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Harsimran Julka · · 6 min readFrom fleeing Vietnam in a refugee boat to becoming Uber’s CTO: the journey of Thuan Pham
It was in 1979 that Thuan Pham left on a refugee boat from Vietnam, a country torn by a two-decade long war. On the 60-meter boat were 10-year old Thuan, his mother, a young brother, and about 370 other people, with no life jackets.
Thuan Pham, Chief Technology Officer at Uber Technologies, Inc. Photo credit: TheInformation
When they landed in Malaysia, Thuan and his family were rejected as refugees. Unwilling to go back to war-ravaged Vietnam, Thuan’s mother decided to take her two kids on another boat, to the island of Letung in Indonesia, where they spent 10 months.
The young Thuan used to swim to the nearby town to buy candies. His mother would then sell those candies in the refugee colony to earn bread for her kids.
VUNG TAU , VIETNAM – APRIL,1975: Refugees from north of Saigon, pour ashore from navy barges at Vung Tau, south of Saigon. (Jack Cahill/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
“We used to make 10 cents of profit a day, and that would be a luxury. We could buy fresh fish,” recalls Thuan, who is now the chief technology officer of Uber. We met in Delhi, where he was meeting entrepreneurs as part of an UberExchange program.
Going back to the story of how he made it out of Vietnam, Thuan says there was just a 50:50 chance of survival in those boat journeys across oceans. During the journeys, Thuan and his family were pirated twice.
“We would not panic. In fact we would be calm and surrender ourselves. That’s the way a startup journey is. Even if you lose all one day, you can build all over again if you retain your calm.”
Playing with bullet shells during war
Thuan says his life spent as a kid in Saigon erased his fear of death and he takes everything, which includes building Uber, as a learning experience. “We would close our windows and spend nights, under a table, whenever there was an air raid.” In the sunny mornings, Thuan and other kids would go out and play with hundreds of bullet shells, exchanged during the night.
Vietnam War images. Photo credit: Wiki
“It taught me that life is ephemeral. I advise young entrepreneurs to treat their startups as a learning experience. Even if it all fails you can rebuild it again. You’re in a free world,” he adds.
Even if you lose all one day, you can build all over again if you retain your calm.
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“Even if you lose all one day, you can build all over again if you retain your calm,” Thuan Pham who escaped a war ravaged Vietnam in a crowded refugee boat advises entrepreneurs.
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