith that, in fact, Baha'is are told

6:23

to be obedient to the government that

6:25

they live under. So the

6:27

Baha'is are not trying to overthrow anyone. We're

6:31

not even actively supposed to proselytize.

6:33

So Baha'is aren't supposed to actively

6:35

try and convert people. There's just

6:37

this peaceable population of this homegrown

6:40

religion. Why all

6:43

of the violence and hatred? I mean,

6:45

I think if you ask 10 different people, they'll

6:47

each give you three different reasons. But

6:49

I will tell you that, from my perspective, one

6:53

is the fact that Iranians and the clergy

6:55

are so big on the fact that Islam

6:57

is the last religion. So

7:00

the Baha'i faith came over 1,000 years after

7:02

Islam. So

7:05

they feel that that's absolutely the last for

7:07

me. Because Mohammed said in the Quran, and

7:09

he has a quote that says he calls

7:12

himself the seal of the prophets. So

7:15

that one phrase has been

7:17

interpreted by most of

7:19

the Muslim world that there will never be

7:22

another prophet or

7:24

manifestation or divine teacher that

7:27

comes down after Mohammed in the year

7:29

622. Exactly.

7:32

And also, it is not that

7:34

uncommon that religions, they accept the

7:36

religions before them, but not the

7:38

ones after them. And

7:41

so that is an area that they

7:43

have a problem with. The second thing

7:45

is that as Baha'is, we believe that

7:47

given that for the most part, we

7:49

are all educated, we no longer need

7:51

clergy. We don't need

7:53

to have a middleman between us and

7:56

God. Well, Iran is run by the

7:58

clergy. I'm guessing that they are not.

8:00

not too happy about that teaching either. And

8:02

there are many others. I mean, we have the

8:05

Baha'i faith kind of like gets rid of

8:08

the dogmas and superstition and so on. One

8:10

of the teachings I love the most, probably

8:13

one of the reasons that I personally have

8:15

that connection to the Baha'i faith is the

8:17

one that says science and religion should they

8:19

agree. And if they don't, it's religion that

8:22

is in fault because then

8:24

it's no longer make

8:27

sense, it's superstition. And if you

8:29

go back to let's say a

8:32

few decades ago when my dad

8:34

was young, the idea of education,

8:36

Western style education was frowned upon.

8:38

It was viewed as a way

8:41

to in a sense take

8:44

people away from the

8:48

Muslim faith. So like

8:50

when my dad was a kid and he wanted

8:53

to go to school, his dad was very much

8:55

a fundamentalist. He would say no, if

8:57

you go to school, you'll become a Baha'i. And

9:00

that was the thinking that went

9:02

on in many of those small

9:04

towns and villages. So education

9:06

in those parts of the Muslim world

9:09

at that time was going

9:11

to what's it called madrasa? What's it

9:13

called? Yeah, you would need to learn

9:15

how to read and how to read

9:17

Quran. That's all. That's it. Just memorize

9:19

the Quran pretty much. Yeah. So the

9:21

idea of learning arts and sciences and

9:24

culture and history and of

9:27

course in the Baha'i faith too, we're taught that

9:29

in the individual investigation of truth. We don't

9:31

accept that just the truth of our parents

9:33

or the truth of our clergy or the

9:36

truth of our culture and investigate the truth

9:38

for ourselves. That's again, a pretty

9:40

progressive idea. You know, it's interesting. I was

9:43

just talking to somebody else this past

9:45

week that I need

9:47

to really go back and

9:49

peel the onion to

9:51

think about the challenges I face because

9:53

at the time living in Iran, that

9:55

was normal to me. It

9:57

didn't take till many years later. for

10:00

me to experience human rights and how

10:02

life should be like to realize that

10:04

was not okay. But you were bullied

10:06

a lot. I was bullied a lot.

10:08

There were many stores that would not

10:10

sell us the basic necessities that,

10:13

you know, milk, whatever, that they will not

10:15

sell us because we are Baha'is. The

10:18

fact that you are in a group, people come

10:20

and they shake everyone's hands, but they don't shake

10:22

your hand because- So they don't touch the Baha'is

10:25

like they're dirty or something? Absolutely, because you're dirty.

10:27

You cannot, washing will not clean you. I

10:31

mean, my grandmother, my dad's mom

10:34

would not touch me because

10:36

my dad had become a Baha'i himself and

10:38

she was a Muslim, she was a devout Muslim.

10:40

She will not touch me, her grandson because

10:43

I was dirty. And so this

10:45

goes- Wow, that's astonishing. Your grandmother would

10:47

not touch you. This goes deep. Wow.

10:52

Yeah, that is deep. And

10:56

there's several hundred thousand Baha'is in

10:59

Iran now, maybe more, half a

11:01

million, maybe a million, maybe more. Yeah, I

11:03

mean, nobody knows recently some Western organization

11:06

did a survey and there seems to be a lot

11:08

more than that, but

11:10

nobody really knows. But at the

11:13

time when we had real statistics, there

11:16

were more Baha'is in Iran than all other

11:18

religious minorities combined, outside

11:22

of Islam, of course. What made

11:24

life in Iran unbearable that you

11:26

needed to cross

11:29

the desert? So there were problems that

11:31

all Iranians were dealing with and

11:34

it wasn't just unique to Baha'is, such

11:36

as getting bombed by Iraq and

11:39

that war went on for eight years. I

11:41

talk about this in my book that every

11:43

Thursday, for eight years, every

11:46

town in Iran had a

11:48

mass funeral, just

11:50

because of the boys that would come back

11:52

from the front line that were killed. Forget

11:54

about that war. So you had the Iranian

11:56

revolution and then the first thing they did

11:58

is go to war against Iraq. Right? Yeah,

12:01

well, Iraq attacked Iran. But yes,

12:03

that's exactly what happened. And then

12:05

on top of that, you have,

12:08

you know, there wasn't enough food.

12:10

So food was rationed. You would have to

12:12

go stand in long lines and get access

12:14

to, you know, the kind of essentials that

12:17

you needed. And- Why

12:19

didn't your family leave Iran after the revolution

12:21

in 7980? Because

12:23

many Baha'is left at that

12:26

very specific junction.

