October 14, 2022
President Biden has nominated an Iranian-American venture capitalist, Bijan Sabet, to be the US ambassador to the Czech Republic.
The 58-year-old Sabet will have to be approved by the US Senate before he can take up the post. While he is not expected to face any opposition, the Senate has a large backlog of nominations that have not been acted on yet.
Sabet is a co-founder of Spark Capital in Boston. The firm manages more than $6 billion in investment funds focused on identifying young businesses with a potential for global growth.
Sabet led Spark’s investment in Twitter in 2007 when it had only 10 employees.
Spark has backed other now iconic businesses such as Wayfair, Oculus, Tumblr, Cruise Automotive and Stack Overflow.
Sabet serves on the Board of Trustees of Boston College, from which he earned his bachelor of science degree.
He was born in Iran and reared in New York. He is married and has three children.
In the United States, a large number of ambassadorial posts are given to major campaign contributors, and Sabet has given $414,000 since January 1, 2021 to Democrats.