Khosrowshahi was born in Iran[3] to a prominent family that founded the Alborz Investment Company, a diversified conglomerate involved in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food, distribution, packaging, trading, and services.[4] He is related to Canadian billionaire Hassan Khosrowshahi. His family immigrated to the United States just prior to the Iranian Revolution in 1978 after Alborz Investment was nationalized.[3] He graduated from the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York.[5] In 1991, he graduated with a B.A. in electrical engineering from Brown University.[6][7]

The CTO fled Vietnam on a boat during the Vietnam war and arrived in the US with basically nothing as a refugee. Extraordinary circumstances can make extraordinary people.

Is this a thing now? My family fled Russia when I was around 9, but I don't share that with the general public.

There are millions of people like this in the U.S. This kind of thing is nothing special, unless you are living in a hole somewhere.