1. Dara Khosrowshahi was previously CEO of Expedia Group, a company that owns several travel fare aggregators.
20 Facts About Dara Khosrowshahi
1. 2.
Dara Khosrowshahi is on the board of directors of BET.
3.
Dara Khosrowshahi is the youngest of three children born to Lili and Asghar Khosrowshahi.
4.
Dara Khosrowshahi's family founded the Alborz Investment Company, a diversified conglomerate involved in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food, distribution, packaging, trading, and services.
5.
Dara Khosrowshahi's mother had very little money to support her children, and having never worked before in Iran, began working full time to contribute towards her son's education.
6.
In 1982, when Dara Khosrowshahi was 13 years old, his father went to Iran to care for his grandfather.
7.
The Iranian government subsequently barred his father from leaving the country for 6 years, thus Dara Khosrowshahi spent his teenage years without seeing his father.
8.
In 2001, IAC purchased Expedia, and in August 2005, Dara Khosrowshahi became Expedia's chief executive officer.
9.
Dara Khosrowshahi was not considering a career move, and initially when approached by a headhunter refused to apply as Uber CEO, but Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek persuaded him during their meetings in 2017.
10.
Dara Khosrowshahi was initially viewed as a "dark horse" candidate in case the initial frontrunners, General Electric's Jeff Immelt and Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Meg Whitman, fell through.
11.
One of Whitman's supporters switched his vote to Dara Khosrowshahi, breaking the deadlock and making him Uber's second full-time CEO.
12.
In May 2019, Dara Khosrowshahi led Uber in its initial public offering, which he addressed with employees in a company-wide letter.
13.
Dara Khosrowshahi is an outspoken critic of the immigration policy of Donald Trump.
14.
Dara Khosrowshahi donated to Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee, a supporter of libertarianism.
15.
In November 2019, Dara Khosrowshahi caused controversy in an interview with Axios on HBO when he compared the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi to the death of Elaine Herzberg by an Uber self-driving car in 2018.
16.
Dara Khosrowshahi called them both "mistakes" that can "be forgiven".
17.
On December 12,2012, Dara Khosrowshahi married Sydney Shapiro, a former preschool teacher and actress.
18.
Dara Khosrowshahi praised his wife for wearing a Slayer t-shirt to the wedding, which was held in Las Vegas.
19.
The couple have twin sons, both diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, and Dara Khosrowshahi has appeared as a guest speaker for Autism Partnership Foundation.
20.
Dara Khosrowshahi is on the list of "Prominent Iranian-Americans" published by the US Virtual Embassy Iran.