12:28

My parents were not interested to

12:30

leave because they felt that staying

12:32

behind when Baha'is are being persecuted,

12:34

when Baha'is are being killed, is

12:37

a form of resistance. And

12:40

particularly my dad did not think

12:42

that that would be a good idea. And,

12:45

but life progressively got

12:47

worse in Iran. Just

12:50

politically got worse and just

12:52

the environment got worse. We

12:56

had the war going on. And then the situation

12:58

of Baha'is, every day, I remember

13:00

my dad used to work for the

13:02

local spiritual assembly of the Baha'is of

13:04

Tehran. And he would come

13:06

back home every night and he

13:08

would tell us who the government had

13:10

killed the day before, what Baha'is that

13:12

my mom and dad knew who was

13:14

killed. I remember there was this surgeon,

13:16

Dr. Hakim, that,

13:19

you know, that my mom knew well.

13:21

One night, you know, told us about

13:23

him. Another night about my mom's second

13:25

cousin, that was killed,

13:27

Mr. Roshani. Another

13:29

time was her second, another second cousin that

13:31

was killed. It was an ongoing thing all

13:34

the time. It went from dozens to hundreds

13:36

of Baha'is being killed. There was a big

13:38

outcry in the United Nations and other countries.

13:40

And then it kind of went more underground

13:42

and they would just get disappeared. That's exactly

13:44

it. It was much more convenient to just

13:47

have them disappear than to have them like

13:49

hung in the public square. And then you

13:51

fast forward to 1981, when

13:54

I was

13:56

expelled from school. And

13:59

that was one of the... those life moments

14:01

that is of course etched in my mind

14:03

and something that I think

14:05

in many ways shaped who I am today.

14:08

That's one of those events that shaped me.

14:10

And so here I am

14:12

in this middle

14:15

school. There's one other Baha'i

14:17

boy, probably about 600 students attend the

14:19

school and they

14:22

had this public mass

14:24

prayer they would do every day at noon

14:26

in the school. And then

14:28

there was this religious teacher responsible to

14:30

make sure that all the students are

14:32

good Muslims and so on. And

14:34

he carried the gun to make sure that was

14:36

happening. And he came, he

14:39

would come to us. He would say that you should join us

14:42

for this mass prayer. And we

14:44

will politely let him know that

14:46

as Baha'is we have our own prayers and he would

14:48

be very cordial. They would say, oh, okay, fine. No

14:50

problem. No problem. And he would go away. One

14:53

day me and this

14:55

other friend, we are sitting in

14:57

the classroom, but we can hear his sermon.

15:00

And during his sermon, he says that today we're

15:02

going to get rid of the Baha'i boys. We're

15:05

going to cleanse our school of these Baha'i boys.

15:08

And of course what happens is that the

15:10

school ends and me

15:13

and this boy are like, this is going to be an ugly day. We're

15:16

just sitting in the courtyard of

15:18

the school and the faculty are

15:20

leaving the school and we ask

15:22

a few of them, would they give us a ride? Of

15:24

course they said no, they themselves, even if they

15:27

wanted to, they'd be in danger by

15:30

doing that. So they all left. And

15:32

let's just say, I remember that eerie moment

15:35

that there's us. And then I see

15:37

50, 60, I don't know how

15:39

many kids outside of the school

15:42

with sticks, rocks, whatever you

15:44

can imagine waiting for us.

15:47

And we kind of looked at each other after a

15:49

while. We thought, well, they're going to come in if

15:51

they don't go out. Let's show some courage and walk

15:53

out. And we did, I

15:56

call that the bleeding mile. We were

15:59

about a mile. a mile away from home. And

16:02

yeah, we were, we

16:04

were beaten. However you can

16:06

imagine, we were sped on

16:09

for about a mile by all these kids. Frankly,

16:13

you know, I remember that about 10 minutes

16:15

into it, I was kind of

16:17

like in a twilight zone. I could not really fully

16:19

grasp what was going on anymore. I couldn't feel the

16:21

pain. But I remember looking

16:23

across the street and looking at all these

16:25

parents that were passing by thinking

16:28

that what has happened to this

16:30

population? That they become like

16:32

this. You look at those

16:34

parents. Because parents, people are out on

16:37

the street watching. They're just watching. They're

16:39

seeing them, they're killing two boys. They

16:41

just don't care. Has

16:43

God forgotten these people? What has happened to

16:45

them? And I made it

16:47

home. And I remember that, I mean,

16:50

like I was angry primarily, I

16:52

was bleeding, but I was angry

16:54

from all the spit. And

16:56

you could literally wring out spit out of my clothes.

16:59

And my hair was flat from spit.

17:02

And I remember that I wanted to

17:04

go back and fight them.

17:08

And luckily my grandmother, my mom's

17:10

mom was with us. And

17:13

she basically held me back and

17:16

let me go out. But

17:18

that's one of those moments that

17:20

clearly gets to define you. Then

17:23

a decision is made by the family that they

17:25

need to smuggle you out of the country. The

17:27

country wouldn't let you just leave. You had to

17:29

get smuggled out. You couldn't like get a passport

17:31

or say, we want to emigrate

17:33

or anything like that. That wasn't an option. No,

17:36

the Iranian government had also made

17:40

it impossible for Baha'is to leave

17:42

Iran. They had taken our passports

17:44

away. But that's, which just seems

17:46

odd to me that, oh, we

17:48

despise the Baha'is. We're gonna torture,

17:50

disappear them, hang them in

17:52

public squares, make life impossible. But we're also

17:54

not gonna let them leave. What's

17:57

the, what was the thinking there? Why wouldn't they?

17:59

You just say, oh, closed

18:02

borders, except Baha'is, you guys can all go. We

18:04

hate you. I know, one would think that that

18:06

would be the smartest thing to do. We don't

18:08

like you, so go. But no,

18:10

they wanted to cleanse the world of us.

