Ten Pakistanis Among Unicorn Founders in America

There are ten Pakistani immigrants included among founders or co-founders of unicorns in America, according to  a recent study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). A unicorn is a startup with a valuation of at least one billion U.S. dollars. Immigrant entrepreneurs of US unicorns are diverse, hailing from 76 different countries. India, with 96 companies, is the leading country of origin for the immigrant founders of U.S. billion-dollar companies. Immigrants from Israel founded the second-most billion-dollar companies with 60, followed by the United Kingdom (47), China (41), Canada (30), Russia (23), France (21), Germany (18), Ukraine (16), Australia (14), Pakistan (10) and Romania (10). Some companies were founded by entrepreneurs from the same country or immigrants from multiple countries.

Four of Ten Pakistani-American Founders Listed Among Unicorns

Why are Indian entrepreneurs leading the pack of unicorn founders/co-founders in America?  The key reason is that “the great Indian brain drain” is accelerating with the country rapidly losing its best and brightest to the West, particularly the United States. Large presence of the Indian immigrant unicorn founders in America is attributed to the fact that most immigrant founders come to the U.S. as students or H1B workers, categories dominated by Indians. Over 80% of the H1B visas go to Indian applicants. India also leads in sending students to study in US universities. 

Unicorns in America. Source: NFAP

Pakistan, too, is suffering brain drain but not on the same scale as India. Most prominent among Pakistan-origin unicorn founders/cofounders are Karachi-born Sualeh Asif, Lala Moosa-born Qasar Younis, Karachi’s NED University alumnus Rehan Jalil and Pakistani-American serial entrepreneur Zia Chishti. 

26 year old Karachi born Sualeh Asif, cofounder of Cursor (Anysphere) recently joined the list of Forbes Billionaires after Cursor reached a $29.3 billion valuation in November 2025, according to Forbes magazine. 

43 year old Qasar Younis, a Lala Moosa born Harvard-educated Pakistani-American, is the CEO of  Applied Intuition, a physical AI and autonomous vehicle software firm valued at $15 billion. Younis's resume includes his role as Chief Operating Officer of Y-Combinator, a spawning ground for tech giants Dropbox, Airbnb, and Stripe in Silicon Valley, according to Fortune Magazine.

Rehan Jalil, a fellow alumnus of NED University in Karachi, founded AI-powered data privacy and governance platform Security.AI. The startup has now been acquired by Veeam for $1.725 billion.

Zia Chishti is a serial entrepreneur from Pakistan. He founded Afiniti.AI which reached a $1.6 billion valuation back in 2017. founded his first company Align Technology in 1997 in Silicon Valley. It creates clear plastic braces for straightening teeth by using advanced 3-D computer imaging. The technology now trademarked as Invisalign has helped millions of people straighten their teeth for a beautiful smile without enduring the pain and unsightly looks of the traditional steel brackets and wires used in orthodontics. Align Technology is now valued at $10 billion.

The NFAP study found that immigrants have founded or co-founded 59% (455 of 775) of America’s privately held startup companies valued at $1 billion or more. That is an increase from 55% in NFAP reports released in 2018 and 2022. 

Approximately two-thirds (66%) of U.S. billion- dollar companies (unicorns) were founded or cofounded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Nearly 80% of America’s unicorn companies (privately held, billion-dollar companies) have an immigrant founder or an immigrant in a key leadership role, such as CEO or vice president of engineering. Almost one in four U.S. billion- dollar companies, or 24%, have a founder who came to America as an international student. The research shows the importance of immigrants in cutting-edge companies and the U.S. economy at a time when U.S. immigration policies have grown more restrictive.

The collective value of the 455 immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies is $5.0 trillion, which is more than the total market value of companies listed on stock markets in all but 7 countries, including the UK and Germany, and a demonstration of the wealth-creating power of immigrants. The collective value of immigrant-founded billion-dollar companies rises to over $5.8 trillion if one includes unicorn companies that have gone public since 2016.

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Pakistani EdTech and FinTech Startups Win Prizes in International Competitions

Two Pakistani technology startups have recently won recognition in international competitions.  Sabaq, an EdTech startup, has been shortlisted for Siemens Foundation’s global award. Another Pakistani startup Tez Financial Services in FinTech space has been selected as one of the winners of $100,000 Prize at 2019’s Inclusive Fintech 50.  Growing availability of smartphones, tablets and mobile broadband is enabling Pakistani technology entrepreneurs to offer technology-based solutions in multiple fields including education and financial services. These young ambitious entrepreneurs are beginning to attract venture investments from overseas. Tez Financial Services has received $1.1 million seed funding led by Omidyar Network.

Sabaq:

Karachi-based Pakistani education technology (EdTech) startup SABAQ has been shortlisted for Siemens Foundation’s global award. The award recognizes and endorses low-cost technologies providing vital services and solutions for daily needs in developing countries. Earlier this year, Sabaq was selected among the Top 6 Global EdTech startups at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai.

Sabaq Tablet

Sabaq is among 11finalists selected from a 800 submissions from 86 countries.  It will be compete with other finalists for the top 3 spots in Cairo, Egypt next month. The award recognizes low-cost technologies providing vital services and solutions for daily needs in developing regions. Projects submitted are judged on their technical functionality, local adaptability, social impact, team structure, and financial and business sustainability.

SABAQ has partnered with the National Rural Support Program and identified communities where it has set up SABAQ Centers, non-formal learning spaces for out of school students who are taught using the meraSABAQ Tab. This is SABAQ’s custom-made android tablet that features the meraSABAQ app for primary level, each containing digital learning resources for Urdu, Science and Math, developed in-house in accordance with the national curriculum.

