And I believe one of the Shah's cousins lived across the street from us. And at some point, there were these revolutionary guards who wanted to come across our house and get to the other house. Bullets went through our house and shattered the living room window. And at that point, we didn't want to leave. But at that point, my mom said, 'Let's go.' For me, it's something I don't take for granted. You know, this is what America, what the UK offer to immigrants to hopefully become a part of that society and to contribute to that society. It's magical.
It's fragile and that's why it really is.
Sometimes dreams come true. Over two years ago, I reached out to Dara Khosrowshahi. Dara is known as one of the world's most influential CEOs. Everyone wants to talk to him about rebuilding the culture of a company, and so do I. Dara and I have much in common. We share friends. We both have personal experiences of immigration, him from Iran, and my grandparents from Russia. We are also both professionally involved in food. Dara through Uber Eats and me through the River Cafe. My average amount of customers is 10,000 a month and Dara's is 95 million. But here we are today, a lot in common, in the River Cafe in early spring to talk about food and people, food and work, food and family, and food and our histories. Lucky me.
Well, Ruthie, you'd be happy to know. We looked this up. I asked the team that there are a hundred Uber rides a day to the River Cafe. And so that makes it a very popular destination. It's a little hard to get to, which makes it good for Uber. So it's perfect. I think we're a good match.
Because you mean they can get like... the neighborhood can be difficult to get to.
I had somebody once gave and said in the early days, she said, 'Could you get me a taxi back?' And we said, 'Yes, where are you going?' And she said, 'London.' So, you know, it is sometimes quite far.
Should we talk about Uber Eats? Let's talk about Uber. Why did you go to Uber? You were having a great time at Expedia. You were having a life. You were living. Come on, tell me why Uber?
You know, so Uber called me up originally. And during the time... Uber is a verb, is it?
So Uber can make a phone call or is that Uber is the Uber? The headhunter for Uber called me. And at first, you're absolutely right. I said no way. It was going through a real cultural crisis. It was a mess. It was in the public eye in a bad way many times. And it was actually at the Sun Valley Conference where I was having a drink with a good friend of mine, Daniel Ek, who runs Spotify.
Yeah. And I was having a drink with Daniel Ek and Sid, my wife. And he said, 'Hey, did Uber call you? I told them to give you a call.' And I said, 'Yes, they did. But Daniel, why in the world would I give up what I've got on Expedia to go work at Uber? I'm so happy at Expedia. Everything's going great.' And he said, 'Dara, since when is life about happiness? It's about impact. You can make a difference at Uber. Uber's an important company. It needs help. And I think you'd be the perfect person.' And whether it was a combination of his charisma or the drinks, or my wife too, Sid's like, 'Yeah, come on. You've been doing Expedia for a while. Maybe it's time for a new challenge.' The next day I called back the headhunter. I said, 'You know what? Let me listen.' And after that, I had dinner with one of the Uber board members and it appealed to me. And I still remember, to your point on Uber as a verb, I spoke to my dad, Zol, and I still remember he says, 'Dara, when a company who's a verb tells you to be, you just say yes.' And what I found after the fact, but it was certainly what attracted me to Uber, is that the people who go to Uber, because it's not an easy company. It's not a technology company that only works in the digital world. It works in the real world. You know what it's like here. You have all the plans in the real world for perfection, but then always something crazy happens. So, I knew it was going to be a challenge, but people who come to Uber are attracted by the impact that we have in the world. You know, we're a digital company, but we're helping people get around. And we, you know, during COVID, we helped so many restaurants stay alive. So it was ultimately that impact on the company that really, really attracted me and in hindsight, I'm so happy I came to the company.
What year did you start at Uber?
I think 2017 I joined. So it was probably four years. Then COVID hit and it was just such a shock.
What was that like for you?
For us, Uber at the time was going through its challenges anyway. We were losing a bunch of money. We had gone public and the IPO had not gone well at the time. And 80% of the business was mobility. Uber Eats was kind of an idea that we were developing.
