61–70 of 204 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe that wasn't good phrasing. I'm trying to say that I never saw the division between those corrupt interests and the nation state they belonged to. I always felt they were acting in their national interests. What will be interesting here is how fast it falls off HN.
Already the title has been changed to take his name off.
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?
It doesn't have to be effective.
We're on something of an economic and technological roll, what with profit-motivated private investors who don't face political backlash when they shut down failing endeavors building on government-funded basic research.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Compared to what the USA does on a regular basis, Russia is a pretty good actor when it comes to external dealings It has been a while since the United States forcibly annexed another country's territory [1]. In any case, this argument is irrelevant. Irrespective of whether Russia is a "good actor" or not, they are a geopolitical competitor who surreptitiously exercised control over, or at least non-public purview…
Would you consider the Iraq war a while? Guantanamo? Norriega? Contras? How long is a while? Or is only annexation considered the red line here? If you want to blame Russians, you should blame the USSR for deporting the Crimean Tatars after WW2 as collective punishment. Being outraged at an annexation of a territory that was unilaterally given away 50 years earlier where not a single gunshot was fired while giving a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Compared to what the USA does on a regular basis, Russia is a pretty good actor when it comes to external dealings It has been a while since the United States forcibly annexed another country's territory [1]. In any case, this argument is irrelevant. Irrespective of whether Russia is a "good actor" or not, they are a geopolitical competitor who surreptitiously exercised control over, or at least non-public purview…
Would you consider the Iraq war a while? Guantanamo? Norriega? Contras? How long is a while? Or is only annexation considered the red line here? If you want to blame Russians, you should blame the USSR for deporting the Crimean Tatars after WW2 as collective punishment. Being outraged at an annexation of a territory that was unilaterally given away 50 years earlier where not a single gunshot was fired while giving a…
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.)
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...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitsky_Act#Individuals_affe...
Government’s are neither all bad nor all good. You can cherry pick nasty incidents from any government throughout human history (including the US — of course). That doesn’t mean that every action they take is “evil”.
On the grand scheme of things investing in startups is pretty progressive.
I think the most reliable source of information in this time of spreading "fake news" is personal witness by known people.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ca…
> If a state-backed investor invests in your company, and you don't know about it, that's cause for alarm in itself.
Is the only difference between today and yesterday is that yesterday there was no direct evidence that rich people associated ("backed by", "working in" - I am not sure what terminology you prefer to suggest nefariousness) with the Kremlin gave Milner cash to invest? If that's the concern, then, once again - anyone who believed yesterday that Milner was not $funded (once again, insert preferred terminology) at least partially by the Kremlin is an idiot. All they had to do was ask someone who is an immigrant from the Soviet Union.