Isaac Larian moved from Iran to Los Angeles at age 17 with just a few hundred dollars, and went on to build one of the biggest toy companies in the world. Along the way, he took on Barbie with a wildly successful line of punky dolls called Bratz — a success that touched off an epic legal battle with Mattel. Today, at age 70, Isaac is still the CEO of MGA Entertainment, and says he still has the fighter’s instinct that he learned in the slums of Tehran.

This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei.

It was edited by Neva Grant with research assistance and fact-checking from Carla Esteves and Zazil Davis-Vazquez.

Our engineers were Gilly Moon and Robert Rodriguez.

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