""My dad would come to say good night and spend 30 minutes talking to me about the fact that, in his view, the Soviet Union would collapse by the time I was 15, and the only people who would succeed if the Soviet Union collapsed were people who either spoke English or knew how to shoot guns.""
""I had a great grandfather who lived in the same apartment building that we lived in, across the hall, and he had been a very senior officer in the Soviet military during World War Two, so as a result, he had special privileges, access to a radio which would sometimes catch non Soviet radio frequencies.""
""The two cable channels you got were CNN and C-SPAN, which I think is really ironic with government sanctioning... My parents would never let me watch TV, but they would let me watch this because it was great to practice English.""
George Arison, CEO of Grindr, was raised in the Soviet Union where his father emphasized the need for proficiency in English as a path to success. With limited access to information, he learned English through global news channels and radio broadcasts. His family's connections provided him with unique opportunities to absorb information unavailable to most children. By age 12, he had memorized the names of every member of the U.S. Congress, showcasing his dedication to mastering the language and understanding the world beyond his immediate environment.
Read at Fortune
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