18:12

They wanted to get rid of us. They

18:14

wanted to remove us from existence. So

18:17

it is, you

18:19

know, they didn't want us to go

18:21

elsewhere and teach the Baha'i faith in another part of

18:24

the world. They wanted to cleanse

18:26

the world of existence of Baha'i. So they thought

18:28

by keeping us there. It's a little bit final

18:30

solution-y. It is. I mean, they either thought that

18:32

they're gonna kill us or

18:34

we're gonna change our mind about being

18:36

Baha'is. Yeah, or just torture, make life

18:38

impossible. And again, I wanna say to

18:41

listeners and viewers, like this is not all

18:43

Muslims. No. This is, most

18:45

Muslims are allowing and peaceable. This

18:48

is really a reflection

18:50

on this very kind of corrupt,

18:52

backward fundamentalist clergy. And this is,

18:54

you know, 150 years of history,

18:59

pressures coming from that very

19:02

specific direction. So our

19:04

kind of story here isn't about Islam

19:07

or Muslims. This is about this

19:09

certain faction of Shiite Muslims that made life

19:12

a living hell for Baha'is. I absolutely agree.

19:14

And frankly, I would say that if it

19:16

wasn't probably for many of those Muslims,

19:18

probably they would have killed all Baha'is. So

19:21

there is a, and you

19:24

gotta also keep in mind, Baha'i

19:26

faith is a new religion. So

19:28

all Baha'is in Iran,

19:30

they have Muslim family members. So

19:33

it is not as though, or

19:35

Jewish family members, or Zoroastrian family members. So

19:37

the population is very much intermingled. It's not

19:39

as though they can tell from the color

19:41

of your skin that, you know, oh, you

19:44

must be a Baha'i. You know,

19:46

we're all part of the same ethnicity and so

19:48

on. Sure, sure. Without, no real of

19:54

unless we're Property Center, KOrick, either

19:56

in the a

20:00

little bit lost in the chaos,

20:02

in the anxiety. I often

20:05

am searching for some clarity. So I

20:07

want to share something really special. It's

20:09

an app called Waking Up. This is

20:12

founded by the great Sam Harris. You've

20:14

heard of Sam Harris. He's also a

20:16

neuroscientist. And Waking Up is an incredible

20:18

arsenal, is the best way to describe

20:21

it, of mindfulness, meditation, so

20:23

many resources for mental health, all grounded

20:25

in secular techniques. And it has approaches

20:28

baked into it that actually work. There's

20:30

so many different tools for my spiritual

20:32

toolbox, and I really can't recommend it

20:34

more highly. Soul Boom listeners can get

20:37

their first month for free, plus you'll

20:39

save $30 on the in-app

20:42

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20:44

wakingup.com/soulboom, you can start your

20:47

free month today. That's wakingup.com/soulboom

20:49

to get a free month

20:52

plus $30 off. Think

21:01

of it this way. If you are a mother

21:04

of, and a law-abiding mother,

21:07

how do you find a smuggler? You know,

21:09

where do you go to find a smuggler? They don't

21:11

have a sign. So part one, find a smuggler. Yeah,

21:13

exactly. Yeah, there wasn't like Craig's list of like

21:15

the smuggler section. Exactly, or yellow

21:18

pages that will have that. So you typically

21:20

would find a smuggler by talking to others

21:23

who had smuggled their family members

21:25

out to see if they could

21:27

make any recommendations for a good

21:29

smuggler and for one

21:31

with good reviews. Is there Yelp? Yeah,

21:34

exactly. The smuggler gets four and a

21:36

half stars. That's right. Had an excellent

21:38

experience with him. Our son arrived alive.

21:40

So they found- How

21:44

much money did they have to pay the smugglers to get you

21:46

out? About $10,000. Which was a lot of money. I mean, this

21:48

is Iran. And, you know, so

21:53

that was a ton of money and

21:55

it's like life savings. And so,

21:58

but that's what he took. And I

22:01

remember the final night that I was in Iran. So

22:04

I was at my cousin's home. My mom is

22:06

there. We lived in Shiraz. I said

22:08

goodbye to my dad. I'm in Tehran

22:10

with my mom. Met the smuggler. Smuggler got

22:12

a picture of me. And

22:15

I told my mom, I'm gonna go for a walk. The

22:17

next morning you were supposed to be on a 24 hour

22:19

bus ride to the border town. So

22:21

I started walking the streets of Tehran.

22:23

I'm 16. I

22:26

love the city. And I knew

22:28

that city well. I used to go everywhere

22:30

on my own. I was very independent. And

22:32

I remember I was just thinking that I had this

22:35

deep sadness. I don't wanna leave. My

22:37

parents are here. But I feel like I don't have a choice.

22:40

And as I was walking, I

22:43

passed by this movie theater that was showing

22:45

an Iranian movie. I decided to go in

22:47

and just watch one last Iranian movie.

22:51

And saw that and in Iran you

22:53

go to a movie theater. Everybody

22:56

is having

22:58

sunflower seeds. And

23:01

they spit them out. And sometimes it's the back

23:03

of your neck. And everybody's smoking. So you can

23:05

kinda see the movie in as a smoke. Makes

23:08

it up in the movie theater. And

23:11

so, and then at 9 p.m. I walked out. And

23:14

I was walking to July. I said it's a warm

23:16

night. I'm walking back to my cousin's home. And I'm

23:18

thinking my mom's gotta be worried. That where is she?

23:21

But it was kinda odd thinking about that. That

23:24

my mom is just gonna hand me two smugglers

23:26

in 24 hours. Wow.

23:29

You know? She's not gonna know where I'm gonna be

23:31

for a long time. This is nothing to worry about.

23:34

How hard that would be. I mean, I have a

23:36

19 year old son, as you know. Thinking

23:39

about putting a 16 year old version of

23:41

him in the hands of smugglers to

23:43

try and get across,

23:45

what was it? Pakistan or Afghanistan?

23:47

Pakistan. Yeah. So you

23:50

take a 24 hour bus to a border town.