Sabaq Foundation is a non-profit organization that offers a tablet app and a website. The meraSabaq is a custom-made tablet designed to be used both by  experienced and new teachers across formal and non-formal learning environments.  Sabaq's website offers online video tutorials with free video lectures for Pakistani students. The website provides tutorials for four main science subjects -- Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology for secondary school students. The tutorials follow the exact syllabus of respective boards of education for Cambridge, Federal, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Balochistan.

Tez Financial:

Tez Financial Services is a woman-led financial technology startup in Karachi, Pakistan.  It has Visa Everywhere Initiative Women’s Global Award after Worldwide Search. It is the first fully digital financial institution in the country providing financial services to the unbanked/underbanked population via a smartphone app.

Tez FinTech App

Last year, Tez Financial raised $1.1 million in a seed round led by Omidyar Network, the impact investment firm established by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay. Other investors on this round include Accion Venture Lab, the seed-stage investment initiative of global nonprofit Accion; and Planet N. Funds will help the company build its credit portfolio, enhance its mobile technology platform, and secure the company’s NBMFC (Non-Bank Microfinance Company) license.

The Visa Everywhere FinTech competition measures how competing companies leverage their companies’ unique ability to solve or transform consumer and/or commercial payment experiences locally, regionally or globally.

The founders of Tez were previously involved in the creation of Tameer Bank, Easypaisa, and CheckIn Solutions.

Pakistan Telecom Indicators. Source: PTA

Technology Entrepreneurs:

Growing availability of smartphones, tablets and mobile broadband is enabling Pakistani technology entrepreneurs to offer technology-based solutions in multiple fields including education and financial services. As of May 2019, there are over 70 million broadband subscriptions in Pakistan and more than a million new subscribers are are being added every month, according to data from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority  (PTA). These young ambitious entrepreneurs are beginning to attract venture investments from overseas. Tez Financial Services has received $1.1 million seed funding led by Omidyar Network headed by E-Bay founder Pierre Omidyar.

Summary:

Two Pakistani technology startups have recently won recognition in international competitions.  Sabaq, an EdTech startup, has been shortlisted for Siemens Foundation’s global award. Another Pakistani startup Tez Financial Services in FinTech space has been selected as one of the winners of 2019’s Inclusive Fintech 50. Growing availability of smartphones, tablets and mobile broadband is enabling Pakistani technology entrepreneurs to offer technology-based solutions in multiple fields including education and financial services. These young ambitious entrepreneurs are beginning to attract venture investments from overseas. Tez Financial Services has received $1.1 million seed funding led by Omidyar Network.

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OPEN Forum 2019: Pakistani Entrepreneurs Summit in Silicon Valley

OPEN Forum 2019 drew hundreds of Pakistanis and Pakistani-Americans to Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley on Saturday April 20, 2019.  This year's conference featured a keynote by Karachi-born Mudassir Sheikha, co-founder of Careem ride-hailing service. In addition, there were sessions on artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, financial technology and entrepreneurship.  Careem has recently been acquired by Uber for $3.1 billion.  The attendees included entrepreneurs, technologists, business executives, investors, lawyers, accountants and others who make up the tech startup ecosystem of Silicon Valley.

Careem Co-Founder's Keynote:

Mudassir Shiekha, born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, gave the morning keynote. He talked about his personal and entrepreneurial journey and the challenges he faced along the way. His first hand experience of riding roof-tops of buses in Karachi stayed with him and eventually led to the choice of starting up a ride-hailing service to ease public transit problems in the MENAP region that covers Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan.

Mudassir Sheikha, Pakistani Co-Founder of Careem

The first challenge Mudassir Sheikha and his fellow co-founders Magnus Olsson and Abdulla Elyas faced was raising capital for their new venture. Although there is no dearth of capital in the Arabian Gulf, the risk capital in the region tends to flow to Silicon Valley and San Francisco startups like Uber rather than to local entrepreneurs in MEAP region. Initially the trio were turned down by all five Middle East investors they approached. Somehow, they were able to persuade one of them to relent and give them a term sheet that they accepted.

Audience at OPEN Forum 2019

The second challenge was lack of good maps that Careem drivers needed to provide efficient and reliable service to their customers. The approached Google but they were told the company is focused on markets in Europe and North America. MENAP region was not a priority for them. So Careem had to take it upon itself to develop more complete and reliable street level maps. "We not only had to build mapping infrastructure, we had to build our own places database because Google was not complete nor reliable," Sheikha told the audience.  As of February 2019, Careem has mapped 45,000 miles of roads in MENAP region.  In addition, Careem has also had build its payment system that accommodates cash payments.

Mudassir said that acquisition of Careem by Uber is not the end of his journey.  Instead, it's a new chapter in his and Careem's lives. He sees great potential for Careem to serve a region with 700 million people. Only 2% of them afford Careem's service today but he sees the rest of the 98% as hid target. He sees delivery business with the growth of e-commerce as another major opportunity for Careem.

Artificial Intelligence:

The panel discussion on the current state, the promise and the future impact of artificial intelligence (AI) featured 5 AI experts, including 3 Pakistani-Americans: Professor Ali Minai, Professor Irfan Essa and Batool Arhamna Haider. All three are from Karachi. Ali and Batool are both my fellow alumni of NED University of Engineering and Technology. Batool, the sole woman on the panel, works as a scientist at Amazon's AI group. Irfan Essa teaches Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia.  Abbas Rafii and Ahmad Abdelkader, both CTOs of the Silicon Valley companies they founded, were the remaining two panelists.

