Live on Bloomberg TV

00:00You were born in Tehran. You were six years old when the Iran-Iraq war broke out. Is that when you learned to code . Yeah we were ten years old nine years old actually. Dad he's a physicist so he had gone to a physics conference and brought back a Commodore 64. This was I guess nineteen eighty one or so . No games no software just like a couple of books on how to program and basic. And he spent maybe the first hour or two with us getting us started and then we just read the books and you know basically taught each other how to do it. And he spent a lot of time then giving us ideas for what one could create. You know a big part of learning computer programming is actually the imagination part of imagining what you might do and then kind of feeling the confidence that it's possible and let's just go out and tackle it was there like a sort of moment where you thought this is what I want to do. Or did that come later. Well one great thing about computer programming in Iran during the war was that it really was an escape. All of our family had left Iran to come to the United States so we were alone without family other than our mom and dad. When you're programming a computer you can just sort of close that all out and create whatever you want. Iran was on a list of travel banned countries what is it like being an Iranian immigrant in the age of President Trump. It was difficult but at least we made it and it would have been completely impossible. Today we just we wouldn't have even applied. We would have been banned. I think being an immigrant from any country is difficult in a time when one group is being singled out for being banned. And you know so much of what makes America what it is is that we are a land of immigrants but especially for ourselves know knowing how different our lives would have been if we were trying to make the same thing happen right now is is particularly difficult . Your family is quite successful. Dara Khosrowshahi the CEO of Uber is your cousin one of your cousins also founded the company Nirvana systems which was bought by Intel. Should that be a lesson to President Trump. There's a lot of Iranian immigrants that are successful in tech. I mean our family as well obviously but there's many others like the founder of Dropbox or the founder of eBay. Immigrants have created many of the greatest companies and created the largest numbers of jobs in this country. And part of why I started code that is to show that an immigrant can give back opportunity and create opportunity in the country that's you know that seems like it's lacking it .

No schedule data available.

Ali and Hadi Partovi on Being an Immigrant in the Age of President Trump

Code.org co-founders Ali and Hadi Partovi speak to Bloomberg's Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Studio 1.0" about growing up in Iran and learning how to code on a Commodore 64 computer during Iran-Iraq war. They also reflect on what it would be like trying to immigrate to the U.S. from Iran under President Donald Trump. (Source: Bloomberg)

More From Studio 1.0
All episodes and clips

Bloomberg Technology
The only daily news program focused exclusively on technology, innovation and the future of business from San Francisco. Hosted by Emily Chang.
More episodes and clips