My American Success....Weekend Story

[LordOfMud]

My American Success Story

How this Vietnamese refugee became Uber's CTO

By the time Thuan Pham was just 12 years old, he had already had several brushes with death.

While escaping Vietnam with his mother and younger brother in 1979, a violent storm battered the dinky, wooden fishing boat carrying the family and dozens of other refugees. Pirates later robbed them. And once they landed at a refugee camp in Indonesia, they lacked shelter and sanitation for weeks. "My mother decided that it was better to risk our lives...rather than grow up without opportunities for a better life," Pham said. "That's what you do as an immigrant: You are willing to trade your life for freedom. Sometimes you get lucky and you get to live."

Fortunately, Pham's family got lucky. And they eventually landed in suburban Maryland.

Pham worked hard in school, fell in love with computers and gained admission into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied computer science. After graduation, he headed to Silicon Valley and became an integral part of the tech industry's transformation.

In 2013, he was hired as Uber's chief technology officer. Since that time, Pham, now 49, has built Uber's engineering group from 40 engineers to more than 2,000. The company's technology has gone from handling 30,000 trips a day to millions.

In addition, Pham was recently named one of 40 Great Immigrants of 2016 by the Carnegie Corporation, the nation's oldest grant making foundation.

What is the one thing you do every day that helps you achieve your goals?

I reflect. I think about the things that happened that day and ask myself, "Is that the best thing I could have done?"

The answer almost always is: "I could have done it better."

http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/12/news/economy/thuan-pham-refugee-uber/index.html