Panelists said the artificial intelligence (AI) software today serves as tools to aid people in getting basic things done.  Advances in sensor networks and availability vast amounts of data and neural networks will help advance machine learning as well as machine cognition and understanding.

The question going forward is whether AI will eventually be an entirely new autonomous species or serve to collaborate with humans in accomplishing higher level tasks in a variety of fields ranging from retail and manufacturing to education and health care. What eventually happens has huge implications for productivity and labor markets. Dr. Ali Minai used the example of Google translation of Urdu poet Ghalib's poetry to make the point that AI today lacks nuance.

Philz Coffee:

Philz (Faisal) Jaber sat for a fireside chat with Omar Siddiqui in the afternoon. Born in Ramallah in Palestine, Faisal has become a fixture in San Francisco over decades.  As an 8-year-old in Palestine he sold coffee beans door-to-door and spent afternoons at family gatherings where his grandma shared Turkish coffee.

Phil (Faisal) Jaber of Philz Coffee

Philz' is highly caffeinated coffee of choice in Silicon Valley. It is an expensive alternative to Starbucks and Pete's.  Philz fame shot up after he served coffee at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's surprise wedding with Priscilla Chan. Here's how Forbes reported it:

"Everyone who arrived that Saturday afternoon, including the couple's parents, was taken aback when they saw Chan in a lace gown and the Facebook chief in a navy-blue suit. Everyone, that is, except Phil and Jacob Jaber. As the purveyors of Philz Coffee, San Francisco's alternative answer to Starbucks, father and son were among the few entrusted with Silicon Valley's biggest secret. On the day of the event they served their signature drinks, which were such a hit that Zuckerberg invited them to the postnuptial brunch the next day."

Summary:

Hundreds of Pakistani entrepreneurs met for OPEN Forum 2019 held at Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley. The event featured a keynote by Karachi-born Mudassir Sheikha, co-founder of Careem ride-hailing service, which was recently acquired by Uber for $3.1 billion. In addition, there were session on artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, financial technology and entrepreneurship.

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Open Forum 2018: Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs Summit in Silicon Valley

Hundreds of Pakistanis and Pakistani-Americans converged on Santa Clara Convention Center in Silicon Valley on Saturday May 12, 2018 for Open Forum 2018.  The attendees included entrepreneurs, technologists, business executives, investors, lawyers, accountants and others.What was different this year was the presence of an unusually large number of attendees from Pakistan, including dozens of Fulbright scholars studying in the United States,  entrepreneurs from Pakistan, and Husain Dawood of Dawood Group of Companies, the second largest business group in terms of market cap of the companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange. Driverless vehicle tech and leading-edge brain research were among the new research and technology topics discussed at the Forum.

L to R: Imran Qureshi, Nazim Kareemi, Husain Dawood, Riaz Haq, Faruk Ahmad at Open Forum 2018

Husain Dawood Keynote:

The morning keynote by Husain Dawood of Dawood Group was in the form of an on-stage interview of the visitor by Imran Sayeed. Sayeed is part of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

L to R: OPEN President Mobashar Yazdani, Imran Sayeed, Husain Dawood. Photo: Zain Jeewanji

Talking about ups and down of his business that reflect Pakistan's history, Husain Dawood said his father Seth Ahmad Dawood started in the textile business in undivided India and lost everything when he moved to Pakistan in 1947. He rebuilt the business from the scratch starting in 1947 but then suffered a major setback again in 1971 when the eastern wing of the county broke away. The family lost half its business in what became Bangladesh and the other half of its business was nationalized in what was left of Pakistan led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. They were forced to start all over again.

Husain Dawood took over the leadership of the group in 2002 when Ahmad Dawood passed away. Helped by President Musharraf's pro-business policies, Dawood diversified from textile into other businesses such as fertilizer, food, energy and communications.  The group took on a lot of debt to expand. Dawood invested nearly a billion dollars and built one of the world's largest fertilizer plants on government's commitment to supply gas to the plant. Then came the PPP government that went back on the commitment and plant ground to halt. The group was able to get it working again when Nawaz Sharif government took power in 2013 and restored gas supply to the plant. Dawood group also invested in the power sector upon Nawaz Sharif's urging to help deal with the energy crisis.

Karachi School of Business Leadership (KSBL):

After the keynote, I asked Husain Dawood why do the family owned business conglomerates and seth culture have such a strangle-hold in Pakistan. He said he's been working to change it to put professional managers in charge of the companies owned by his group. He cited his support for the setting up of Karachi School of Business Leadership (KSBL) a top private business school in Karachi.  KSBL was launched in collaboration with the UK's Cambridge University's Judge School of Business. KSBL faculty includes former professors at top US business schools like Wharton and Sloane.  Dawood said he is now working on creating a Business Leadership Institute at KSBL in collaboration with leading business schools and management consultancies.  McKinsey and Company is among the consultancies he's working with.

Dr. Maheen Adamson's Keynote. Photo Courtesy Ali Hasan Cemendtaur

Dr. Maheen Adamson Keynote:

The afternoon keynote speakers was Dr. Maheen Mausoof Adamson, a Pakistani-American professor at Stanford School of Medicine. She is engaged in leading-edge research and development for treating a variety of brain impairments such as Alzheimer's and brain injuries in sports and on the battlefields.

She spoke directly to the young women in the audience to inspire them to set and achieve ambitious goals as women, particular Muslim women of color with immigrant parents.

Dr. Adamson is working on translational neuroscience methodologies for diagnostic and therapeutic treatments (mainly repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) in mild and moderate Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), including structural and functional changes in the brain in both Veteran, active military and civilian population.

