Patrick Bet-David is an Iranian-American entrepreneur, author, and media personality who fled Iran as a child refugee, served in the 101st Airborne Division, and built PHP Agency into a 40,000-agent life insurance firm before selling it for roughly $250 million. He founded Valuetainment, one of the most-watched business YouTube channels in the world, and hosts the PBD Podcast - a long-form show spanning politics, culture, and business with millions of listeners. A Wall Street Journal bestselling author of 'Your Next Five Moves' and 'Choose Your Enemies Wisely,' Bet-David is known for blunt straight talk, a relentless work ethic forged in a German refugee camp, and a genuine belief that every refugee or immigrant story can have a second act.
Marty Massih Sarim is the President of Sanas, a real-time speech AI platform that modulates accents and eliminates background noise for contact center agents globally. An Afghan refugee who came to the US in the early 1980s and started his career at 18 as a call center agent, Sarim brings over 25 years of BPO and contact center industry expertise to Sanas. He is also Co-Founder and General Partner at Carya Venture Partners, a $20M micro-fund focused on deep tech and enterprise AI, and founder of the Moe123 Scholarship Fund, which has awarded $125,000+ to high school seniors in the Minneapolis area.
Frank Zamani is the Founder, President, and CEO of Caspio, a pioneering low-code platform that has powered over one million business applications in 150+ countries. Born Farhang Zamani in Tehran, Iran, he fled religious persecution as a Baha'i in 1986, was smuggled across the border to Pakistan, and received U.S. asylum in 1988 - arriving in San Francisco with his brother and just $70 between them. After earning a CS degree from Cal State Chico, working on Microsoft's PowerPoint team, and co-founding Autoweb.com (which IPO'd in 1999 at a $938 million valuation), he started Caspio in 2000 with a single conviction: business professionals should not need to code to build the tools their organizations need. By 2024, Caspio had grown to $120.7 million in annual revenue, 15,000+ customers, and roughly 230 employees.
Kanyi Maqubela is a South African-born venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and thinker who grew up as a refugee in the United States - from homeless shelter in New York City to Phillips Academy and Stanford - and built a career as Managing Partner of Kindred Ventures, a $156M+ AUM seed-stage firm he co-founded with Steve Jang in San Francisco. With a portfolio market cap exceeding $200B (including early bets on Uber, Coinbase, Reddit, and Upstart), Kanyi also co-founded Heartbeat Health, the largest virtual heart health platform in the US. He bridges philosophy, social impact, and frontier technology with a writer's eye and a founder's instinct.