How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
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Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#2"It is his outsiderness that seems most irritating and even alarming" - that's the main issue that people seem to be having with Yuri. If he was American, he would be yet another success story, flashier than the others, but still competent enough to have made it big.
As much as I admire the Silicon Valley investors who live in a normal house and drive a normal car, it's Milner's choice to go all out and get some expensive stuff if he wants - I suspect growing up in Russia, they didn't have access to any kind of luxury items when the Union collapsed, so the desire to get all the big houses, yachts and expensive cars is understandable.
By the way, I like it how he bought Mail.ru when it was cheap - it was certainly a smart investment (it's now the biggest mail service in Runet, not only Russia itself), at a time when most of them thought the fancy American invention, the Internet, went belly up.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#3"It is his outsiderness that seems most irritating and even alarming" - that's the main issue that people seem to be having with Yuri. If he was American, he would be yet another success story, flashier than the others, but still competent enough to have made it big. As much as I admire the Silicon Valley investors who live in a normal house and drive a normal car, it's Milner's choice to go all out and get some expe…
Given the background of Milner described in the article, I'd argue he doesn't care about material comfort and luxury. At all. Like Perelman - who lives with his mother in the middle of St. Peterburg, sees a lot of opera and is happy with that.
His 100M home is probably just another investment. He had bought a part of California state, tiny but pretty impressive one. He can also live in his investment which is a bonus.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#4"It is his outsiderness that seems most irritating and even alarming" - that's the main issue that people seem to be having with Yuri. If he was American, he would be yet another success story, flashier than the others, but still competent enough to have made it big. As much as I admire the Silicon Valley investors who live in a normal house and drive a normal car, it's Milner's choice to go all out and get some expe…
If his 'outsiderness' is so irritating and alarming that's just nicely dressed up xenophobia.
And from what I've seen of it SiliconValley is not much prone to that. So why is it different with Milner?
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#5The story angle is wrong. Why would someone like him care if he bought into anything, when he can buy everything. It reads like an insecure fable which I doubt.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#6[deleted]
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#7"It is his outsiderness that seems most irritating and even alarming" - that's the main issue that people seem to be having with Yuri. If he was American, he would be yet another success story, flashier than the others, but still competent enough to have made it big. As much as I admire the Silicon Valley investors who live in a normal house and drive a normal car, it's Milner's choice to go all out and get some expe…
If his 'outsiderness' is so irritating and alarming that's just nicely dressed up xenophobia. And from what I've seen of it SiliconValley is not much prone to that. So why is it different with Milner?
First of all, an attempt at a correction to one of the motives of the article. I think Milner's jewish background has nothing to do with his success. His family, while Jewish, had and still have a complete worldview that only a member of the russain intelligentsia can have. It is such a bizarre and wonderful world-view and way of life that it defies my abilities to explain — being delicate among a world of merciless brutality. The cultural class of Russia really are a class apart.
I suspect that the influence of growing up surrounded by cultured Russians, as few of them as they were in Soviet Times is why he always stands a little bit disconnected from the crowd.
The air of Russian culture is gentle but always restless.
Russia is a land of big crowds but the intelligent among that people always desire to be a little bit aloof, if not in solitude.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#8"It is his outsiderness that seems most irritating and even alarming" - that's the main issue that people seem to be having with Yuri. If he was American, he would be yet another success story, flashier than the others, but still competent enough to have made it big. As much as I admire the Silicon Valley investors who live in a normal house and drive a normal car, it's Milner's choice to go all out and get some expe…
If his 'outsiderness' is so irritating and alarming that's just nicely dressed up xenophobia. And from what I've seen of it SiliconValley is not much prone to that. So why is it different with Milner?
A significant percentage of oligarchs from the former USSR carry a very bad reputation because the means through which they became rich are often suspect and shrouded in secrecy, which is understandable given the lawlessness of the 1990s in that region, and which to some extent continues to this day. Russia since the collapse of the USSR has been a lot like certain parts of the U.S. were during the time of the Prohibition -- giving orders to physically terminate rivals is or was daily business.
After finding out more about Milner, I am now more convinced that he is not at all the "robber baron" Al Capone type, but a genuine businessman who is both lucky and smart.
Wrote this just to explain the possible reasons behind the initial worry, being myself from the former USSR. I think this also explains why Milner cares about establishing a reputation in the Silicon Valley as opposed to being completely aloof to what other people think.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#9If 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. That's what DST has in common with Andreessen Horowitz, though they have little else in common.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#10"It is his outsiderness that seems most irritating and even alarming" - that's the main issue that people seem to be having with Yuri. If he was American, he would be yet another success story, flashier than the others, but still competent enough to have made it big. As much as I admire the Silicon Valley investors who live in a normal house and drive a normal car, it's Milner's choice to go all out and get some expe…
If his 'outsiderness' is so irritating and alarming that's just nicely dressed up xenophobia. And from what I've seen of it SiliconValley is not much prone to that. So why is it different with Milner?
The Valley doesn't care about a person's ethnicity, as long as they generated their wealth through legitimate means.
Milner, on the other hand, is nothing more than a frontman for Alisher Usmanov, who basically accrued everything through wholescale theft of state resources.
Basically, Milner is a crook, and if there was any justice in the world he and Usmanov would be in jail for what they have done. But there isn't, and there are people in the Valley who are willing to overlook ethics if you have enough money. The fact that Milner is now working with YC is a sad testament to that fact.