One particular kind of brain injury she described is "blast wave injury" that results from just being near a blast that generates fast moving high energy waves. These waves cause serious physical and structural damage to the brain.

She said her research is in early stages and a lot more work is required to fully understand and treat brain impairments and injuries.

Self-Driving Cars:

I was not able to attend the driverless car panel discussion at Open Forum but I spoke with its moderator Shoeib Yunus. Shoeib said there are many Pakistanis working on driverless car technology in the global auto industry.

In particular, Shoeib mentioned two names: Sajjad Khan and Zaki Fasihuddin.

Sajjad Khan is the head of Mercedes Digital Car Division.  As Vice President - Digital Vehicle and Mobility at Mercedes Benz Cars, he is based in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Sajjad has about 300 engineers working for him at Mercedes Research and Development Center in Silicon Valley, CA.  Prior to coming to Mercedes, Sajjad worked for BMW in Munich, Germany.

Zaki Fasihuddin is Vice President of Strategic Partnerships in the Volvo Cars Silicon Valley Technology Center, and CEO of the Volvo Cars Tech Fund focused on funding research in driverless cars.

Social Entrepreneurship Panel: 

It was an all-women panel with two of the three panelists coming from Pakistan to participate in the conference. It was moderated by Shahab Riazi. The companies represented at this company were: Komal Ahmad of Copia, Shameela Ismael of Ghar Par and Maryam Arshad of Impact. They head for-profit startups with the motto: Do good and do well.

Komal Ahmad of Copia described how her company is helping solve hunger by reducing waste of millions of tons of perfectly good, healthy and edible surplus food. Her company's smartphone app matches those with excess food with those in need of food. The idea was born when  Komal saw University of California at Berkeley's cafeteria regularly throwing away un-eaten food. It took her a couple of hours to persuade the cafeteria director to donate the food instead of throwing it away. His main concern was liability if someone ate the food and got sick and sued the university. Komal explained to him that a good samaritan law protects donors from liability in such cases. That was the key to getting him to agree to begin donating surplus food to charity.

Komal's business helps donors, recipients and Copia as the match-maker. Donors get tax deduction for the in-kind donation, the hungry get fed and Copia receives a commission for their work.  Cpoia is a Y Combinator company. It received its seed funding from Pakistani-American Amar Hanafi, a charter member of OPEN, Organization of Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs.

Lahore-based Ghar Par has a similar business model for matching beauticians with customers. It provides employment for women looking for work and generates fees for Ghar Par as a match-maker.

Summary:

Organization of Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs (OPEN) held its annual forum in Silicon Valley on Saturday, May 12, 2018 at Santa Clara Convention Center. It drew hundreds of attendees including entrepreneurs, technologists, business executives, investors, lawyers, accountants and others. There were a large number of attendees from Pakistan, including dozens of Fulbright scholars studying in the United States, entrepreneurs from Pakistan and Husain Dawood of Dawood Group of Companies, the second largest business group in terms of market cap of the companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange. Driverless vehicle tech and leading-edge brain research were among the new research and technologies discussed at the Forum.

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Pakistani-American Co-Founders Sell Tech Startup Viptela to Cisco For $610 million

Cisco is paying $610 million to acquire Viptela, a software-defined-networks (SDN) start-up in Silicon Valley that was co-founded in 2012 by Pakistani-American entrepreneurs Amir Khan, Atif Khan and Khalid Raza.

Software defined network (SDN) technology allows network managers to configure, manage, secure, and optimize network resources quickly as needed via dynamic, automated SDN programs.

L to R Back: Venu Hemige, Khalid Raza Front: Atif Khan, Amir Khan, Ramesh Prabagaran Courtesy: Sequoia Capital

"Together, Cisco and Viptela will be able to deliver next-generation SD-WAN solutions to best serve all size and scale of customer needs, while accelerating Cisco's transition to a recurring, software-based business model," said Rob Salvagno,  Cisco's executive in charge of mergers and acquisitions.

Viptela's software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) technologies are enabling small and large companies tackle the ongoing transition from traditional client-server model to cloud computing efficiently and effectively.

Viptela was founded by 5 co-founders, three Pakistanis and two Indians,  in 2012 and had raised more than $108 million, including its most recent $75 million round just last May. The $610 million sale price offers a pretty good return for investors.

Prior to starting Viptela, the founders worked in different capacities for major network equipment companies including Cisco, Huawei and Juniper. One of the founders, Khalid Raza, is an alumnus of Karachi's NED University of Engineering and Technology.

Viptela and other companies in this space are benefiting from the continuing transition to a cloud-based subscription business.

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OPEN Silicon Valley Forum 2017: Pakistani Entrepreneurs Conference

Open Forum 2017, the annual conference of Pakistani entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, drew over 1,000 attendees, about half of them women. It featured presentations by successful entrepreneurs including Ahmad Khaishgi of SquareTrade and Mudassir Sheikha of Careem as well as sessions by powerful venture capitalists like Aaref Hilaly of Sequoia Capital. It is organized by the Organization of Pakistan Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley (OpenSV). In addition to entrepreneurs, the attendees were venture capitalists, bankers, accountants, lawyers and high-tech executives coming together at the Santa Clara Convention Center on Saturday, April 29, 2017.

A variety of topics raging from cloud computing and virtual reality to internet of things (IoT) and sharing economy were discussed in three parallel tracks at the conference. A session that drew special attention was titled "Pakistan's Thriving Startup Ecosystem" that featured Fahad Aziz, Khurram Jamali, Konstantinos Papamiltiadis and Ather Imran Nawaz.

