About Ahmed

Comedian Ahmed Al-kadri has blazed a, shall we say, unorthodox path to funny. After all, how many comedians do you know that started their careers in private equity accounting? 

But we need to go a bit further back. All the way to… Yemen. Yes, the one in the Arabian Peninsula. Right next to Saudi Arabia. Right by Oman. Across from djibouti. That one. Now, Ahmed’s parents, in their quest to GTFO and in search of a better life, emigrated to the US. And then they got to work… having kids.

Ahmed is the second oldest of 6. Born in New Mexico, he grew up in a small community in Dallas, Texas. As an immigrant kid, he likely received clear marching orders on career choices: doctor, lawyer, maybe something in IT. 

He chose something he knew would get approved by his parents while also providing tons of material for his nascent comedy career: accounting. That’s right, because accounting is hilarious.  

But where did he get the idea for comedy? Well, when his parents moved, the culture shock was real. As an immigrant myself, I can also vouch for this. So, they watched shows they were comfortable with: Mr. Bean, Charlie Chaplin, I Love Lucy… light comedic fare easy on the psyche. 

Ahmed ate it up. The shows were a crash course on physical comedy and he spent hours glued to the TV, learning how facial expressions can elevate a joke and how to perfectly time a punchline. But it wasn’t until he saw Dumb and Dumber that his love for funny went into overdrive. 

And so, he became the funniest accountant-in-training at the University of Texas at Dallas. It didn’t hurt that he was the only funny accountant-in-training, but that didn’t matter. He was hooked. 

Graduating in 2014, Ahmed naturally got a job with asset management firm Neuberger Berman, where he used more of his accounting skills than his comedy skills, but he honed the latter at the Dallas Comedy House, which he joined in 2016 to pursue improv. This was the move that changed his life. By the time he was 23, Ahmed was taking standup more seriously, and a short time later, he left his accounting job and moved to LA.

Taking classes for sketch and improv at UCB and Groundlings, Ahmed was all in. Being a typical hardworking immigrant kid, his hustle started to pay off. One thing led to another, with a few viral jokes leading to a large TikTok and Instagram following, and Ahmed found himself playing Liam in David Diamond Hands, playing himself on Fox’s Love Connection, and eventually, he found himself on tour.

And his loyal followers, known as Breadcrumbs or Pure Breads, depending on probably an intricate system of loyalty debits and credits, devour his content about as rabidly as he devoured all those episodes of Mr. Bean.

Of course, as an overachiever who is not content to just do comedy, Ahmed also hosts bike tours of LA and indulges his inner foodie by writing Yelp reviews for new restaurants near Hollywood.

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