Code.org founder Hadi Partovi and his twin brother were only 6 years old during the Iranian Revolution when the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took control of his native country.
The revolution occurred more than 40 years ago, but the fear, violence and turmoil of the event were brought to mind for Partovi as Afghan people are now desperately trying to flee their home country in the wake of the U.S. evacuation and Taliban takeover.
In a multi-part tweet, Partovi shared his family’s story following Khomeini’s rise to power, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran, living in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq War and his immigration to the U.S. six years after the revolution. Partovi’s father was a university physicist and before his life was turned “upside down,” his mother was a systems analyst and his extended family included successful entrepreneurs.
As I think about the children in today’s Afghanistan, I wonder how many millions will go through the same experience and mine, and I wonder if any of them will have a chance to realize their full potential. Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not.
— Hadi Partovi (@hadip) August 22, 2021
“As an Iranian American immigrant, I’ve lived the American dream — starting poor, going to the best schools, studying computer science, starting or investing in successful companies, and now running a nonprofit to help schools and students,” Partovi tweeted on Sunday.
In addition to creating Bellevue, Wash.-based Code.org, a nonprofit promoting computer science education, Partovi is a former Microsoft manager and an investor in companies including Facebook, DropBox, airbnb and Uber.
“As the world watches the same old story unfold in Afghanistan, I hope we can all remind ourselves of the immeasurable costs of war,” he tweeted, “not just in lives destroyed, but in the opportunity that is taken away from children everywhere.”
