Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
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Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#2And there goes integrity. It applies to many other situations, where taking investment, accepting help, or committing to excessive mortgage makes you lose your integrity - you simply won't be able to afford it. One of the many down sides of aiming to build Facebooks instead of Basecamps.
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#3Worthy noting that Yuri Milner automatically invented ~$150K in YC companies till 2013 [1]. Russian money might be making this very site possible.
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#4And there goes integrity. It applies to many other situations, where taking investment, accepting help, or committing to excessive mortgage makes you lose your integrity - you simply won't be able to afford it. One of the many down sides of aiming to build Facebooks instead of Basecamps.
Well said.
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#5If you haven't read Bill Browder's Red Notice, read it now. Wow. Wow. Just wow. YCombinator is in the Kremlin's pocket. Wow. I fully expect this to be downvoted to oblivion. But wow.
In essence, Putin used Browder's investigations of Gazprom and other oligarch-controlled Russian businesses (huge national orgs that were privatized after the collapse of the Soviet Union) to jail the richest man in Russia, effectively making all the oligarchs his bitches.
Milner is investing oligarch money. These people will kill you (see: Sergei Magnitsky). How bad do you want Milner' money now?
https://www.amazon.com/Red-Notice-Finance-Murder-Justice/dp/...
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#6Maybe rename topic, but also lets think of happier days in 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2154706 :P
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#7Maybe rename topic, but also lets think of happier days in 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2154706 :P
How would you rename it? YCombinator money is from Putin (via oligarchs)?
Also, why are you wanting to remember happier times?
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#8Holy crap.
DST Global and its affiliates have (or had in formative years) significant stakes in Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, ZocDoc, Planet Lab, Xiaomi, Stripe, Alibaba, WhatsApp and Airbnb [1]. Milner has close ties to Y Combinator [2]. It's been a deal-terms setting, behind-the-kimono peeking major investor for a decade.
This is immensely scary. We've utterly failed, as an industry, to self regulate.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Milner
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venture-milner-ycombinato...
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#9Holy crap. DST Global and its affiliates have (or had in formative years) significant stakes in Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, ZocDoc, Planet Lab, Xiaomi, Stripe, Alibaba, WhatsApp and Airbnb [1]. Milner has close ties to Y Combinator [2]. It's been a deal-terms setting, behind-the-kimono peeking major investor for a decade. This is immensely scary. We've utterly failed, as an industry, to self regulate. [1] https://en.…
Why is this surprising? When Milner came virtually out of the blue (or red, as the case may be) a few years ago, it seemed obvious that he was a conduit/laundry for oligarch cash at least. I even remember telling someone at the time that if we were chosen for YC, we didn't want Milner's dirty money.
The additional Kremlin state ties seem only an additional technicality. (I mean the formalized acknowledgement of what I presumed existent.)
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#10Concerns about Milner And his ties to YC are not new.