I was drawn to two conference sessions in particular: cloud computing and internet of things (IoT). The choice was guided by my own interest in these topics.

Cloud Computing:

Tariq Shaukat, President of Google Cloud, was the featured speaker in this session.

What is cloud computing? The last few years have seen a major shift from to old client-server to the new cloud computing model in information technology. Companies are shunning their own in-house IT infrastructure in favor of renting services from data centers operated by cloud companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft which also offer their proprietary application programming interfaces (APIs) and frameworks to support applications.

Tariq talked about a variety of Google Cloud APIs that include compute, storage, data, machine learning, management, identity and security APIs. He specifically focused on machine learning APIs for vision, speech, language and translation.

Answering  my question about portability of cloud applications, Tariq said they provide from apps written to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to Google Cloud. However, he said nothing about ease of porting apps from Google to other competing cloud offerings. Unfortunately, Tariq's presentation looked and sounded more like a sales pitch for Google Cloud than a discussion of cloud computing model itself.

How does it affect IT companies? Among the most affected  by cloud computing are the IT outsourcing companies, particularly India-based TCS and Infosys, that relied on back office work for their revenue. The ongoing shift to cloud is now hurting that business.

Internet of Things (IoT):

Naeem Zafar (CEO TeleSense) moderated this panel featuring Ali Sebt (President VIMOC Tech), Nadir Fatehi (CEO Kiana Analytics), Nidhi Kalra (Rand Corp) and Mashood Alam (SAP Labs).

The growth of embedded computing chips in both industrial machines and consumer appliances combined with proliferation of networks are enabling the "Internet of Things" (IoT). Such networked machines collect operational and performance data from built-in sensors that can be analyzed and used to fine tune performance, schedule preventative maintenance, diagnose and fix problems (often remotely) and better manage them for the best results.  New revenue models can also be imagined by manufacturers based on the output and the outcomes of such systems.

An example of IoT I heard about recently is in the farm equipment business like tractors and harvesters. Before the advent of IoT and software, most American farmers repaired their own equipment. Now, they must call manufacturers like John Deere to fix it. And they need to sign long term service contracts guaranteeing additional revenue streams for the sellers.

Summary:

Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley (OPEN SV), led by Ms. Amra Tareen,  put on yet another great conference this year that drew over a thousand attendees, about half of them women. It was attended by entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, bankers, accountants, lawyers and high-tech executives coming together at Santa Clara Convention Center on Saturday, April 29, 2017. It featured successful entrepreneurs including Ahmad Khaishgi of SquareTrade and Mudassir Sheikha of Careem as well as powerful venture capitalists such as Aaref Hilaly of Sequoia Capital.

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OPEN Forum 2016: Pakistani Entrepreneurs Conference in Silicon Valley

OPEN Forum 2016 in Silicon Valley drew over 700  Pakistani-American entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, bankers, accountants, lawyers and high-tech executives to Santa Clara Convention Center on Saturday, April 30, 216. The forum featured keynotes by Qasar Younus, the Pakistani-American head of Silicon Valley's top incubator Y-Combinator, and  Atif Rafiq, Chief Digital Officer at fast food giant McDonald's Corp.

OPEN Forum 2016 Agenda:

The conference included presentations and discussions in four parallel tracks to inform and educate attendees on various aspects of starting and building businesses at different stages. In addition, there were panels on social entrepreneurship, women empowerment, inspiring Pakistani-American youth and dealing with the rise of Islamophobia in the United States. Also screened was a documentary "K2 and the Invisible Footmen" about the unsung mountaineering heroes of Pakistan's tallest and the world's second tallest mountain peak K2 and the film "The PHD Movie" about grad school.

Silicon Valley's Impact on Jobs in America:

The first keynote I attended in the morning was about order automation at fast food giant McDonald's. The effort is spearheaded by Atif Rafiq, a Pakistani-American who has been hired by the restaurant chain operator as its first Chief Digital Officer. After the presentation, I asked Atif as to how he sees the impact of his work on employment at McDonald's? Given the fact that the service sector is the largest employer in the United States, how would the ongoing service sector automation efforts impact the larger jobs picture?  Would the emerging gig economy a la Uber be enough to make up for service sector job losses?   Rafiq confessed it's a significant issue but he did not directly answer it.

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, including Pakistani-Americans, are credited with creating millions of new jobs in new industries ranging from semiconductors to computers, communications and software  and biotechnology over the last several decades. The question is: Will the new industries spawned by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs help or hurt the overall employment in America?

Twin Forces of Globalization and Automation:

The twin forces of automation and globalization are now causing significant unemployment and underemployment in the United States. The impact of job losses and growing inequality are  the subject of the current election campaigns.

First, it was the manufacturing jobs that moved offshore in 1980s and 1990s in an effort to save costs and fatten profits. This forced many factory workers to move into service industries and take pay cuts. Now the service sector jobs are also falling prey to outsourcing and automation.

Instead of addressing the root causes of economic difficulties faced by many Americans, Republican front-runner Donald Trump's presidential primary campaign is blaming immigrants and Muslims for their problems. This is  giving rise to forces of racism, bigotry, xenophobia and Islamophobia in America.

Future of Capitalism and Democracy in America:

The success of American capitalism and democracy is built on the firm foundations of nearly full employment and a large middle class. The erosion of these two ingredients threatens the very foundations of America's peace and prosperity.

In response to high unemployment in 1930s, British economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) argued: "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up." He advocated massive spending by government to stimulate demand when all else fails.