23:52

Take us through some of the highlights or

23:55

low lights, as it were, of

23:57

this Odyssey. Cause it is. Absolutely

24:01

blood chilling. It's harrowing thinking about

24:03

a teenager going through this. So

24:06

we have to take a bus

24:08

ride from Tehran to Zahidun. Zahidun

24:10

is kind of like where Iran,

24:12

Pakistan, Afghanistan meet. And it

24:14

is kind of like this rustic

24:16

town. There are very few

24:18

trees. We had to drive

24:21

for 24 hours through what is called

24:23

Dashdulut or the Emptiness Desert. If

24:25

you look up online, you'll see that

24:27

NASA has named it the hottest place

24:29

on the planet. They

24:31

recorded 152 degrees Fahrenheit as

24:34

the hottest day in Dashdulut. I know.

24:37

It's amazing. So July

24:40

7th is when we're driving through it. The

24:43

height of summer. So we get to...

24:45

And they had asked me... So did you just drive...

24:48

Like the middle of the night you get in a

24:50

truck and they just take off into the desert across

24:52

the border? Well, we took a bus from Tehran to

24:54

Zahidun. And this is like Iranian bus company. But

24:58

Smugger had asked my mom and I to not

25:00

sit next to each other. This is a 24

25:02

hour bus ride. They wanted to make sure that

25:04

we're not going to raise any suspicious. We

25:07

got to the town. We got off the

25:09

bus and they had asked me to not

25:11

say goodbye to my mom, to not talk

25:13

to her, not to touch her. Oh my

25:15

God. And so you can imagine I'm there.

25:17

I get off the bus and

25:21

my heart is pounding. And I got to walk to

25:23

the side of the road. I know

25:26

somebody is going to pick me up and life

25:28

is going to change dramatically at that moment

25:30

in time. I did

25:33

that. Did not look back. A

25:35

white car, Iranian made car, stopped

25:38

by. The guy who had a picture of

25:40

me asked me to get in. I

25:42

got in the car, closed the door. He

25:45

sped away. It was about 8 a.m. I

25:47

remember I just look back and

25:50

I could see my mom standing by that bus. 30

26:01

some odd years later, I still can't tell

26:03

this story. So,

26:11

I felt like our eyes

26:13

kind of locked in, but

26:15

she couldn't really see my

26:17

eyes. There's sun, you

26:20

know, just directed at

26:22

the back window of the

26:24

car. So there's no way, the glare. But

26:27

I could tell she's crying out loud inside,

26:29

but she cannot show any emotions. So,

26:35

the car made a left turn and that was it. And

26:42

just, even now

26:44

I think about, she

26:46

had to get on the next bus,

26:48

24 hour ride, back

26:51

to Tehran and then to Shiraz. What

26:54

a ride that must have been. Can't

26:56

even imagine. So,

26:59

what's the next step? I

27:02

don't want to give away all the stories. No, I

27:04

know. There's a lot more there, details. But

27:06

they took me to a safe house, the

27:09

smugglers. They took me to a safe house and

27:11

I was in that safe house till about 8pm.

27:15

Four Jewish girls also joined us because

27:18

there's this other boy who had come along with us as

27:20

well. Four Jewish girls joined

27:23

us and then at about 8pm when it

27:25

got dark, they asked us

27:27

to go out to

27:29

the courtyard of this house. We got

27:31

into that truck, the boys in the front. There

27:34

was two me and

27:36

this other boy plus the driver and

27:38

his support. And

27:40

they said their prayers before we got on

27:42

the end. They were Sunni Muslims, which about

27:44

9% of Iranians are Sunnis. They are highly

27:46

persecuted by the Shiite Muslims in Iran also.

27:50

But the girls they had to go in the back, it was

27:52

a grand Cherokee Jeep. They got in the back, they were covered

27:54

by tar. You had a suitcase? What did you have with you?

27:57

I had a duffel bag with very few, small

27:59

duffel bag. no more than 10 pounds. But

28:01

what do you take when you don't even know you're

28:03

gonna survive the ride? So

28:07

the girls were in the back,

28:09

I talked over them, we left

28:11

the courtyard and the

28:14

guys started driving really fast. And

28:16

this is an old truck so you feel the speed. And

28:21

there was a turn, there was moonlight, there

28:23

was a turn that the truck had to

28:25

make a right turn. And I'm just thinking

28:27

that why is he not slowing down? There's

28:29

no way he can make that right turn

28:31

at the speed he's going. When he

28:34

got the turn, he turned off the

28:36

lights, straight off the road. And

28:38

so the truck is all over the place.

28:41

He went into a riverbed and

28:43

continued in that riverbed. And every now

28:45

and then somebody would come out from,

28:49

appear like a hole in the ground to just tell

28:51

him not to go this way, go the other way

28:53

because there are border guards potentially

28:55

that could see you. And if he's got

28:57

a network of kind of. He has a

28:59

network everywhere. And if they were to

29:01

see you, they would not stop you. They would just

29:03

use rocket propelled

29:05

grenade to neutralize

29:08

you. They wouldn't get themselves in

29:10

trouble because they knew that the smugglers also have guns

29:12

and so on. And ultimately

29:14

we got to a place that we could see the border

29:18

guards guarding a stretch of highway.

29:21

And we are about maybe 500 yards

29:23

away with lights off at

29:25

a bit higher up. We can see them, but

29:27

they can't see us. And

29:29

as they were dry, as one, the

29:32

patrol drove away, maybe it was

29:34

a mile away, we crossed

29:37

the highway. The guy

29:39

who was his supporter ran out, swept the highway

29:41

to make sure there are no tire marks left

29:43

behind. And we went on

29:46

for another half hour. There are motorcycles

29:48

waiting for us. We got

29:50

on those motorcycles, went on for another hour till

29:52

we got to a place that they

29:55

had literally used dynamites to

29:57

close a valley. but

30:00

by getting the mountain to collapse. And

30:04

we got off the motorcycles and we

30:06

started just on our hands and knees

30:09

climbing that barrier that they had created.

30:12

And then we went on a hike for

30:15

over five hours. After

30:18

the hike was complete, as

30:20

the sun was coming up, we

30:22

got to the other side of this mountain.

30:26

And I tell people that the best way

30:28

to visualize it, think of the movie, The

30:30

Lawrence of Arabia. And when

30:33

you see the sand dunes and that's

30:35

what they look like. I felt

30:39

like I'm going to die. I literally collapsed,

30:42

the six of us that were getting smuggled out.