You were developing before COVID?
Yeah. It had actually started before I got there and I was like, 'Look, this is a cool business. Let's keep investing in it. Let's grow it.' And then when COVID happened, 80% of our mobility business disappeared overnight. 80% just gone. And we were already losing money. So we went from losing kind of two billion a year to losing four to five billion a year. We didn't have that much money in the bank. And so it became kind of a question of survival for us. And lo and behold, the mobility business almost disappeared, but the delivery business really started picking up.
And so, can I just ask you? Where were you? Did you leave your house or did you do everything from home?
I was in San Francisco. I worked from home then. Basically, everyone did. Everyone stayed at home. It was, you know, conversations were over screens. And you really didn't know what was safe, what was unsafe, where the world was going to go. All it was, I got to spend a lot of time with the kids, which is nice.
So go back. So then Uber Eats became, as you say, it became a food...
Yeah. I mean Uber Eats became our lifeline. It became a lifeline for our restaurant partners because they were having a ton of trouble, but they got to keep employing their employees as well. And then it also became a lifeline for our drivers because we said, 'Well, you were driving people, now you can drive food and keep earning as well.' So it really was such a blessing for us and a blessing for our ecosystem and our partners as well.
This was, yeah, it was absolutely global. So Uber was everywhere. Yeah. And now Uber Eats is about half our business.
It's half, is it? Do we think that there's a scenario where people don't go to restaurants? Like now everybody, nobody goes to cinemas, they watch their movies at home. And could there be a situation where people say, 'Well, why do we go to a restaurant when the restaurant could come to us?' But then last night I was here and I was in the kitchen and I thought and I looked around, I just watched people bump into each other. We had that, Mandy noticed that, you know, somebody else at the other side of the room he'd met at a conference last year and they were all around. And then you had another person who was here celebrating their kid's birthday. And I thought, well, that couldn't happen if you just were at home eating. I don't want this away, but we want you to bring people here and take food to people.
That's the cool thing about Uber, which is we want people to go out of their house, which is the mainline Uber business, and also people get delivery. And I do think that the restaurant business is changing. And you know, Ruthie, which is there's a part of the business that's about the food, but there's a part that's about the hospitality and the environment. I mean, you walk into this place and instantly just the lighting you have, it's so beautiful.
Yeah. And the instant you walk into this place, it feels bright. And so I do think that restaurants need to have a clear identity as to is it the food, is it the hospitality, is it something else? What is it that makes them special? And there are restaurants, you know, quick service restaurants where it's mostly about the food, where delivery is the main line. And so delivery allows someone, you're not restricted by the size of your dining room, you know, and the kitchen becomes a thing and the dining room isn't the thing. And so in that case, delivery is great for these players because they get to expand. They get to have incredible scope. And even with some of them, they have dark kitchens, which is they take their recipes and they get to really expand their scopes. But then I think for you, you have a clear identity which is the food is special. But then there's a hospitality and people getting together and the accidental kind of interactions that people have as well and the environment. And I do think you need to up that hospitality and really keep that in mind in order for restaurants like yours to thrive.
Yeah, we do. And I think that, you know, why do people go to restaurants? You know, as you say, why do you go? You go because of the spontaneity. You go because sometimes you can have a conversation that you're describing around a table in a restaurant where you're being taken care of. So you can take care of yourselves and your family. It's a welcome. I always say that, you know, I might go back to a restaurant if the sea bass was overcooked, but I won't go back if the wine waiter made me feel stupid. So, what I thought would be good is if you read this recipe and we, you know, there are very few people who get to read a recipe that isn't the River Cafe's. But as we're saying about your culture, your history, your family, your country, that to start with a recipe from Iran would be very moving to me and probably much more delicious than anything I could write. So why don't we hear your recipe and tell us.
