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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

#121

Post by andybak »

throw2016 wrote: post #81
pinewurst wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This doesn't make sense. What makes money 'dirty'? What about banks like Goldman Sachs? Is their money 'clean'? What about the Saudi and UAE investment funds? How does one decide what is 'dirty' and 'clean' money and identify it?

I'm conflicted on this. The good old-fashioned lefty in me wants to agree and say "yes - follow the money. Power has tendrils everywhere and they are annoyingly predictable and persistent".

However I do have the feeling that Russia's current behaviour is quantitatively if not qualitatively different.

In it's scale, it's cynicism and in it's deliberate single mindedness. I'm not a great believer in good vs evil on the geopolitical stage but a move this blatant needs to be resisted because if it succeeds it will become the new normal.

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

#122

Post by postramus »

dang wrote: post #116
postramus wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without making any specific accusation I would simply point out that the user with whom you have been conversing is present in [1] and playing the “it’s no big deal” card even then.

This crosses into personal attack, even though you don't specify what you're insinuating. That breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you to be civil and assume good faith, so please don't comment like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fair enough but on a site inhabited by intelligent, skeptical people it’s hard to follow those rules when the topic has become “was pg being disingenuous, willfully blind, or simply naive on that day, 6 years ago, when he announced partnership with his mysterious Russian money man?”

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

#123

Post by nzmsv »

Asparagirl wrote: post #39
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.

Russia hasn't been a positive influence on anything since Shostakovich and Yuri Gagarin.

It's interesting that most people would probably not say something so xenophobic about any other country on a public forum, but Russia is fair game. Don't believe me? Substitute $country in the above and see if it sounds more or less grating.

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

#124

Post by empath75 »

beambot wrote: post #57
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?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-Q-Tel

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

#125

Post by c-smile »

Yeah, it's really time to build another wall then.

You've opened Internet to share your point of view and so to influence their choice? Expect others to share their views and influence you too. Don't like that? See #1

You've opened your market and asking for investments? You've got them. Don't like color of their money? See #1

Do we have other options realistically speaking?

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

#126

Post by dang »

postramus wrote: post #122
dang wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This crosses into personal attack, even though you don't specify what you're insinuating. That breaks the HN guidelines, which ask you to be civil and assume good faith, so please don't comment like this here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fair enough but on a site inhabited by intelligent, skeptical people it’s hard to follow those rules when the topic has become “was pg being disingenuous, willfully blind, or simply naive on that day, 6 years ago, when he announced partnership with his mysterious Russian money man?”

It's always hard to follow those rules, most of all when a topic activates one, and we all get activated by something. It happens to hundreds if not thousands of HN users every day (including yours truly on a good measure of those days).

Self-restraint is required at such moments. We all need to contribute our share of this if we want HN to survive as a place for substantive discussion.

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

#127

Post by dragonwriter »

nzmsv wrote: post #123
Asparagirl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia hasn't been a positive influence on anything since Shostakovich and Yuri Gagarin.

It's interesting that most people would probably not say something so xenophobic about any other country on a public forum, but Russia is fair game. Don't believe me? Substitute $country in the above and see if it sounds more or less grating.

> It's interesting that most people would probably not say something so xenophobic about any other country on a public forum

I've routinely seen the almost exact same thing, except with a much longer timeline. about the entirety of the Arab world, on public forums.

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

#128

Post by jgome »

killjoywashere wrote: post #5

If 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 m…

Since we are at it, I suggest reading John Perkins's "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man":

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins...

Also, any book on past and current colonialism (say, current actions of the US military in Africa).

How do you like your illegitimately rich country?

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

#129

Post by andybak »

vkou wrote: post #92
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Saudis, Chinese or Russian individuals invest, they do so openly. When Uber took Saudi state money, they knew why the Saudis were buying. I think this sort of state-backed investing is fine. The issue here is companies didn't treat Milner et al as an extension of the Russian state. They treated them as private individuals who made money in Russia. The difference is night and day. The latter want to make money li…

> The former may want things other than money. There are plenty of Western businessmen who have political agendas of their own - who do things for reasons besides money. Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, etc. They are incredibly open about their goals, and none of them are good for the rest of us.

Agreed. And I hope people who care about civil society are equally squeamish about Murdoch or Koch money.

(The Koch's are actually more complex than Murdoch. The latter is just a scumbag while the former have beliefs and values. Which probably makes them more worrying.)

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

#130

Post by davesque »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #117

I will not dispute anything in this article, and it is discouraging if the allegations are true. However I will point out that an outlet like the NY Times is threatened by Twitter and Facebook financially. I would keep that in mind as to one reason the legacy media have been choosing to report on topics (and they don't always choose to report just what is newsworthy) concerning foreign influence and "fake news" emana…

I think you place the Times in an impossible position. If it's not the responsibility of traditional media organizations to report on the real problem of fake news in social media, then whose responsibility is it? Where else are people going to spread the word about something like that? Face to face? Furthermore, you must realize that the people questioning the veracity traditional media are, by and large, conspiracy theorists with very particular agendas and motives for doing so. The Times also has something that Facebook and the like don't and probably won't -- a hard-earned trust built over a period of decades.
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