Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Aizada Marat is co-founder and CEO of Alma, an immigration law firm that combines the expertise of seasoned attorneys with AI to streamline the immigration process for individuals and businesses. Alma has achieved a 98% approval rate on its cases and can prosecute in half the time of a traditional firm.
Amrit Rao, General Partner at Village Global, sits down with Aizada to trace her journey from a small village in Kyrgyzstan to founding one of the fastest-growing legal tech companies in the Bay Area. They cover her path to the US through the Future Leaders Exchange Program, her own frustrating experience with a mishandled immigration case that left her unable to work for over a year, and how that pain point led her from Cooley to McKinsey and eventually to starting Alma. Aizada walks through the company's early pivot from selling immigration software to law firms to becoming a law firm itself, why she believes large language models can already outperform the outsourced manual labor traditional firms rely on, and where she draws the line on what should and shouldn't be automated in legal work. The conversation also gets personal: what it's like being married to fellow founder and Village Global portfolio founder Chyngyz, the advice from him she took (and the one piece she didn't), the immigrant founders and operators who inspire her, and her long-term ambition to eventually return to Kyrgyzstan and run for president.
[00:00] Cold open
[00:34] Welcome to the Village Global Podcast
[01:41] Aizada's journey: growing up in rural Kyrgyzstan
[03:24] The Future Leaders Exchange Program and learning English through Britney Spears
[06:01] What Alma does today
[07:17] Aizada's own immigration struggles
[09:44] The pain point that led her to immigration law
[10:18] From Cooley to McKinsey: learning business
[11:24] Discovering AI at McKinsey in 2023
[13:43] "Interviewing" future co-founders: Richard Socher, Arvind Jain, Dario Amodei
[16:40] Finding co-founders Asel and Shuo
[20:15] Committing to build something big
[22:02] The pivot: from B2B SaaS to becoming a law firm
[27:06] Why AI can outperform outsourced immigration work
[31:54] Case study: how Alma helped Rundu hire globally
[35:23] What should and shouldn't be automated in immigration law
[36:41] Why traditional law firms won't be able to compete
[38:39] Speed as Alma's edge
[40:16] Marriage to fellow founder Chyngyz
[43:28] The best (and hardest to take) advice from her husband
[47:07] Karaoke, strategy talk, and Chyngyz the "aksakal"
[49:35] The founders who inspire her most
[52:44] Advice for founders going from zero to one
[56:40] What gives immigrant founders a strategic advantage
[59:38] Her long-term goal: returning to Kyrgyzstan
[01:01:53] Why she wants to run for president of Kyrgyzstan
[01:03:40] What she's learning now that will prepare her for public service
Aizada Marat is co-founder and CEO of Alma, an immigration law firm that combines the expertise of seasoned attorneys with AI to streamline the immigration process for individuals and businesses. Alma has achieved a 98% approval rate on its cases and can prosecute in half the time of a traditional firm.
Amrit Rao, General Partner at Village Global, sits down with Aizada to trace her journey from a small village in Kyrgyzstan to founding one of the fastest-growing legal tech companies in the Bay Area. They cover her path to the US through the Future Leaders Exchange Program, her own frustrating experience with a mishandled immigration case that left her unable to work for over a year, and how that pain point led her from Cooley to McKinsey and eventually to starting Alma. Aizada walks through the company's early pivot from selling immigration software to law firms to becoming a law firm itself, why she believes large language models can already outperform the outsourced manual labor traditional firms rely on, and where she draws the line on what should and shouldn't be automated in legal work. The conversation also gets personal: what it's like being married to fellow founder and Village Global portfolio founder Chyngyz, the advice from him she took (and the one piece she didn't), the immigrant founders and operators who inspire her, and her long-term ambition to eventually return to Kyrgyzstan and run for president.
[00:00] Cold open
[00:34] Welcome to the Village Global Podcast
[01:41] Aizada's journey: growing up in rural Kyrgyzstan
[03:24] The Future Leaders Exchange Program and learning English through Britney Spears
[06:01] What Alma does today
[07:17] Aizada's own immigration struggles
[09:44] The pain point that led her to immigration law
[10:18] From Cooley to McKinsey: learning business
[11:24] Discovering AI at McKinsey in 2023
[13:43] "Interviewing" future co-founders: Richard Socher, Arvind Jain, Dario Amodei
[16:40] Finding co-founders Asel and Shuo
[20:15] Committing to build something big
[22:02] The pivot: from B2B SaaS to becoming a law firm
[27:06] Why AI can outperform outsourced immigration work
[31:54] Case study: how Alma helped Rundu hire globally
[35:23] What should and shouldn't be automated in immigration law
[36:41] Why traditional law firms won't be able to compete
[38:39] Speed as Alma's edge
[40:16] Marriage to fellow founder Chyngyz
[43:28] The best (and hardest to take) advice from her husband
[47:07] Karaoke, strategy talk, and Chyngyz the "aksakal"
[49:35] The founders who inspire her most
[52:44] Advice for founders going from zero to one
[56:40] What gives immigrant founders a strategic advantage
[59:38] Her long-term goal: returning to Kyrgyzstan
[01:01:53] Why she wants to run for president of Kyrgyzstan
[01:03:40] What she's learning now that will prepare her for public service