John Maynard Keynes:

 Who was Keynes?  Here is how UC Berkeley's Robert Reich described him a few years ago: "A Cambridge University don with a flair for making money, a graduate of England's exclusive Eton prep school, a collector of modern art, the darling of Virginia Woolf and her intellectually avant-garde Bloomsbury Group, the chairman of a life-insurance company, later a director of the Bank of England, married to a ballerina, John Maynard Keynes--tall, charming and self-confident--nonetheless transformed the dismal science into a revolutionary engine of social progress."

Keynes was clearly a very smart man. His ideas of modern Capitalism have created unprecedented wealth and lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. And his ideas may still help save capitalism yet again. However, what Keynes couldn't have imagined are the new heights of avarice and wickedness of the modern political-industrial elite in America that has threatened the very foundations of the system that brought them wealth and power. During recent decades, the behavior of American capitalists and politicians has been unbelievably self-destructive.

What Can Silicon Valley Do?

I think it's in the best interest of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, particularly Pakistani-American entrepreneurs, to pay attention to the economic difficulties being faced by many Americans who are losing jobs to automation and globalization. These difficulties lie at the root of growing xenophobia and Islamophobia. The Pakistani-American entrepreneurs need to think of new ways to help people who are being left behind. They need to explore ideas such as helping build new skills needed for the new economy, promote policy discussions on the idea of universal basic income and expansion of safety nets and development of new gig economy to ensure full employment with decent incomes. Failure to do so could lead to significant social strife and cause irreparable damage to the very foundations of the system that has brought great wealth and power to America as a nation.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Can American Capitalism Survive?

The Trump Phenomenon

Islamophobia in America

Silicon Valley Pakistani-Americans

Pakistani-American Leads Silicon Valley's Top Incubator

Silicon Valley Pakistanis Enabling 2nd Machine Revolution

Karachi-born Triple Oscar Winning Graphics Artist

Pakistani-American Ashar Aziz's Fire-eye Goes Public

Two Pakistani-American Silicon Valley Techs Among Top 5 VC Deals

Pakistani-American's Game-Changing Vision 

Minorities Are Majority in Silicon Valley 

Pakistan Has World's 4th Highest Number of Shadow Entrepreneurs

Pakistan has 109 informal entrepreneurs for every formally documented entrepreneur, ranking the country 4th in the world for the size of its shadow economy, according to a study published by Professor Erkko Autio and Dr. Kun Fu of the Business School of London's Imperial College.

Pakistan's 109 shadow entrepreneurs for every officially registered one rank it 4th behind Indonesia's 131, India's 127 and the Philippines' 126. Egypt ranks 5th with 103 shadow entrepreneurs.

The U.S. appears at number 32 on the list with 2.37 unregistered businesses for each registered one, while the UK exhibits the lowest rate of shadow entrepreneurship among the 68 countries surveyed, with a ratio of only one shadow economy entrepreneur to nearly 30 legally registered businesses.

Shadow entrepreneurs are individuals who manage a business that sells legitimate goods and services but they do not register it. This means that they do not pay taxes, operating in a shadow economy where business activities are performed outside the reach of government authorities.

The shadow economy results in loss of tax revenue, unfair competition to registered businesses and also poor productivity - factors which hinder economic development. As these businesses are not registered it takes them beyond the reach of the law and makes shadow economy entrepreneurs vulnerable to corrupt government officials.

In a study of 68 countries, Professor Erkko Autio and Dr Kun Fu from Imperial College Business School estimated that business activities conducted by informal entrepreneurs can make up more than 80 per cent of the total economic activity in developing countries. Types of businesses include unlicensed taxicab services, roadside food stalls and small landscaping operations.

 A 2011 World Bank report titled "More and Better Jobs in South Asia" showed that 63% of Pakistan's workforce is self-employed, including 13% high-end self-employed. Salaried and daily wage earners make up only 37% of the workforce.

M. Ali Kemal and Ahmed Waqar Qasim, economists at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), have published their research on their estimates of the size of Pakistan's shadow economy.

They have explored several published different approaches for sizing Pakistan's underground economy and settled on a combination of  PSLM (Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement) consumption data  and mis-invoicing of exports and imports to conclude that the country's "informal economy was 91% of the formal economy in 2007-08".

While Pakistan's public finances remain shaky, it appears that the country's economy is in fact healthier than what the official figures show. It also seems that the national debt is less of a problem given the debt-to-GDP ratio of just 30% when informal economy is fully comprehended. Even a small but serious effort to collect more taxes can make a big dent in budget deficits. My hope is that increasing share of the informal economy will become documented with the rising use of technology. Bringing a small slice of it in the tax net will make a significant positive difference for public finances in the coming years.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistan's Underground Economy

Job Creation in Pakistan

IBA Report on Entrepreneurship in Pakistan

Pakistan's Economy Ranks Among World's 25 Largest

Tax Evasion in Pakistan Fosters Foreign Aid Dependence

2 Pakistani-American Startups Among Top 5 Silicon Valley VC Deals

Latest funding of Ashar Aziz's FireEye and Zia Yusuf's Streetline rank #1 and #4 among top 5 VC deals in Silicon Valley announced in January 2013, according to Silicon Valley Business Journal.

FireEye is riding high on a wave of growing cyber security concerns amidst increasing cyber attacks being reported almost daily from around the globe. FireEye's founder Asgar Aziz is among the top recognized experts in the field of Internet and computer security. With the recent $50 million round from top investors, the company has raised $100 million to date. The new funding comes from new and existing investors — including Sequoia Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Goldman Sachs, Juniper Networks, Silicon Valley Bank, and others.

