Iranian immigrant rose to building Google’s business, leading Twitter’s board

Executive Chairman Omid Kordestani at the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco on February 16, 2017. The Iranian-born businessman grew up in San Jose, Calif., and was Google's chief business officer before moving to Twitter in 2015. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group/TNS)

SAN FRANCISCO: Follow someone you know. That's how Twitter executive chairman Omid Kordestani, like many immigrants, found his way from Iran to Silicon Valley as a teenager. 

The move was unexpected. So was his father's death from cancer, a moment of grief that left his family with a decision about where to go next. And as luck would have it, Kordestani followed family friends to the United States in the 1970s just as turmoil broke out in Iran.