Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Aizada Marat is co-founder and CEO of Alma, an AI immigration law firm. Before building a company, she lived a story that reads almost like fiction: growing up in a small village in Kyrgyzstan, learning English by transcribing Britney Spears lyrics, and eventually finding herself twice locked out of the country she'd dreamed about since childhood, once by visa rules and once by a botched immigration case that left her unable to work for over a year.
Amrit Rao, General Partner at Village Global, sits down with Aizada to trace that path in detail, from her childhood in rural Kyrgyzstan and the US Senate-backed exchange program that first brought her to America, through law school, a corporate law career she never wanted, and the personal immigration crisis that reshaped how she thought about her own future. She also shares the story of how she "interviewed" three now-famous tech leaders, Richard Socher, Arvind Jain, and Dario Amodei, in her backyard before deciding she'd rather build her own company than work for any of them.
This is an excerpt from our full conversation with Aizada Marat. Watch the full episode here: youtu.be/gKd06kskB8s?si=I1dUOpxEe1JaRp_k
[00:00] Growing up in rural Kyrgyzstan
[01:20] Wanting to go to the US
[02:23] The Future Leaders Exchange Program
[03:27] Arriving in the US at 17
[04:25] What Alma does today
[05:49] Departing the US twice
[06:57] The year she couldn't work
[08:00] Solving her own pain point
[08:37] From Cooley to McKinsey
[09:44] Discovering AI in 2023
[10:54] The leap to start Alma
[12:05] "Interviewing" Richard Socher, Arvind Jain, and Dario Amodei
[12:42] Hosting them in her backyard
[12:53] Deciding to build her own company
Aizada Marat is co-founder and CEO of Alma, an AI immigration law firm. Before building a company, she lived a story that reads almost like fiction: growing up in a small village in Kyrgyzstan, learning English by transcribing Britney Spears lyrics, and eventually finding herself twice locked out of the country she'd dreamed about since childhood, once by visa rules and once by a botched immigration case that left her unable to work for over a year.
Amrit Rao, General Partner at Village Global, sits down with Aizada to trace that path in detail, from her childhood in rural Kyrgyzstan and the US Senate-backed exchange program that first brought her to America, through law school, a corporate law career she never wanted, and the personal immigration crisis that reshaped how she thought about her own future. She also shares the story of how she "interviewed" three now-famous tech leaders, Richard Socher, Arvind Jain, and Dario Amodei, in her backyard before deciding she'd rather build her own company than work for any of them.
This is an excerpt from our full conversation with Aizada Marat. Watch the full episode here: youtu.be/gKd06kskB8s?si=I1dUOpxEe1JaRp_k
[00:00] Growing up in rural Kyrgyzstan
[01:20] Wanting to go to the US
[02:23] The Future Leaders Exchange Program
[03:27] Arriving in the US at 17
[04:25] What Alma does today
[05:49] Departing the US twice
[06:57] The year she couldn't work
[08:00] Solving her own pain point
[08:37] From Cooley to McKinsey
[09:44] Discovering AI in 2023
[10:54] The leap to start Alma
[12:05] "Interviewing" Richard Socher, Arvind Jain, and Dario Amodei
[12:42] Hosting them in her backyard
[12:53] Deciding to build her own company
