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Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

nytimes.com

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Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#51

Post by YuriNiyazov »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To anyone that has kept track of geopolitical news across the last 20 years, it is obvious that no one in Russia gets rich without the approval of Kremlin. The fact that Yuri Milner is walking the earth is sufficient evidence that he's friendly with the Kremlin. No one who managed to rise to the rank of CEO would misunderstand the unstated implication that a request from an associate of Yuri Milner is a request that…

> The fact that Yuri Milner is walking the earth is sufficient evidence that he's friendly with the Kremlin You're moving goalposts. Nobody is worried about someone being friendly with the Kremlin. Acting at their behest, however, is new and troubling. (I agree that this should have been obvious. Unfortunately, when dollars start dancing people tend to rationalize.)

Ok. I'll bite. Where, in the linked NYT article, is evidence that Kremlin gave orders to do X and not Y (rather than just cash) to Milner?

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#52

Post by johnrichardson »

Another day, another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia. My pet theory is that it's a big collective act of psychological sublimation to compensate for the shock of Hillary losing.

I also find it ironic that the Chinese Communist Party, an institution which is at least on par with Russia in terms of shadiness and social repression, receives barely an iota of the flak that Russia receives in the American media.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#53

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaysml wrote: post #50
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tied to, and acting at the behest of, are night and day. One allows you to presume they're acting in their own financial interests, by and large, just like every other investor. The other merits caution. Your larger point, that we should have been more cautious, stands. We should have figured this out. But dollars danced, and even the best of us started rationalizing [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143…

True, and a fine line which is hard to judge from the seats we sit in. But I agree that a US company cannot be associated with the Kremlin or Beijing or Riad in 2017 without consequences. Maybe in 2023. I just don't want to see a McCarthy witch hunt when a lot of the money floating in Wallstreet and the Valley is of dubious origin. I would equally oppose taking money from one of the CIA VC firms, even that one where…

[deleted]

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#54

Post by revelation »

johnrichardson wrote: post #52

Another day, another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia. My pet theory is that it's a big collective act of psychological sublimation to compensate for the shock of Hillary losing. I also find it ironic that the Chinese Communist Party, an institution which is at least on par with Russia in terms of shadiness and social repression, receives barely an iota of the flak that Russia re…

Peter Thiel alone has outspent all of those Russians we've been hearing so much about.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#55

Post by JumpCrisscross »

johnrichardson wrote: post #52

Another day, another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia. My pet theory is that it's a big collective act of psychological sublimation to compensate for the shock of Hillary losing. I also find it ironic that the Chinese Communist Party, an institution which is at least on par with Russia in terms of shadiness and social repression, receives barely an iota of the flak that Russia re…

> another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia

Imagine if Germany found out that Rocket Internet, a large European venture capital firm, was actually CIA backed. It would be a scandal and a lot of people would need to, rightly, question whether they had been compromised.

The problem isn't solely the identity of the backer. It's the surreptitious deployment of state power deep into another country.

Disclaimer: Hypotheticals are hypothetical. I am not a lawyer. None of this is legal advice.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#56

Post by anonu »

johnrichardson wrote: post #52

Another day, another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia. My pet theory is that it's a big collective act of psychological sublimation to compensate for the shock of Hillary losing. I also find it ironic that the Chinese Communist Party, an institution which is at least on par with Russia in terms of shadiness and social repression, receives barely an iota of the flak that Russia re…

Its worth discussing it - rather than dismissing it as hysteria.

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#57

Post by beambot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #8

Holy 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.…

The thing we should really be asking: Why is startup investment by the US Govt so inept & ineffectual by comparison? What options do startups have to get government funding... the broken SBIR process?

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#58

Post by JumpCrisscross »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #51
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that Yuri Milner is walking the earth is sufficient evidence that he's friendly with the Kremlin You're moving goalposts. Nobody is worried about someone being friendly with the Kremlin. Acting at their behest, however, is new and troubling. (I agree that this should have been obvious. Unfortunately, when dollars start dancing people tend to rationalize.)

Ok. I'll bite. Where, in the linked NYT article, is evidence that Kremlin gave orders to do X and not Y (rather than just cash) to Milner?

> evidence that Kremlin gave orders to do X and not Y

Again, you're moving the goalposts.

Others [1][2][3] have directly responded to you on this point. Arguing that there is no need for alarm until some undefined threshold of red-handed evidence is attained is silly.

If a state-backed investor invests in your company, and you don't know about it, that's cause for alarm in itself. It means you need to review, very carefully, what you told whom, when, and what actions you took at their behest. From a corporate level, it's similar to what e.g. SpaceX would be expected to do if it discovered Lockheed Martin invested in it through a front. At a national level, state involvement adds extra dimensions.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631661

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631645

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631654

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#59

Post by stevenwoo »

malvosenior wrote: post #36

I’m having a very hard time understanding why anyone would be upset by the Russian government making technology positive investments. Especially technologists! I wish more money was deployed into software development. Russia seems to be a positive influence here.

Magnitsky Act. If they had no overt political objective - it still launders blood money. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bill-br...

Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

#60

Post by revelation »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55
johnrichardson wrote: post #52

Another day, another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia. My pet theory is that it's a big collective act of psychological sublimation to compensate for the shock of Hillary losing. I also find it ironic that the Chinese Communist Party, an institution which is at least on par with Russia in terms of shadiness and social repression, receives barely an iota of the flak that Russia re…

> another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia Imagine if Germany found out that Rocket Internet, a large European venture capital firm, was actually CIA backed. It would be a scandal and a lot of people would need to, rightly, question whether they had been compromised. The problem isn't solely the identity of the backer. It's the surreptitious deployment of state power deep into an…

Compromised? Compromised the shoe retail business?

You are going to need some more meat other than James Bond language and a lot of money.

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