And to think that none of this would even come up had the “right” candidate won.
Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
171–180 of 204 posts
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It is normal (be it "lefty" democratic, or republican US presidents) for the US government to use its power to destroy other countries and steal its resources... And yet here you are discussing "cynicism and [...] deliberate single mindedness". As a lefty, you fail to put things in perspective... But I guess it's just not convenient, sometimes, is it?
Hey turfer, take another English course.
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
To add to this, if you want something shorter to read, there is this prepared statement by Browder to the Senate Judiciary Committee: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bill-br... Also, being a prepared statement to a senate committee, it has more meat to it than the average news interview.
To be fair, Browder has his own patrons and political interests to represent, particularly in this situation.
Who is Browder's patron? Answer: no one. The guy is independently wealthy, self-made, and has devoted his life to human rights following the imprisonment, torture, and murder of one of his lawyers, Sergei Magnitsky.
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#174Senate Intelligence Committee has expressed concerns that Jack Dorsey is favoring the Russian government over the United States government. Senator Tom Cotton, CIA Director John Brennan, transcript from Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on June 2016: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=414 SENATOR COTTON: I want to discuss cooperation with our Intelligence Community from Silicon Valley, specificall…
Do we have a source on the Wall Street Journal articles Cotton references? More broadly, we would need to know if Dataminr is sharing (a) its full fire hose with RT, or just a subset of it and (b) any data with the subcontractors to the Intelligence Community, in which case we can assume they made a policy decision to not work with state intelligence agencies, misguided as that may be in today's hybrid world. TL; DR…
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Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#175Earlier 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…
He "purposely" overpaid by $50m for a house in Los Altos -> http://www.businessinsider.com/yuri-milners-100-million-sili...
I'd say he "purposefully" undervalued it.
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#17699% of Russian money is oligarchs money. Either stop taking any or stop making so much fuzz about it. If NYT stock was as dynamic as FB's Milner would have bought a lot of it too
We have to also remember the US role in the creation of the oligarchs. The US advised Russia in the early 90's to privatise and liberalise the economy very rapidly ...
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems obvious now, but you only have to look at an HN thread 6 years ago discussing Yuri Milner to see that many people in tech (or at least on HN), including pg, did not believe Yuri was an extension of the Russian state: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604 . (Of course, many also recognized this as obvious at the time).
Paul Graham on Yuri Milner at the time: "If there's one mistake this story makes, it's in trying to come up with complicated theories about why Yuri does well. He's simply smart." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143894
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his livelihood depends on his not understanding it.” Upton Sinclair & also Charlie Munger.
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#17899% of Russian money is oligarchs money. Either stop taking any or stop making so much fuzz about it. If NYT stock was as dynamic as FB's Milner would have bought a lot of it too
We have to also remember the US role in the creation of the oligarchs. The US advised Russia in the early 90's to privatise and liberalise the economy very rapidly ...
Oh cmon
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have to also remember the US role in the creation of the oligarchs. The US advised Russia in the early 90's to privatise and liberalise the economy very rapidly ...
Oh cmon
It’s true, the oligarchs were all created by the rapid privatization of Russian state assets which were sold incredibly cheaply. US advisors played a big role in this. See eg https://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-boys-do-russia/
I’m not surprised that US politicians are still involved with the oligarchs, and that seems to be on both sides of the political spectrum.
Re: Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments
#180I'd be interested in hearing from Silicon Valley and YC companies' teams about how they feel knowing that they've been taking dirty money from the Kremlin, having representatives even sit on their boards. Was it worth it? C'mon guys, don't hold back now. What's a few murdered dissidents between friends?
Do you think the American money is nicer and cleaner than Russian money? It's all the same.