30:45

From a distance, I saw a truck coming. And

30:47

as the truck got closer, I saw that the

30:49

steering wheel was on the right hand side and

30:51

I knew I'm in Pakistan. But

30:54

I had just illegally entered the

30:56

country. So the journey

30:58

has not ended, has just begun. And I'm

31:00

also in one of the roughest places on

31:03

the planet where Iran,

31:05

Afghanistan and Pakistan meet is not a

31:07

place you want to be. So

31:13

this went on. I

31:15

mean, it was just the beginning

31:17

of what would take three, four more days before

31:20

I made it to the first border

31:22

town, called Quaita, Pakistan. And you describe

31:24

all of the adventures you went on.

31:26

It just goes on and on and

31:29

on. It's jaw-dropping what you

31:31

had to endure at age 16. But

31:33

I tell people, think about what the government

31:36

must have done that the mother thinks, that

31:38

this is a safer path. I think about

31:40

that in terms of economic

31:44

refugees and immigrants coming

31:46

to the US southern

31:48

border and

31:50

families having to walk the

31:52

Darien Gap in Panama. The

31:55

Mediterranean, how many of them get killed? Yeah,

31:57

crossing Africa, crossing the Sahara. to

32:00

like, but what, how

32:02

bad must it be? Where

32:05

that is seen as a

32:07

better option. Yeah. You know,

32:09

I say this often to people, and

32:12

I say this with joy. I'm a

32:14

proud American. This

32:17

is the country that has helped me realize

32:19

what human rights looks like. The first time

32:21

I felt I experienced human rights was when

32:23

I went to the US embassy in Islam

32:26

about Pakistan. And when I told them that

32:28

I want to go to the US, they

32:30

did not laugh at me. They showed me

32:32

a path that I can do that.

32:36

But I say I'm a proud American

32:38

because this is the country that gives

32:40

that teenage me completely

32:43

on the other side of the world hope. Whether

32:46

you like it or not, it's not China or Russia. It's

32:48

this country that gives hope. And

32:51

I think that's a spiritual destiny that we

32:53

have as Americans. It's a privilege

32:55

to be in a position to give hope to

32:57

the world. We don't want that

33:00

to diminish. We want that

33:02

light to shine brightly. That's a good

33:04

thing that we have been chosen to

33:06

be the people to give that kind

33:09

of hope to humanity. You came to

33:11

America as a political, religious,

33:14

persecuted refugee. That's

33:17

right. America has taken

33:19

in economic refugees, immigrants

33:22

from all over the world, people

33:25

that have gotten an education here and started

33:27

lives. And

33:29

E Pluribus Unum, out of

33:32

many, one. It's

33:35

great in theory. It hasn't always

33:37

been practiced in the United States,

33:40

as you know, with our treatment

33:42

of African-Americans and Native Americans. But

33:46

it is something to strive for. Something to not

33:48

give up on. And you're

33:50

a part of that story. Moving

33:53

forward in your story, and because I don't want

33:55

to steal all the

33:57

juicy stories from crossing the desert. I love the

33:59

fact... that you and your

34:01

brother Frank were enamored with cars.

34:05

Tell us about that and the

34:07

founding of the car. Yeah. Auto

34:10

web. So you gotta keep in

34:12

mind, Modesto is very much of an all

34:14

American city. One of

34:16

my first experiences. It's low riders, muscle

34:18

cars. It is. And even

34:21

beyond that, so like, I

34:24

love to learn more about the US. I gotta tell you about

34:26

this, that George

34:28

Bush, a senior, visited our high

34:30

school. Who was standing next to

34:32

him? Chuck Norris. Because he's

34:35

from Modesto. Oh my God. So

34:37

I'm experiencing all of these wild

34:39

things. And then you've got the

34:41

graffiti, American graffiti night that

34:43

was filmed there. And the culture of cruising

34:47

was very much alive. So

34:50

every Friday night, Saturday

34:53

night, me and my friends, we

34:55

would get in our cars and go down

34:57

McHenry Avenue. And the first

34:59

time I was shocked that in this, you

35:02

know, Central Valley town, why is there

35:04

bumper to bumper traffic at 10 p.m.

35:07

On a Friday night? Every Friday night. And

35:09

of course the idea was to collect as many phone

35:11

numbers as you could, just meet

35:13

as many people as you can. And.

35:17

I love that you went from being spat

35:19

on on the streets of Iran to like

35:21

cruising with milkshakes at 11 p.m. and

35:24

listening to probably Van

35:26

Halen or something. Van Halen, Punjovi,

35:28

you know, whatever else that was

35:31

going on. What a cultural trip.

35:33

Yeah, yeah. No, it was an

35:35

amazing experience being there at that

35:37

time. And I think those years

35:39

Modesto were pretty special. I'm bummed

35:41

that they have banned cruising in

35:43

Modesto now. I had owned

35:45

many cars since I had arrived in the

35:47

U.S. My first car was a Pinto. I

35:50

saved 600 bucks and I

35:53

got my first car. And I was so excited

35:55

about getting that. And then

35:57

I bought a. You overpaid. I overpaid

35:59

600 bucks. I should have probably 580. And

36:01

then I bought a 1976 Camaro, which

36:04

I absolutely love. That's a great

36:06

car. It was a gas guzzler, and

36:09

I could barely afford the money for

36:11

that. But then I own many cars. I

36:13

bought a Nissan Pulsar, if you remember those

36:15

cars. Sure. I hated it though.

36:17

That's so ugly. Because I would drive it during cruising.

36:20

Guys would try to catch up to me thinking there's a

36:22

girl driving the car. And they would

36:24

catch up, they would look, they would get all

36:26

upset that, who the hell are you driving a

36:29

Nissan Pulsar? So anyhow, so

36:31

I sold that. And

36:33

I bought a convertible Datsun pickup truck

36:36

that had a massive boom box in the back. But

36:40

yeah, I owned 16 cars by the time I was 23. And

36:43

all cheap cars. So... You

36:46

knew something about buying and selling cars. I loved that. And

36:48

fixing cars. And I would make a little bit of

36:50

money on them every time. In 1994, I graduated from

36:52

UC Davis, and

36:55

my brother graduated from Chico State. And

36:59

he had gone to drop at Microsoft. And

37:01

I was still trying to figure out what

37:03

I was going to do. And

37:05

he basically one day called me up and said, hey,

37:07

what do you think about starting a website about cars?

