Prior to Bellhop, Payam co-founded a hotel chain in Indonesia where he was responsible for all sales, marketing, and technology. He started his career programming drones and satellites for the US government holding Secret clearance. Next, as a technology consultant for Accenture, he was responsible to build the entire financial backbone for CalPERS, the third largest pension fund in the world. He graduated Cum Laude in Computer Science from UCLA, and has an MBA from INSEAD.