Wonderful, wonderful. So this recipe is Khoresh-e Ghormeh Sabzi, and it's an Iranian stew. And we came to America when I was 9 years old. We had to escape Iran and we lost everything leaving Iran. Our family was very, very well off. My father was a patriot. He wanted to leave all of his money in Iran and reinvest in Iran, which wasn't so good for us when we left. But for us then, food was always home. Family was always there and food was always home. So whatever we were going through as a family, the family dinner was a religion. We always got together and my mom is a spectacular cook. And Ghormeh Sabzi, I mean, there's a lot that she can cook, but Ghormeh Sabzi was one of her specialties as well. It's a tough one. It's not an easy recipe. So the ingredients are onion, diced, four cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of turmeric, one pound of ground beef, some Persian limes, kidney beans that are dried, some parsley, cilantro, fenugreek, which is really important, one cup of fenugreek, two cups of fresh chives, and then salt, pepper, and oil. You sauté the onion and garlic first. Get some flavor. Stir in the turmeric. You add the beef to the pan, season well with salt and pepper. The only criticism I made of my mom is my family had high blood pressure, so she would try to pull back on the salt.
You stir it to brown all sides. Now, here's the thing with the limes. You puncture the limes.
And then you add it to the meal with the beans. And so the lime juice gets in there and then the lime itself, once in a while when you eat, you can kind of squeeze the lime and get some of the juice out. Like there's this really sharp tang to it.
That's awesome. I would like eat the limes, the cooked limes. I don't think that many people do that.
You add four cups of water, cover, and you cook for an hour. You've got to be patient. This is a meal that like you plan the meal. This is not a meal that, 'Oh, what am I going to cook tonight?' You fry the chopped herbs, olive oil for a couple minutes. You add to the meat and beans. Then you lower the heat. You cover and cook for another two hours. So again, you've got to let this thing go. You stir the pot. And then adjust the seasoning to taste. And then you serve over white rice. And it reminds me of home. And you know, I've got to ask my mom to make me some Ghormeh Sabzi.
Is it a dish that you have generally or is it a celebration dish? Is it something you have at New Year's? Because somebody was telling me there's a special recipe that you have at New Year.
Yeah, I mean it's definitely for holidays, etc. As you can tell, it needs a lot of work, lots of chopping of the vegetables. So, this is not a casual affair, but if I could have it every single week, I'd do it. And Iranian food takes time. It does. You know, it's not a fast cooking kind of an endeavor. It takes time and I think with that brings a lot of love.
It does. It does. Which is what makes it special. Now I have a present for you. A special presentation.
First guest that ever bought me a present. I like this. We have a new set that everyone's going to have to present.
Yeah. Okay. Let's see. This is not in Ghormeh Sabzi, but this is saffron. And as you know, saffron is very, I think it's per ounce more valuable than gold. And this is saffron is a very, very popular ingredient in Iranian food. And one of...
Yeah, absolutely. And another meal that my mom made was Tahchin, which is kind of the, you put the saffron in the rice together and the flavor of the saffron and the rice come together along with chicken or something like that. So that's also a memory of mine.
I didn't see any saffron in your...
Yeah, we do. We do Risotto Milanese, which is, you know, very often if you have Osso Buco or something, we do it with Risotto Milanese and it is just saffron and rice, a risotto.
So they can take some. Absolutely nice of you, this beautiful... but we will make this and you need a very tiny, tiny bit, don't you? Because if you put too much it goes that kind of very yellow, strong, it can dominate and it's actually quite a subtle... oh this is so kind. Thank you. Well, let's do more cooking. This beautiful bottle, little memory for you. Let's go from being born to 9 years old and that history, but then we'll go on. Tell me about your family. Tell me about your house. Where did you live in the center of Tehran?
We lived in a neighborhood in the north of Tehran, which is the capital. And then if you look north there, the Alborz Mountains. So, it's quite a dramatic setting. Tehran. My family and the Khosrowshahis are incredible. And my family, it was a family that immigrated from Tabriz, which is a small town. It was a merchant family and we built a big family business.