37:10

I'm like, sounds amazing, but I have no idea

37:12

what you're talking about. I had never been online.

37:15

So he came to my home and

37:17

set me up on CompuServe. 90%

37:20

of people are listening to this, have no idea what

37:22

I'm talking about. Super early days of the web. This

37:24

is like... This is like a dialogue service. This is

37:26

like AOL. You'd get those CDs sent to you in

37:28

the mail. Yes. And

37:30

then you connect, you hear a bunch of beeping

37:33

noise and so on. Finally, you

37:35

connect. And so I went

37:38

online and I loved it. I thought, oh

37:40

my God, this can be amazing. So we

37:42

decided that we're going to start a company

37:46

providing information about cars online. The

37:48

whole idea was let's educate the

37:50

consumer so they'll know more about

37:52

cars than the car sells man.

37:55

And today,

37:58

if you want to buy a car, you'll know.

38:00

what's the invoice price of that car. We were

38:02

the first to ever offer that. And

38:04

the dealers hated us for it, but

38:07

then they soon realized, well, the consumers

38:09

are gonna come to the website, it's

38:11

good for everybody. So they ultimately, you

38:13

know, they reached

38:15

peace with us over providing all

38:17

the information that we were. So

38:21

that became the beginning of AutoWeb, that we founded

38:23

that company in 1994. This

38:25

is, of course, way pre-Google. This

38:27

is right about when Yahoo came

38:29

about. There were fewer than 5,000

38:31

domains that were

38:33

registered. So I remember we wanted

38:36

to register a domain name and

38:39

we could have gone anything,

38:41

car.com, auto.com, autos.com, anything you

38:44

can imagine. And I

38:47

remember that we thought, well, all those on

38:49

the web, AutoWeb, makes sense. Now, of course,

38:51

if I could go back in time, I

38:53

would just register all those domain names, forget

38:55

building a business, sell the domains later, you'll

38:57

make even more money. So. AutoWeb

39:01

grows by leaps and bounds and

39:05

you're working with dealerships

39:07

and you're connecting consumers

39:09

to dealers. You were

39:11

a pioneer in that

39:13

field of someone Googling

39:15

something and filling out a

39:17

form and then getting connected to a, and

39:20

then you get a percentage of that, right?

39:22

Is that how you built the business? So

39:24

think of it this way. Being,

39:27

speaking English is one thing, but speaking

39:29

English good enough to sell the car

39:31

dealers is fundamentally a different thing. So

39:33

I'm still improving my English. I'd been

39:35

in the US only for about six

39:37

years. And so I'm going

39:39

to car dealers, door to door, knocking on the

39:41

doors. And you know how chaotic dealerships are? So

39:44

I'm going there, trying to find the GM or

39:46

the owner and try to get the guy to

39:48

pay attention to me so I can sell him

39:50

something. I went to 150 of these meetings. Nobody

39:55

signed up. And I remember I would

39:57

go to them in advance of it I'm

40:00

listening to Anthony Robbins. I'm reading

40:03

Wayne Dyer's books. I'm reading

40:06

Zig Ziglar. And then right before going

40:08

to my meeting, I'm listening to Guns

40:10

N' Roses to really pump me up.

40:12

So I'm energetic and excited and

40:14

show up, try to sell them. After

40:16

150, my brother said that, should

40:19

we just stop? I'm like, are you kidding me?

40:22

Colonel Sanders went to 1000 meetings, could

40:24

not sell any of them. And he ultimately

40:26

did. I've only gone to 150. And

40:28

150 knows closer to a yes.

40:31

So we'll keep going. And finally, we were

40:33

able to sell. And that kind

40:35

of opened up the floodgates. But

40:38

it was not easy. But

40:40

at the same time, we found a lot

40:42

of really amazing people along the way that

40:45

kind of became our champions

40:47

and became people who wanted to mentor

40:49

us and help us down that path.

40:51

I mean, the name's like Norm Turner.

40:53

If he hears this, he knows who

40:55

he is. And if it wasn't for

40:57

Norm, Norm doesn't listen to this podcast.

40:59

He's a realtor, you're right. Today, he

41:01

used to run a Honda store. And

41:27

you then take an auto web public. There's

41:46

an IPO. How many

41:48

years later? A couple of years later? We

41:50

first had to raise a lot of money

41:52

along the way from VCs. And no VC

41:54

in Silicon Valley would give us money because

41:57

think of it, two guys who did not go to an

41:59

IV. school and they

42:01

speak English with thick accent so we had

42:03

to go all the way to Fort Lee,

42:06

New Jersey to raise money and

42:08

I think we're probably the only ones from Silicon Valley. A

42:10

lot of money in Fort Lee, New Jersey. I know exactly

42:12

just don't ask where he came from but

42:16

we raised money there and ultimately we did raise

42:18

money from Silicon Valley later on but after the

42:20

company had achieved you know greater level of success

42:23

but in 1999 so five years

42:25

later okay we took a company

42:27

public and you know

42:29

that is definitely when you when you're

42:32

there at that moment and

42:34

ten years ago you had

42:36

crossed the border without having

42:39

your passport without knowing where you're headed

42:41

you realize that this is

42:43

one of those things that probably only

42:45

happens in America. It's an astonishing story

42:48

when I was reading your book I

42:50

was just floored

42:52

by the fact that you

42:55

know you begin the book and you're staying in like

42:57

the Mandarin Oriental Hotel or

42:59

something in Manhattan getting ready

43:01

for an IPO and like

43:04

11 years previous you were crossing

43:07

the desert and like eating

43:09

dirt and then a few years after that

43:11

trying to learn English out of a dictionary

43:14

and selling pizzas and then at

43:16

community college and then here

43:18

you are you know with

43:20

with VC capital and in launching

43:24

a business it's I

43:26

mean you can't say only in America maybe there's some

43:28

other countries that that could happen but regardless

43:31

it's it's an

43:33

absolutely astonishing story.

