Payam Zamani is the founder and CEO of One Planet Group, a tech company. He is a refugee from Iran and arrived in the US in 1988 with $75. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Payam Zamani, author of " Crossing the Desert: The Power of Embracing Life's Difficult Journeys .
" It has been edited for length and clarity. I was born into a life where tests and difficulties were the norm. My family was Baha'i, a religious minority in Iran.
During the Iranian revolution, we lost many rights, including the right to education. When I was 16, my parents decided I was safer being smuggled out of the country than remaining in Iran. My older brother had crossed into Pakistan ahead of me, and together, we came to the US as refugees.
We landed in San Francisco in 1988 with $75 between us. The next week, we started working in a screen printing shop. My brother was 23 and I was 17.
My brother and I were entrepreneurs at heart and hungry for financial security . We worked for a painting franchise, which taught us how to run a business. Then, in 1994, we founded Autoweb, the first online car-buying platform.
By 1997, I had $1 million in the bank. I invested wisely and founded another company, One Planet Group, now valued at hundreds of millions. Yet, I still feel embarrassed to share the exact number of my financial success because I don't see it as a true reflection of my worth.
I want my daughter to experience financial discomfort About 20 years ago, I met my wife, another Bah.