Streetline is offering smartphone applications to help drivers find the increasingly scarce parking spots in crowded places. The company bills itself as "the leading provider of smart parking solutions to cities, garages, airports, universities and other private parking providers". The company has raised $25 million in January, 2013 from True Ventures, with participation by new investors Qualcomm Ventures and Citi and existing investors Sutter Hill Ventures, RockPort Capital Partners and Fontinalis Partners. The company has now raised a total of $40 million, and it says it recently obtained a $25 million credit facility from Citi, too.

Another Pakistani-American who has been in the news is Rayid Ghani who served as the Chief Scientist in President Obama's re-election campaign organization. Before joining the Obama Campaign, Ghani worked for Accenture as Chief Scientist  and developed tools to mine mountains of private data of client corporations to find statistical patterns that could forecast consumer behavior. Instead of just using Facebook for posting messages and tracking its followers’ feelings, Ghani's team turned social media into a tool for efficiently recruiting the human resources it needed leading into the election’s home stretch.

Using Ghani's tools, the Obama campaign was able to match up supporters’ friends' profiles with voting lists and decide how it should reach out to supporters to reach their friends through micro-targeting. If someone was going to spread a message to 10 people, the campaign wanted to ensure they reached 10 people most likely to take actions such as donate money, get active knocking on doors or even to switch sides.

Pakistani-Americans Ashar, Ghani, Zia and many other entrepreneurs and professionals like them from Asia represent a dramatic shift in   Silicon Valley's racial mix over the last few  decades. I have been a witness to this historic change. When I arrived here to join Intel in 1981, there were few non-whites in the Valley. In fact, I was the only nonwhite person in a picture of the six-member award winning Intel 80386 CPU design team which was published by the PC Magazine in 1988.

Standing L to R: Riaz Haq, Jan Prak, Gene Hill, Pat Gelsinger, John Crawford

     Sitting: Dave Vannier

My experience of the demographic changes in this high-tech valley is not just anecdotal. It's supported by data compiled by the local San Jose Mercury newspaper in 2010. The data shows that 49% of Intel employees are now Asian, a full 7% more than whites. In Silicon Valley, the difference is even more pronounced with Asians accounting for 53.9% of the employees versus 37.6% white workers.
 

 With Asians accounting for just 15.5% of the high-tech work force nationally, Silicon Valley's high-tech racial mix is also very different from the rest of the country. Silicon valley's employee pool also differs in terms of under-representation of Blacks, Hispanics and women relative the national averages.

 Among Asian-Americans, Pakistani-Americans are the 7th largest community in America, according to a report titled "A Community of Contrasts Asian Americans in the United States: 2011" published by Asian-American Center For Advancing Justice.  Pakistani-American population has doubled from 204,309 in 2000 to 409,163 in 2010, the second largest percentage increase after Bangladeshis' 157% increase in the same period.

The total fertility rate in the United States is now at 2.06, just enough to maintain the current level of US population. It's possible mainly due to the history of relatively liberal US immigration policy. If US immigration policy is tightened in response to pressures from various labor organizations and the traditional anti-immigration groups, the US fertility rate is likely to dip and hurt the US economy which needs more workers to pay for the retiree benefits of the growing population of senior citizens. Already, many US multinational corporations have added 1.5 million workers to their payrolls in Asia and the Pacific region from 1999 to 2009, and 477,500 workers in Latin America, according to US Commerce Dept data as reported by the Wall Street Journal. If the businesses can not find workers in the United States, they are more likely to continue to accelerate moving jobs elsewhere, depriving the US government the revenue it needs to balance its budget.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistani-American's Game-Changing Vision 

Minorities Are Majority in Silicon Valley 

US Promoting Venture Capital & Private Equity in Pakistan

Pakistani-American Population Growth Second Fastest Among Asian-Americans

Edible Arrangements: Pakistani-American's Success Story

Pakistani-American Elected Mayor

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan

US Firms Adding Jobs Overseas 

Pakistan's Demographic Dividend

Pakistanis Study Abroad

Pakistan's Youth Bulge

Pakistani Diaspora World's 7th Largest

Pakistani-American NFL Team Owner

Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs Catch the Wave

Pakistani Graduation Rate Higher Than India's

Pakistani Entrepreneurs Thrive Against All Odds

Growing at more than 55% a year and collectively employing 41,000, the winners of Pakistan Fast Growth 100 contest were announced by Harvard-based Allworld Network last week. Of these 100 entrepreneurial companies, 70 also qualified for the Arabia500, putting Pakistan in second position after Turkey with 117 winners.



AllWorld was co-founded by Harvard Business School Professor Michael E. Porter, Deirdre M. Coyle, Jr., and Anne S. Habiby with the aim to bring visibility to growing companies in emerging markets to increase their odds of success. Any private, non-listed, company with rapid sales growth and an ability to demonstrate results with audited financial statements was invited to compete for a spot on the inaugural Arabia500 which includes Pakistan and Turkey in addition to the emerging economies of the Middle East and North Africa.

Each Pakistan entrepreneur ranked in the top 100 has grown an average of 40 percent annually between 2008 and 2010, created an average of 200 jobs per company, and is succeeding in industries from web technology to transportation, food to textiles, and construction to consulting, according to an AllWorld press release. With an average age of 42, nearly all of them plan to establish another entrepreneurial venture within the next two years.

Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Pakistan’s Minister for Finance, is quoted as saying that “the strong performance of Pakistani companies in Arabia500 illustrates that in spite of the challenges there continues to be strong business and investment opportunity in Pakistan. Pakistani companies in Arabia500 are surfacing new horizons for growth and quickening the pace of economic development and regional integration.”

