Sounds like money laundering.
How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
31–40 of 107 posts
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
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,…
I'm not denying this fact, but do you have any evidence for your claims?
Usmanov holds the largest stake in Milner's Digital Sky fund.
It's probably going to be hard to get a bead on Usmanov. He's a CIS state extractive industry billionaire with close ties to Gazprom, itself an instrument of the security state. That's unsettling. But then, it creates a huge incentive for people to villify him.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#33The wealth in hands of all these xUSSR oligarchs (Usmanov etc) was once a social wealth of all Soviet people. It is nice to see this wealth is now being converted 'back to social'. Our Facebook accounts are supposedly worth $100+ already, so it seems like a very clever plot to pay these money back to where they belong. Let's hope Mark will provide payouts for those choosing to close their accounts.
> so it seems like a very clever plot to pay these money back to where they belong
Um... you seriously believe this?
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Prohib…
When part of what makes you "smart" is the hands you choose to shake, and the most lucrative hands are also the ones buying all the television stations and running the shadow government...
Al Capone wasn't a robber baron. He was a criminal entrepreneur. The robber barons have universities, foundations, and financial institutions named after them. The distinction between mobsters and robber barons is germane.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Prohib…
When part of what makes you "smart" is the hands you choose to shake, and the most lucrative hands are also the ones buying all the television stations and running the shadow government... Al Capone wasn't a robber baron. He was a criminal entrepreneur. The robber barons have universities, foundations, and financial institutions named after them. The distinction between mobsters and robber barons is germane.
> When part of what makes you "smart" is the hands you choose to shake
Why is picking correct friends wrong all of a sudden?
> buying all the television stations
Surely you mean buying television stations from one of the most vile and controlling governments in the history of the world.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
When part of what makes you "smart" is the hands you choose to shake, and the most lucrative hands are also the ones buying all the television stations and running the shadow government... Al Capone wasn't a robber baron. He was a criminal entrepreneur. The robber barons have universities, foundations, and financial institutions named after them. The distinction between mobsters and robber barons is germane.
> When part of what makes you "smart" is the hands you choose to shake Why is picking correct friends wrong all of a sudden? > buying all the television stations Surely you mean buying television stations from one of the most vile and controlling governments in the history of the world.
You have a disappointing perspective on what makes friendships "correct", but that might just be because I believe we have an immortal soul.
And yes, when the TV stations are bought by companies that are effectively instruments of the state: that's a bad thing. The ruling party shouldn't buy TV stations.
Your beef isn't with me, though. Re-read this thread. I'm hardly the most cynical person here. I can sum my take on it up this way: I'd like to believe I wouldn't accept Milner money, even if I needed it; at the same time, people I consider friends have accepted it, and I don't think less of them for it.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huge sacks of money to throw around and huge cojones as well to make those bets, most of his investments had everyone saying "That's crazy!" at the time, yet they've paid off for him so far. Time will tell if they're successful or if he's making money off of a bigger fool, I guess, but he looks pretty good right now.
Criminals routinely invest lots of money in losing enterprises. This is called money laundering. They'll take a hit from 30 to 70% or even worse just to be able to get their money back in a way that they can spend it legitimately. They may not even care to win overall, as long as some of the bets pay off that's great. It will give influence and legitimacy. The hard part is always to find places that will take large a…
There are legal reasons why you do it as well..lets say you legally got out of paying high 45% corp tax rate by parking profits offshore in Europe. Than obviously you would re-invest those profits in Europe Social-Media start-ups as you would only have ot get a return of 70%.
Prices of raw material inputs to energy, Metals, etc went from high to low and back again during Russia's past recent history and we are making unfounded assumptions in this thread that have very little to no basis in fact.
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
When part of what makes you "smart" is the hands you choose to shake, and the most lucrative hands are also the ones buying all the television stations and running the shadow government... Al Capone wasn't a robber baron. He was a criminal entrepreneur. The robber barons have universities, foundations, and financial institutions named after them. The distinction between mobsters and robber barons is germane.
> When part of what makes you "smart" is the hands you choose to shake Why is picking correct friends wrong all of a sudden? > buying all the television stations Surely you mean buying television stations from one of the most vile and controlling governments in the history of the world.
If by "friends" you mean people that you can use/be-used to find your way to "financial" success you obviously have a different/distorted take on the term "friendship".
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#39"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…
No. The issue is that to most of the social class that makes up the Valley, every high net worth individuals from a CIS state is "Russian Mafia". If that's xenophobia, fair enough, but it's a specific brand of xenophobia, and as the amounts of money we're talking about go up --- perhaps past Yuri Milner --- it's a brand of xenophobia that may get less and less irrational.
They don't call it "Russian money" or "Milner money" or "Soviet money" or any other epithet. They call it "Russian mafia money".
Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When part of what makes you "smart" is the hands you choose to shake Why is picking correct friends wrong all of a sudden? > buying all the television stations Surely you mean buying television stations from one of the most vile and controlling governments in the history of the world.
You have a disappointing perspective on what makes friendships "correct", but that might just be because I believe we have an immortal soul. And yes, when the TV stations are bought by companies that are effectively instruments of the state: that's a bad thing. The ruling party shouldn't buy TV stations. Your beef isn't with me, though. Re-read this thread. I'm hardly the most cynical person here. I can sum my take o…
I'm interested in hearing more of your personal beliefs (re: soul).