43:36

I mean if you think about if I

43:38

look at my tax return five years prior

43:40

to that it was I think

43:42

twelve thousand dollars and then it

43:45

was like twenty four thousand the year after so

43:47

I was poor I was really poor

43:50

until I wasn't and then

43:53

there was this IPO and

43:55

so it was definitely a

43:57

life that and

43:59

a journey that I was not expecting.

44:01

I did not think this is gonna

44:03

turn out this way. I

44:06

felt that we had a passion for cars and

44:08

we were building a business out of passion. It

44:11

wasn't until a few years into it that

44:13

we realized that this is bigger than us

44:15

and there's something happening that is,

44:19

some people calling it a revolution or whatever it is

44:21

in the technology world that we just happened to be

44:23

a part of it at the right time. But

44:26

the point I'm trying to make is that after

44:28

I took all the way public, I realized that

44:32

there are aspects of

44:34

capitalism and the way it is

44:36

practiced that are

44:38

fundamentally flawed. That

44:41

I felt at some level a bit empty. That

44:45

I am a part of this system. And I

44:47

felt that almost all

44:50

of us, we wanna be of service

44:52

to others. We find joy in that.

44:54

Why is it that non-profits stand, they

44:57

stand for the betterment of the world, but

45:00

for profits, for the most part, for greed

45:02

and just maximization of profits? Why

45:04

aren't we combining the two? I

45:06

mean, when you think about an average

45:08

entrepreneur in Silicon Valley or anywhere that

45:11

loves to build and sell or take public. Yeah,

45:13

like the people on Shark Tank. What happens after

45:15

they do that? Well, I gotta do one bigger.

45:18

Why? Because I define myself

45:21

by the level of success I had

45:23

with that one exit. But why? Why

45:26

isn't there more to it than just

45:28

that exit? Or if your company is

45:30

already doing a billion in revenue, why

45:32

does it necessarily have to do 2

45:34

billion in revenue, regardless of the negative

45:36

impact it could have on society, on

45:38

main street businesses and so on? Why

45:40

should Amazon grow from 400 billion to

45:42

800 billion? Why?

45:45

These are the questions that I think most businesses

45:48

don't bother to answer. And this

45:50

is why our primary, we

45:52

call the tagline, but that's the governing

45:54

principle that we care about. That one

45:57

plan that is innovation plus intention. You

46:00

know, people ask me, what do you think about AI? Are

46:02

you afraid of AI? I don't know. Am

46:04

I afraid of the innovator? If I'm afraid of the

46:06

innovator, then yes, I'll be afraid of AI also. Because

46:09

ultimately, it is the value system of

46:14

the innovator that determines if

46:16

the invention is gonna be good or bad. You

46:19

know, Snapchat recently released this thing that it

46:21

gets to rate your friends. Is

46:23

that good or bad? I don't know. What

46:26

was the intention behind it? Was it just money?

46:28

Or was it because you saw a real value

46:31

that somehow rating your friends will bring friends closer?

46:33

But doesn't this go back to

46:36

kind of ultimately like Milton Friedman

46:39

philosophy of capitalism, that capitalism

46:41

is purely there for

46:43

profit and competition? And

46:47

if there's anything ethical to be found in

46:49

capitalism, that's because of the will of the

46:51

people and the will of the consumer. So

46:54

if consumers only wanna buy ethical

46:56

products, then they're gonna buy ethical products. But if

46:58

they just want cheap, convenient products,

47:00

they don't give a fuck about

47:02

ethical. So, you

47:05

know, so many people would say that that's

47:07

not capitalism's role. Capitalism is a system and

47:10

that the free market

47:12

will determine everything, screw

47:15

ethics and morals, kind of putting

47:18

any kind of moral template on

47:20

top of capitalism. Yeah, Milton

47:23

Friedman for sure is the version

47:25

of capitalism that we

47:27

are an extreme version

47:29

of it that we are right now practicing.

47:32

And, but here's the way I

47:34

would present it, that Milton

47:37

Friedman's version is about me and

47:39

how I can maximize my profits

47:41

and shareholder profits and so on,

47:43

maximization of shareholder value. I

47:46

will argue that if as an entrepreneur,

47:48

I truly wanna be joyful, again,

47:51

the self-serving, if I wanna be

47:53

truly joyful, I'm gonna need more than money because

47:56

I can show you a ton of entrepreneurs

47:59

who've taken companies public for... billions or sold

48:01

them and they're not joyful. So let's

48:04

be self-serving. How can I be more

48:06

joyful? You can become more joyful

48:08

if you say that I

48:10

need to combine my

48:13

business with impact, with positive impact on

48:15

humanity by making the world a better

48:17

place and having a conscious knowledge of

48:19

how I'm going to do that. The

48:21

moment you do that, an

48:24

interesting thing happens. Your business actually

48:26

becomes a better business because

48:28

people actually like to work with those kinds

48:31

of companies and employees don't like to leave

48:33

those kinds of companies. And consumers like to

48:35

be a part of those kinds of companies.

48:37

Yeah, so oddly enough these companies are actually

48:39

not low performers. I

48:42

would invest in that. You have well-paid, loyal

48:44

employees. Yeah,

48:47

I mean I tell people that since 2015

48:49

that we went down this path in my

48:52

businesses, we have by

48:54

far been able to beat our peers in

48:56

the market. Even though, again given the principles

48:58

that I try to employ, I say that

49:00

I don't want to be in a business

49:03

that our success should be the cause of

49:05

someone else's demise. Otherwise, I'd rather be in

49:07

a different business. I don't want to compete

49:09

with anyone. But the fact is if you

49:11

run a good business, the consumers will choose whoever

49:14

they want to choose and they happen

49:16

to come to a business like ours

49:18

than one that does not care about

49:20

these kinds of values. What

49:22

are some of those values? How do you put them in

49:24

place in one planet group? If

49:27

someone was a business consultant, was coming

49:29

from the outside and looking at it,

49:32

they would say, oh here's what this

49:34

business group does different than other business

49:36

groups in the Bay Area. The

49:39

number one thing is love

49:41

for everyone that you're dealing with.

