Trump decertified the Iran deal. Here’s what’s at stake for Iran’s budding tech sector.
An employee works with her laptop at Takhfifan company in Tehran, Iran January 19, 2016.
In the US there's YouTube, Groupon and Uber. In Iran there's Aparat, Takhfifan and Snapp.
"A couple years ago the tech community in Tehran was just really a handful of [venture capitalists] and a [few] young entrepeneuers," said Aki Ito, Bloomberg's tech editor and co-host of the podcast Decrypted.
But the country's tech sector flourished after sanctions were lifted as part of the Barack Obama-era nuclear deal.
“There’s no question that the lifting of sanctions allowed Iran’s tech community to grow so much faster than it would have with the sanctions there," Ito said. The lifting of sanctions "changed everything for a lot of young founders," who developed products and services that "people in Tehran use every single day."
Now that could all be at stake, as President Donald Trump said on Friday he would not formally certify the Iran deal, and warned the US could try to terminate it.
How will the Trump administration's decision to decertify the Obama-era program affect Iran's entrepreneurs? Listen to the audio above.
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