Iranian revolutionaries were toppling the Shah. By November 1978, one American post remained open, in Shiraz: a hundred visas left, a crowd nobody could pass. A poor, skinny 17-year-old boy was months from the draft and the Iran-Iraq war. Rather than die there, he risked dying here. He climbed with a machine gun at his back, turned away, arms wide, unarmed, no threat to anyone. He screamed that they were defeating themselves, then offered a lottery: a hundred numbers for people needing school, treatment, or family. The crowd agreed and went quiet. He kept no number. One fell into his hand. 89. On January 12, 1979, he landed in America. No English. No money. His sponsors never came. Homeless, he washed dishes, waited tables at a 600-seat restaurant, earned an electrical engineering degree, and owned it by age 24. Fire took it in 1989. He rebuilt. He created VIPGift, past $120 million, and EE Incentives, No. 209 on the Inc. 5000. Inside every impossible, he found I’m Possible. Championing the less fortunate earned him dozens of honors, including the Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame and the 2026 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. He did not simply succeed in America. He became America. Now he teaches a new generation to build the future. Some men build empires. Hamid Andalib builds people — always with a very long spoon.