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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

#81

Post by JanezStupar »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #76
adlep wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His mother and father were relatively hi ranked Soviet officials. He had it "made" in SU. Also, the guy bought a 100 million dollar house. YES, he cares about the material comfort and luxury. If you don't, you live in a regular apartment or a sub- million dollar mansion.

You named the reason why I think he doesn't care. He had everything he needed and it didn't cost them money. The only you could buy with money in USSR is some pompious things. Items. In USA, you buy better education, better health care, better neighbours, different social circle, better leisure, better future - you buy all that with money. You didn't buy these with money in USSR. His parents had all this because of t…

You obviously have no idea about how SU or any other Warsaw Pact country worked.

Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley

#82

Post by vl »

pg wrote: post #45
0x12 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Money laundering = disguising the path money takes. These transactions are extremely traceable. It is equally ridiculous to propose the goal is to get money out of Russia. How does investing in startups make that any easier? If the money can get to a startup in the US, ipso facto it can get out of Russia, to any other investment. I would not be surprised to see such an obviously mistaken comment upvoted on reddit, bu…

Well, we don't know if it's upvoted since we don't see the score.

Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley

#83

Post by vl »

0x12 wrote: post #58
pg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money laundering = disguising the path money takes. These transactions are extremely traceable. It is equally ridiculous to propose the goal is to get money out of Russia. How does investing in startups make that any easier? If the money can get to a startup in the US, ipso facto it can get out of Russia, to any other investment. I would not be surprised to see such an obviously mistaken comment upvoted on reddit, bu…

> Money laundering = disguising the path money takes. indeed. > These transactions are extremely traceable. Sure they are. But the source of the original fortune behind all this is pretty murky and money laundering does not stop at the first stage. Think of it as onion routing, going further and further into the legitimate world until those that handle the money have no way of proving or even knowing that the origina…

The point is that these money already laundered, most likely it's just basic deversification.

Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley

#84

Post by alexro »

Why not anybody thought that what Milner does is he paves the road to even more money coming from legit and not-so-legit investments from Russian oligarchs. Once Milner gets settled in the SV and proves his operations are successful, then Russian money will start flowing in in amounts that's hard to comprehend.

Why is this desirable for oligarchs? Simple: businesses in Russia are profoundly insecure - remember Khodorkovsky? So, Milner will find a great amount of willing investors among the second-tier oligarchs once he's ready to start doing money heavy lifting.

And when you pave the road that will go "pay-to-pass" you can spend few unnecessarily billions.

Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley

#85

Post by vl »

DilipJ wrote: post #62
pg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me be more precise. When I said the situation was not as simple as his comment implied, I meant that even if Yuri's money was tainted in some way, it was being used as a counterweight to another bad thing.

"The reason VCs don't like Yuri is that he is disturbing the cosy world they formerly inhabited by offering more founder friendly terms." I greatly respect and admire you pg, and god knows you're far more intelligent than I am, but surely you can't be so naive as to think that Milner is doing what he is doing out of some altruism for founders? He is spending outlandish amounts on startups for the same reason Abramovi…

>Because he never worked hard for the money This is simply not true, most of these people work hard, risk and sacrifice a lot to get their money. There is a cultural tradition in Russia to spend a lot if you can afford it.

(In this particular case it an investment strategy, so your theory doesn't apply either).

Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley

#86

Post by vizzah »

pwang wrote: post #33
vizzah wrote: post #14

The 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?

of course it was sarcastic, how could a sane person believe in that? you scare me with such question.

Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley

#87

Post by guard-of-terra »

JanezStupar wrote: post #81
guard-of-terra wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You named the reason why I think he doesn't care. He had everything he needed and it didn't cost them money. The only you could buy with money in USSR is some pompious things. Items. In USA, you buy better education, better health care, better neighbours, different social circle, better leisure, better future - you buy all that with money. You didn't buy these with money in USSR. His parents had all this because of t…

You obviously have no idea about how SU or any other Warsaw Pact country worked.

That's ad hominem, and a pretty funny one at that.

Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley

#88

Post by nivertech »

pg wrote: post #45
0x12 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Money laundering = disguising the path money takes. These transactions are extremely traceable. It is equally ridiculous to propose the goal is to get money out of Russia. How does investing in startups make that any easier? If the money can get to a startup in the US, ipso facto it can get out of Russia, to any other investment. I would not be surprised to see such an obviously mistaken comment upvoted on reddit, bu…

I think, what 0x12 is trying to say, that highly-leveraged investments are a great way to launder money: i.e. you may have only 10% in "clean" money, leveraged 10:1 to cover over 90% of "dirty" money.

I don't think this is the case with DST. This is just a usual case of envy.

I'll take DST money any day. Hell, I'll give 10% of my company to Yuri Milner, any day, even without the investment (this is not a legally binding promise).

Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley

#89

Post by JanezStupar »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #87
JanezStupar wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously have no idea about how SU or any other Warsaw Pact country worked.

That's ad hominem, and a pretty funny one at that.

Indeed it is. Upon my realization that I should try harder to disqualify you, Edit timer has already passed.

So I will offer my clarification here.

This notion, that somehow in Eastern Block everybody had their basic needs covered in an egalitarian fashion while in Western Capitalism, to get any kind of (fair?) treatment one better be lined with cash is sorely mistaken.

In reality Eastern Block was very much as your average 1% > 99% scenario. The ruling elite (Cream of various Party organization and their relatives) had it all (doctors, money, travel, education,...).

If an unprivileged person wanted some of the services that were reserved for the Party elite - one would have to pay bribes all the way to destination.

Average folk didn't get any meaningful service level on security, education, health,...

So basically the only difference between East and West is/was that in West you don't have as high probability of being imprisoned/killed/have property confiscated while trying to go about doing business.

Furthermore in regards to Yuri - his parents were obviously well liked by the regime (high, excellent positions) which enabled them lucrative careers and lifestyles.

In Soviet Russia - you didn't get to travel round the world and do business - unless Regime could be certain that you can be trusted (e.g. are a part of the system).

p.s.: For reference check Northern Korea, whats going on there was pretty much the golden standard for socialist regimes.

Re: How Russian Tycoon Yuri Milner Bought His Way Into Silicon Valley

#90

Post by guard-of-terra »

JanezStupar wrote: post #89
guard-of-terra wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ad hominem, and a pretty funny one at that.

Indeed it is. Upon my realization that I should try harder to disqualify you, Edit timer has already passed. So I will offer my clarification here. This notion, that somehow in Eastern Block everybody had their basic needs covered in an egalitarian fashion while in Western Capitalism, to get any kind of (fair?) treatment one better be lined with cash is sorely mistaken. In reality Eastern Block was very much as your…

An interesting description, but how does it contradict with things I said earlier in the thread?

More specifically: that he might not care about wealth as something one buys with money.

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