49:43

It's love for humanity and looking

49:45

at every human as a noble

49:47

creation. That if I look

49:49

at even my competitor as someone I'm

49:51

gonna have love for, the way I'm

49:53

gonna treat them is gonna fundamentally How

49:55

do you instill that as a philosophy

49:58

in your employees? That's our number one

50:00

core principle in the company leading with

50:02

love. And so what that

50:04

means is that, and we have a whole

50:06

culture training around it, but basically

50:08

what that means is that I'm going

50:10

to consider the impact of my financial

50:12

decisions on people around me. And

50:15

there are consequences, there's a ripple effect. Let's talk

50:17

about the ripple effect before we say yes, let's

50:19

move forward. So that's one.

50:21

The second thing is that

50:24

we put our

50:26

money where our mouth is, that

50:28

we believe that we need to

50:30

sacrificially give. And we

50:32

don't think that just because we are good

50:34

at, let's say, software, we can also solve

50:36

the problem of education in Africa. Who

50:39

says so? You know, there are

50:41

people that they have dedicated their lives

50:43

to that. So we'd rather go find some

50:45

of those people and adopt them as

50:47

our nonprofit arm, as people who know

50:49

it the best and let's support them to

50:51

do the good thing that they do

50:54

and more of the good thing that

50:56

they do, so and sacrificially give to those causes. So

50:59

I think that as a business, giving one percent is

51:01

a check mark. I don't want to be a check

51:03

mark. I want to do real things. So we give

51:05

as much as 20% of

51:07

the profits of the business. We have service

51:09

days that we tell our employees on

51:12

these days, you get paid, whether

51:14

you do service or not, service comes from

51:16

the heart. You can't be forced to offer

51:18

service. But on those days, we pay you

51:20

to go out there and

51:22

be of service to humanity. You decide how.

51:24

There's one thing we prefer that you don't

51:27

do. And that is don't serve political parties

51:29

on those days, because by nature, they're divisive.

51:32

Yesterday was one of our service days.

51:34

And you know, our teams in 11

51:36

different countries all over the place,

51:39

we're offering service. And that's a

51:41

beautiful thing, because it brings joy

51:43

to them while they are

51:45

on the clock. What about profit sharing?

51:48

Profit sharing is an essential part of our,

51:51

you know, I did that for

51:53

multiple reasons. One, because I believe that that's

51:55

the right thing to do. But then the second thing is

51:57

that people are so conditioned in

51:59

my work. that they want the

52:01

company to sell or go public so they can

52:03

have that big payday. I'm like forget

52:06

that big payday, let's have a payday every

52:08

quarter based on the success

52:10

of the business so you share that

52:12

success. Those are

52:14

some examples and I believe that by

52:16

employing these we also do another good

52:19

thing which is we put

52:21

a cap on how big a

52:23

company can become and I think

52:25

that's a good thing. Do we

52:27

need global dominators? I

52:29

don't know how that benefits us. I don't know

52:31

how, you know, I've met Jeff Bezos, seems like

52:33

a nice guy, but I don't

52:35

know if Amazons of the world are

52:38

necessary for the world. I think, are

52:41

we better off because we have fewer people

52:43

vying for our business because many of those

52:45

local businesses have gone bankrupt and so on.

52:47

I don't think that necessarily makes the world

52:50

a better place. So I

52:52

do think that diversity of businesses,

52:54

diversity of options for consumers is

52:57

a good thing and I'd like to think that when

52:59

you build a business based on cool,

53:01

I call them spiritual principles, but these

53:03

are timeless values we can all buy

53:06

into, I think puts a cap

53:08

on how big these businesses become and that's a

53:10

good thing. It's an incredible story. Payam, you know,

53:12

I admire you so much. I love you so

53:14

much as a brother. Why now? Why'd

53:17

you write this book now? What's

53:20

your philosophy? I've written this

53:22

book three times, but

53:24

then every time I thought that why would

53:26

anyone want to read my book? So

53:29

I had to rewrite it in

53:31

order to get to a point that I was happy with

53:33

it. I felt that this

53:36

book could help a lot of people because it,

53:39

that these challenges in life have helped

53:41

me and I thought maybe

53:43

people can just read about these challenges and the

53:45

stuff I've dealt with and maybe they can get

53:47

the same thing out of it without having to

53:49

go through the pain. I'd like

53:52

to think that this book can bring hope to

53:54

a bunch of people, a bunch of teenagers, all

53:56

the way on the other side of the planet that there

53:59

is hope. And speaking of

54:01

which is there gonna be a Farsi translation is

54:03

this gonna be made available in Iran somehow? That's

54:06

a good question. My publisher is not in favor

54:08

of that because they cannot sell it in Iran

54:12

So we need to figure it out Not

54:14

not we can hire some smugglers to

54:17

bring Yes over

54:20

the Pakistani mountains It

54:22

reverse smuggle into Iran exactly But I

54:24

mean there's also immigrants in this country

54:26

that I think that they will find

54:28

this book interesting Yeah entrepreneurs

54:30

first-time entrepreneurs or second-time entrepreneurs that they

54:33

can just read about the struggles and

54:35

how they can probably build a better

54:37

company that would not just feed their

54:40

pockets but also feed their soul and

54:43

Ultimately, I would say that any

54:45

executive any CEO that they're struggling

54:47

with bringing meaning to their businesses

54:49

I think that this book

54:51

can potentially help them at the end of

54:53

the day though I think that this

54:55

book is supposed to be a reminder

54:57

that That crisis and victories are

55:00

the two sides of the same coin that don't

55:02

run away from them crisis get

55:04

you ready for the next set of victories

55:06

and When you have those

55:08

victories know that crisis will follow too. So this

55:11

cycle will keep going and that's okay,

55:13

right? You certainly Have

55:16

known some crises and you've certainly known some

55:18

victories and thank you so much for sharing

55:20

your story on soul boom Thank you, rain.

55:22

I really appreciate the invite. You're the best

55:26

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