Early life[edit]
Nazarian’s family immigrated to the United States following the Iranian Revolution. Son of wealthy Qualcomm co-founder Younes Nazarian. Sam was raised in Los Angeles, California. Sam attended Beverly Hills High School and later studied at New York University and the University of Southern California. He is of Jewish descent.
His first entrepreneurial venture was in 1998, when he founded Platinum Wireless, a telecommunications business specializing in the distribution of Nextel software. Within one year of its founding, Platinum Wireless was the number one Nextel distributor in Southern California. He then entered the world of real estate by diversifying his family’s assets into real estate holdings, beginning with the establishment of 3Wall Development in 1999. Under Sam’s guidance 3Wall quickly became one of Southern California’s largest owners of multi-family housing.
Hospitality[edit]
His SBE owns several Los Angeles nightclubs and lounges: “Create”, Greystone Manor, Emerson, Hyde, XIV, Colony, Eden, MyHouse, MyStudio and The Abbey. He owns each club outright without other investors.[3] These venues continue to see a high level of popularity and celebrity patronage, as well as being frequently visited by the characters of HBO‘s Entourage.[3] Nazarian made an appearance as himself greeting the main characters of the show in the episode “No Cannes Do“. Nazarian’s SBE brand has also been featured on episodes of The Hills.