This is in the 60s. I don't know exactly the year, but it was in the 60s where they moved from Tabriz to Tehran. But they were working before that, weren't they? They were. It was basically a merchant family and then what we did is we built up essentially a pharmaceutical and consumer manufacturing business in Iran. And we were one of the, probably there are five or six large families in Iran that own these industrial conglomerates. The Shah at the time was trying to modernize the economy and modernize society generally and we were a part of that modernization. And we would license consumer goods from Western companies, manufacture them in Iran, distribute them in Iran and in the Middle East as well. And because it was a family business, family was all around. So my uncle lived next to us, my great-grandfather lived in a house right above us, literally like looming.
Your grandfather's father.
Yes. Yes. Multigenerational family. And literally my family was all around us. We would just walk from one house to the other to go see cousins. So, you know, in Iran, family is one, your definition of family is different.
You know, your cousins and second cousins and third cousins, they're just all cousins. And just family is just a part of your existence. And you know, when I was nine, we were very, very well off. The revolution, or signs of the revolution started happening.
This is 1977 going into 1978. There was this push back to Islam, to traditions and that's when we came to the US. My family fled thinking that we would just leave the country for a couple of months while things would calm down. And things didn't calm down.
But when you were growing up in that nine years before you left, leaving home at nine, changing as you say, that's a very vulnerable age to suddenly and for your parents, your whole family to move. But do you have a memory of that apart from the family of did you all, did you gather together for meals? Did you?
Oh yeah. And would you have cooks who would make... We would have cooks, people. Yeah. So for us, dinner was religion. Family dinner was religion.
And how many would be there at a family?
We would probably have, any time, sometimes it was just us, which was the five of us. I've got two other brothers and my mom and my dad. But then often we would have cousins there as well. And remember, we have the dining room and then the kitchen right close by. We did have...
Oh yeah, you did. What was it like? Yeah. It was just this big center of activity, etc. We had a cook, Soleiman. Soleiman was his name. And he was kind of always leading, you know, it's the preparing food. It's almost like he was an orchestrator, you know, getting everyone because usually we did have a lot of guests as well.
Would your mother go in and cook with you? Do you think he taught her to cook or did her mother teach her to cook?
She was, I don't know who taught whom, but she's a great cook. So when we came to the US, like she was cooking up a storm. So I think it was a team effort, but I remember like one meal, another very popular meal is Koobideh, which are these kebabs. It's these kebabs, but you bang on the kebab. Flatten them. Yeah. You flatten the kebab. And so one of the really fun things that I would do is, you know, I get the big pounder and I'd like pound the kebab and Soleiman would kind of tell me how to do it. And then you'd stick the shish kebab. Yeah. And then you put it on a grill. I'm sorry.
On a grill, on kind of a woodfire grill. And it was just divine.
So would you spend time in the kitchen? Would you...
Oh, yeah. We were running around. Soleiman was like a god to us. He was an incredible person.
You'd go to school all day and then come home, do your homework and sit down to dinner or would you...
I don't remember doing homework, but I'm sure I did some homework. That was not like the lead memory, but it was just, you know, it was three boys running around and a bunch of cousins running around.
And so the upheaval, I mean as I say my family left Russia, you know, and that wave of immigrants that came to the United States early 20th century but there was a kind of progression, there was a, you know, my grandfather came first then he sent for my grandmother and the family. But to be, and we see it happening here right now, unfortunately, you know, tragically we see people who have to seek asylum, it's something that we confront. But the fact that your family confronted it, tell me about leaving. Or was, did you come home from school one day and they said we're going tomorrow or was it part of a discussion?
So the event that caused us to leave was actually we had a big house and I believe one of the Shah's cousins lived across the street from us. And at some point there were these revolutionary guards who wanted to come across our house and get to the other house. And so as they jumped over the walls and came through our house, one of their rifles went off and the guards, the guards who were rushing this other house, bullets went through our house and shattered the living room window. And at that point we didn't want to leave but at that point my mom said, 'Let's go.' We went to France where we had a place and again we expected to go back.
