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Middle East oil money for people who are reluctant to take money from the Middle East investors directly.
by 0xbear 9y ago
Middle East oil money for people who are reluctant to take money from the Middle East investors directly.
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoThis is getting downvoted, but it’s a big piece of the puzzle. 60% of the Vision Fund is Saudi and Emirati money [1]. Political risk is real. The line between “Saudi backed” and “venture backed” can be night and day for some companies. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/21/technology/saudi-softbank-tech-fund-target/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/21/technology/saudi-softbank-te...
- adventured 9y agoImagine how people would react today to a start-up like Facebook (circa 2009) taking the Russian VC money that they did (Digital Sky, Yuri Milner, Alisher Usmanov). It would be unfeasible for Facebook to do so, politically the firestorm would threaten to burn their company down, as Congress would go ballistic over the perceived implications.
- charlesdm 9y agoPerhaps I'm underestimating the significance of this, but honestly, does anyone really care in a hyperconnected global world? To me, as long as the parties you are raising money from act as good shareholders, I don't really see a massive problem. There are too many conspiracy stories going around..
- 0xbear 9y agoYou are underestimating the significance of this. The economic security of the US rests to a significant extent on the fact that there's far more fundamental innovation going on here than anywhere else in the world. Whoever pays for it, ends up owning it, which is not a problem if the innovation in question is just some inconsequential bullshit like a business model. It becomes a problem when it's something that is a force multiplier: AI, hardware, big data, etc. You don't want to let the Middle Eastern hereditary theocratic dictatorships to play with any of this stuff, or own large chunks of the US innovation sector. You also don't want Communist China to play with it either, but I guess it's too late for that now.
- majani 9y agoMeh, it's the natural way. Power cycles around, no empire remains forever.
- 0xbear 9y agoSure. Empires rarely survive past the 250 year mark. It’s remarkably consistent. The US will be 250 years old in 2026, though it hasn’t been an empire for the entire duration. Make of it what you will. Interesting essay on the topic: http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
- dontreact 9y agoOf course! They invaded Crimea so we’ve imposed economic sanctions. Also seems to be evidence of them influencing the election. These things weren’t clear at the time.
- 0xbear 9y agoThere is so far no evidence of them influencing the election in any way.
- danenania 9y agoThere's plenty of evidence that they conducted a massive, highly sophisticated propaganda/cyber warfare campaign. It's impossible to prove that it did or didn't tilt the election, but it clearly could have given the extremely thin margins in key states. I'd say that counts as influence.
- 0xbear 9y agoPresent some then. Thus far the best that I’ve seen is $100k in FB ads to peddle the divisive topics typically peddled by the democratic establishment.
- danenania 9y agohttps://www.c-span.org/video/?c4664750/excerpt-clinton-watts-testimony-senate-intelligence-committee-hearing https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4664750/excerpt-clinton-watts... https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/politics/the-intelligence-community-report-on-russian-activities-in-the-2016-election/2153/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/politics/the-inte... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/russian-trolls-hilary-clinton-fake-news-election-democrat-mark-warner-intelligence-committee-a7657641.html?amp http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics... That's like 1/1000th of the publicly reported evidence you can find by googling.
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- bflesch 9y agoCan you elaborate how big the effective political risk is? I always thought LP commitments are pretty binding - are there many ways out of the fund for Saudi/Emirati money that aren't available to other very big fish?
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> Can you elaborate how big the effective political risk is? I always thought LP commitments are pretty binding The risk isn’t the Saudis pull out. It’s that their investment brings adverse attention from the President, the Congress, aspiring Senators and advocacy groups. A foreign state investor is scarier to most Americans than a foreign private entity.
- HaloZero 9y agoI'm not sure what happens in the case where say sanctions against Iran or Saudi Arabia could freeze assets as well.
- jopsen 9y agoWouldn't the sanctioned investors in the fund just be unable withdraw their money?
- JumpCrisscross 9y agoYes. Though now I'm curious if a fund manager is allowed to continue collecting their management fee from the sanctioned investors' funds...