Crossing the Desert

In the summer of 1987, Payam Zamani fled Iran. Raised by his parents under the peaceful teachings of the Baha’i Faith, he had already survived years of religious persecution at the hands of a fundamentalist regime. Taking the only path available to him, he escaped to Pakistan through the Emptiness Desert: a harrowing five-day trek through one of the hottest, driest, and most hostile regions on the planet. Twelve years later, he and his brother set records when the company they founded hit a $1.2 billion valuation on Wall Street. He was rich - on paper. But bubbles don’t last, and in the wake of yet another Wall Street disaster, he learned the hard way that modern capitalism can be harmful to the human soul. In 2015, Payam set the example he wanted to see by merging his business acumen with his spiritual beliefs and founding a new company - One Planet Group - this time without letting Wall Street or the venture capital world dictate the terms. Today, One Planet Group is proving that