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Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

ir.yandex

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Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#121

Post by alephnerd »

krunck wrote: post #114
alephnerd wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slight edit to this. I didn't realize the core founding team was pushed out and largely committed Aliyah for Israel after the 2022 War began. Not surprised either, as the core team was fairly progressive and anti-war, as a lot of Russian techies are. Also, it was the core team that was working on forward facing bets - sort of like a more functional version of Larry Page and Sergey Brin - and they're keeping those for…

By "anti-war" do you mean in general or in regard to a particular war?

The Ukraine War.

Most of the founding leadership's net worth was tied to Yandex's NYSE stock (YNDX) which was delisted due to the sanctions regime.

Back in the day, Russian companies (just like Chinese companies pre-COVID) would cross list stock in both the Russian Market and the NYSE for an IPO.

Basically, this is them cashing out and concentrating on their European operations, but the actual stuff Yandex is known for (search, mail, AI/ML) is still based in Russia and operated by Russian managers.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#122

Post by ecommerceguy »

HideousKojima wrote: post #78
roenxi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there is little hope of normalizing relations with Russia After 9/11, the US maintained productive relations with the Saudis. They're actively supporting Israel through the Gaza business. They have a long history of propping up dictators and thrashing countries for hard-to-articulate reasons (I still don't get exactly what the point of Afghanistan or Iraq was, even accepting the blunt "oil" that is sometime…

>(I still don't get exactly what the point of Afghanistan or Iraq was, even accepting the blunt "oil" that is sometimes given out). Are you serious? At least on the Afghanistan one? The war in Afghanistan began because the Taliban refused to extradite Osama Bin Laden (and several other terrorist, but Osama was the biggest one), it's pretty straightforward.

What country was Osama bin Laden found in?

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#123

Post by cmrdporcupine »

jszymborski wrote: post #101
mathverse wrote: post #97

Wonder what happened to Jetbrains. They have a CZ entity but the largest part of the workforce was in Russia.

All their Russian offices were closed, including sales and R&D activities. https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2022/12/06/update-on-jetbrai...

"We managed to move out the majority of our people from Russia."

Much respect to these guys for their principled stand.

Ok, I had let my CLion subscription lapse because I didn't like where they were going with the RustRover/CLion split (I do both C++ and Rust work, and would prefer one tool).

But this may make me reconsider.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#124

Post by kergonath »

ecommerceguy wrote: post #117
rurp wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do countries, if we're looking at a long enough time scale. There is no end in sight for the war in Ukraine and when the end comes it's likely to be messy. It might be more of a pause than a true end, and one or both sides will likely be pretty unhappy with the outcome. It could be many years before Russia and the west go back to a comfortable economic relationship.

[flagged]

Talking to people actually living in the place could give you a clue. Putin is a neocon, sure, but no bureaucrat started this war and Ukraine is very unlikely to just fold and submit if the US stop their support. Liberals have also nothing to do with Russian aggression.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#125

Post by cmrdporcupine »

khzw8yyy wrote: post #104
throwaway_20357 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is little hope of normalizing relations with Russia, so unfortunately these "Western assets" need to be written off anyway. A large part of them ($98bn) came from Cyprus which might just be round-tripping Russian money.

All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. Edit: it's amazing just how short-sighted people can be. Look, we still bring up the Nazis as an unassailable argument for how something is bad. And yet the war with Germany ended and they are now a US ally fighting Russia. I'm sure in the midst of WW2 the common f…

> All wars have something in common: they end.

The Korean peninsula would like a word with you.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#126

Post by whimsicalism »

alephnerd wrote: post #110
alephnerd wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yandex is keeping their Russian business. This is Yandex's European arm divesting itself from the Search+Mail business they have in Russia. In the press release, this was even mentioned - that Yandex's Russian management (aka most of it's management) would be buying out their Russian operations.

Slight edit to this. I didn't realize the core founding team was pushed out and largely committed Aliyah for Israel after the 2022 War began. Not surprised either, as the core team was fairly progressive and anti-war, as a lot of Russian techies are. Also, it was the core team that was working on forward facing bets - sort of like a more functional version of Larry Page and Sergey Brin - and they're keeping those for…

Given the move from Russia to Israel and the timing of when most Russian techies left, I suspect it is more out of fear of the draft than out of principle.

Not that I blame them - I doubt I would leave the US even during an unjust war… but a draft?

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#127

Post by cmrdporcupine »

nradov wrote: post #111
thriftwy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, at the current point of time Russia's economy and infrastructure are mostly intact. I'm not sure why is that for a dramatic change. If you look at Iran, it also has its infrastructure in quite OK conditions - perhaps in better shape than all of their neighbours, and now that may even include Turkey. Russia is larger and has not self-inflicted being a theocracy. As for the losses of both sides, I'd suggest leavi…

As the war drags on we can expect to see escalation in Ukrainian strikes against Russian infrastructure targets such as refineries. Russia is already short of air defense systems and isn't able to provide much coverage for civilian targets. Whether this works will depend on the level of sustained foreign aid for Ukraine. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/01/25/ukrain...

Depends on if Trump takes the Whitehouse in the fall and how European elections go :-(

In either case, even a Ukrainian defeat means Russia will be a pariah state to countries with reasonable governance. Trade will be difficult and diminished, same as it is with Iran.

Putin&Lavrov have clearly made this calculation and decided this is in their own interests. Whether it's in the interest of the Russian people I think is questionable.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#128

Post by whimsicalism »

kergonath wrote: post #118
khzw8yyy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All wars have something in common: they end. That thought in your head about lack of hope of normalizing relations is just the current propaganda working. Edit: it's amazing just how short-sighted people can be. Look, we still bring up the Nazis as an unassailable argument for how something is bad. And yet the war with Germany ended and they are now a US ally fighting Russia. I'm sure in the midst of WW2 the common f…

Ending wars and normalising relations can take a hell of a lot of time, though. Just ask people who lived in the Balkans, central or Eastern Europe, Korea, or in Palestine at some point in the 20th century, to name but a few examples. Or those who lived in a constant background of warfare basically anywhere in the world at any point in time. The pax romana and the stability brought by well-managed empires are remarqu…

I agree that animosity is deep rooted between neighbors. But I suspect it is less deep between distant countries that have had working relationships in the past.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#129

Post by whimsicalism »

kergonath wrote: post #124
ecommerceguy wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Talking to people actually living in the place could give you a clue. Putin is a neocon, sure, but no bureaucrat started this war and Ukraine is very unlikely to just fold and submit if the US stop their support. Liberals have also nothing to do with Russian aggression.

This war will likely end with Ukraine losing some amount of land - it is just a matter of if they ever accept this or whether they want a Korea style frozen conflict.

Re: Yandex to divest its Russia-based businesses

#130

Post by evolextra »

ecommerceguy wrote: post #117
rurp wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do countries, if we're looking at a long enough time scale. There is no end in sight for the war in Ukraine and when the end comes it's likely to be messy. It might be more of a pause than a true end, and one or both sides will likely be pretty unhappy with the outcome. It could be many years before Russia and the west go back to a comfortable economic relationship.

[flagged]

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