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Born to Iranian parents, Ashkan Karbasfrooshan spent some of his childhood in Spain before arriving in Montreal age six. 


"Not losing sight of our privilege, we left Tehran somewhat comfortably in 1983 thanks to my father’s occupation for the Spanish embassy. We moved to Madrid, Spain. A year later, we settled in Montreal. I grew up in Canada from the age of 6. While my Nurture vs Nature manifest traits of Persian culture, I grew up as Canadian as someone who’d move to the country at such a young age."

He grew up and lived all across Montreal. He ended up enrolling in Concordia’s business program, though he said he also had a keen interest in humanities. For work, he imagined becoming an investment banker.

“I was really good at finance, but because of the dot.com crash and being ‘Ashkan Karbasfrooshan from Montreal,’ it wasn’t like Goldman Sachs from Wall Street was going to go: ‘Oh, let’s hire this kid.’ But I said: ‘The internet is the future. Just go work at a startup.’”

A winner of the 2015 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, in the media & entertainment category, Karbasfrooshan is the founder, CEO and chairman of WatchMojo, one of the most successful producers of premium video content on YouTube.

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