The fastest growing company from Pakistan, E2E Supply Chain Management, grew at nearly 2000 percent between 2008 and 2010, with 2010 revenues above $50 million and 297 employees. Of the Arabia500 winners from 15 countries, E2E was the third fastest growing. Taking the second spot for Pakistan was Exceed Private Limited with a growth rate of 1,320 percent and 90 employees, and in sixth position overall on the Arabia500.

Pakistan also had the highest number of women entrepreneurs on the Arabia500, and Luscious Cosmetics of Pakistan topped the list of the fastest growing Arabia500 women entrepreneurs with growth of 392 percent and 82 employees.

Complimenting the Pakistan100 winners at the Awards Ceremony held in Lahore, AllWorld co-founders Deirdre Coyle and Anne Habiby urged the Pakistan100 to go further “When no one expected much, the Pakistan100 broke records for growth, transparency and competitiveness. They are the personification of what every country dreams of having. Now raise the bar higher and build Pakistan as a leading entrepreneurial nation.”



A recent World Bank report titled "More and Better Jobs in South Asia" said that 63% of Pakistan's workforce is self-employed, including 13% high-end self-employed. Salaried and daily wage earners make up only 37% of the workforce.

Even if one chooses to consider just the 13% who are high-end self-employed as entrepreneurs by choice, it puts Pakistanis among the most entrepreneurial people in the world.

The winners of Pakistan100 entrepreneurs are truly inspirational. They epitomize the Pakistani nation's extraordinary resilience and reaffirm that Pakistan's best days are ahead.


Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistani Entrepreneurs Survive Downturn

Pakistan Leads in Entrepreneurship Indicators

Microfinance to Fight Poverty in Pakistan

Pakistani Entrepreneurs Summit in Silicon Valley

Social Entrepreneurs Target India, Pakistan

Urbanization in Pakistan Highest in South Asia

Start-ups Drive a Boom in Pakistan

P.I.D.E. on Entrepreneurship in Pakistan

Light a Candle, Do Not Curse Darkness

Pakistan Tops Job Growth in Pakistan

Do South Asian Slums Offer Hope?

IBA's Entrepreneurship Report Flawed

IBA's Pakistan Entrepreneurship Report is Flawed!

A recent report by the Center for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) finds that Pakistanis are less entrepreneurial than their counterparts in the majority of 59 member nations of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), according to Express Tribune newspaper. The report says that the new business ownership rate, which is the percentage of owner-managers of a business that is three to 42 months old, is 2.7% in Pakistan, "considerably less" than the average rate for factor-driven economies (11.8%).

The results of this IBA CED study, as reported by the media, run counter to the findings of a recent World Bank report titled "More and Better Jobs in South Asia" which shows that 63% of Pakistan's workforce is self-employed, including 13% high-end self-employed. Salaried and daily wage earners make up only 37% of the workforce.

Even if one chooses to consider just the 13% who are high-end self-employed as entrepreneurs, it's still much higher than the 2.7% figure reported by CED, and higher than the 11.8% average reported for factor-driven economies covered by GEM.



It seems to me that this discrepancy stems from a very narrow and limited definition of entrepreneurship used in the IBA study which ignores the following realities:

1. The rapid urbanization from massive ongoing rural-to-urban migration in Pakistan is spawning a whole generation of small entrepreneurs who end up working for themselves as small vendors selling their wares on the streets and independent service providers who do basic chores like cooking and cleaning for dozens of clients. Each of these individuals is an entrepreneur by definition. Some of them have also found their way to other nations in Europe and the Middle East where they are earning a good living as street vendors. I saw a recent example of a Pakistani street vendor in Italy who earned enough to send his children to universities....a luxury he didn't have himself.

2. There are many small groups of men and women who are starting businesses at home in both urban and rural areas of the country to sell groceries, sew clothes, raise animals for milk, grow and sell fruits and vegetables, cater cooked food, etc. These small entrepreneurs are managing to put food on their families' tables and put children through good schools. Some of them are being funded and trained by microfinance institutions like Kashf Foundation and others.

People at academic institutions like the IBA who talk about entrepreneurship must research examples like Kraft Foods and Carl's Junior, both of which had humble beginnings on the streets of the United States.

James L. Kraft started Kraft foods by selling milk and cheese from a horse-drawn cart in Chicago in 1903; its first year of operations was "dismal", losing US$3,000 and a horse. Today, Kraft Foods is a multi-billion dollar multinational corporation selling a variety of food products around the globe, including Pakistan.

Carl's Jr, a multi-national fast food giant which operates Hardy's restaurants in Pakistan, began life as a hot dog stand in southern California 1941 with $311 in capital. One cart grew to four, and within five years, Carl's Drive-In Barbecue opened with hamburgers on the menu.

I believe that most Pakistanis are not risk-averse. What is lacking is a supportive environment to help nurture millions of small entrepreneurs to enable them to realize their dreams. The efforts of microfinance sector need to be supported by both the public and private sector through skills training, mentoring and greater funding. Each of us who can afford to help can do so by joining microfinance networks like Kiva.org to lend to such entrepreneurs in Pakistan.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistani Entrepreneurs Survive Downturn

Pakistan Leads in Entrepreneurship Indicators

Microfinance to Fight Poverty in Pakistan

Pakistani Entrepreneurs Summit in Silicon Valley

Social Entrepreneurs Target India, Pakistan

Urbanization in Pakistan Highest in South Asia

Start-ups Drive a Boom in Pakistan

P.I.D.E. on Entrepreneurship in Pakistan

Light a Candle, Do Not Curse Darkness

Pakistan Tops Job Growth in Pakistan

Do South Asian Slums Offer Hope?