13 ms·

Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments

386 points by killjoywashere 9y ago

smsm42 9y ago
I can't imagine how it can be a surprise that (large) money from Russia are connected to Putin and his fellows. That's literally what Putin has been working on for the last decade at least - so that all money worth speaking of in Russia will be controlled by him. That's the unifying theme of all major things happening in Russia's business world. If you see somebody with money headquartering in Russia, yes, it is because Putin wants it to be so. The official term is "The Power Vertical" and the idea is that nothing worth of note happens without the will and the control of Putin and his fellows. It doesn't mean everybody is literally mind-controlled by Putin, but if there's big money, you'll get from it to Putin very quickly. It can't be any other way.
patkai 9y ago
And there goes integrity. It applies to many other situations, where taking investment, accepting help, or committing to excessive mortgage makes you lose your integrity - you simply won't be able to afford it. One of the many down sides of aiming to build Facebooks instead of Basecamps.
- oxide 9y ago
  Well said.
mankash666 9y ago
Worthy noting that Yuri Milner automatically invented ~$150K in YC companies till 2013 [1]. Russian money might be making this very site possible. [1]: http://bit.ly/2y4cIU6 http://bit.ly/2y4cIU6
- Asparagirl 9y ago
  What YC companies tell everyone else: Milner wants to invest in us because he recognizes that we're we're awesome! What YC companies tell themselves: Milner wants to invest in us because he wants to make money, and if he has enough fingers in enough pies, one or more of his investments will pay out nicely. What the rest of the world is telling YC companies: Milner wanted to invest in you because Russian oligarchs and the successors of the mf'in KGB wanted to get root at your tools, your data, your users, your insights, your ability to spread their crooked point of view...
  - Asparagirl 9y ago
    ...and possibly pick up some kompromat on you, your co-workers, and your users along the way, which could come in useful for them down the road... Yeah, your company is an investment for them. But not the way you think.
killjoywashere 9y ago
If you haven't read Bill Browder's Red Notice, read it now. Wow. Wow. Just wow. YCombinator is in the Kremlin's pocket. Wow. I fully expect this to be downvoted to oblivion. But wow. In essence, Putin used Browder's investigations of Gazprom and other oligarch-controlled Russian businesses (huge national orgs that were privatized after the collapse of the Soviet Union) to jail the richest man in Russia, effectively making all the oligarchs his bitches. Milner is investing oligarch money. These people will kill you (see: Sergei Magnitsky). How bad do you want Milner' money now? https://www.amazon.com/Red-Notice-Finance-Murder-Justice/dp/1476755744 https://www.amazon.com/Red-Notice-Finance-Murder-Justice/dp/...
- dosgonlogs 9y ago
  Putin bathes in milk and honey and wears track pants that cost thousands of dollars. He has been making Oligarchs his bitches for longer and on a much larger scale than Bill Browder was ever able to uncover, and as you see, "uncovering" it backfired spectacularly. Anyone who cares that could potentially do something about all this, won't.
- akhilcacharya 9y ago
  I was under the impression that Milner was above board BECAUSE he had ties to American companies. Crazy.
- conistonwater 9y ago
  To add to this, if you want something shorter to read, there is this prepared statement by Browder to the Senate Judiciary Committee: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bill-browders-testimony-to-the-senate-judiciary-committee/534864/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bill-br... Also, being a prepared statement to a senate committee, it has more meat to it than the average news interview.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    To be fair, Browder has his own patrons and political interests to represent, particularly in this situation.
fascinated 9y ago
Maybe rename topic, but also lets think of happier days in 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2154706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2154706 :P
- killjoywashere 9y ago
  How would you rename it? YCombinator money is from Putin (via oligarchs)? Also, why are you wanting to remember happier times?
  - Apocryphon 9y ago
    When Russian adventurism was a blip on the American radar, the '08 Russo-Georgian War aside.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
Holy crap. DST Global and its affiliates have (or had in formative years) significant stakes in Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, ZocDoc, Planet Lab, Xiaomi, Stripe, Alibaba, WhatsApp and Airbnb [1]. Milner has close ties to Y Combinator [2]. It's been a deal-terms setting, behind-the-kimono peeking major investor for a decade. This is immensely scary. We've utterly failed, as an industry, to self regulate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Milner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Milner [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venture-milner-ycombinator/facebook-backer-yuri-milner-exits-automatic-y-combinator-investments-idUSBRE9BF1GA20131216 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venture-milner-ycombinato...
- pinewurst 9y ago
  Why is this surprising? When Milner came virtually out of the blue (or red, as the case may be) a few years ago, it seemed obvious that he was a conduit/laundry for oligarch cash at least. I even remember telling someone at the time that if we were chosen for YC, we didn't want Milner's dirty money. The additional Kremlin state ties seem only an additional technicality. (I mean the formalized acknowledgement of what I presumed existent.)
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > The additional Kremlin state ties seem only an additional technicality The line between investing for potentially-corrupt interests and acting at the behest of a geopolitical competitor is night and day. DST didn't just hand cash over to companies. They conducted extensive diligence and sat on Boards.
    - pinewurst 9y ago
      Maybe that wasn't good phrasing. I'm trying to say that I never saw the division between those corrupt interests and the nation state they belonged to. I always felt they were acting in their national interests. What will be interesting here is how fast it falls off HN.
      - 9y ago
seizethecheese 9y ago
Concerns about Milner And his ties to YC are not new. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604
- mercer 9y ago
  pg's comments there are interesting.
  - raverbashing 9y ago
    Yup The aspect of "VCs fine like him because he makes fewer requirements" is a very interesting one and I'm not in the least feeling sorry for the VCs
- pen2l 9y ago
  > I meant that even if Yuri's money was tainted in some way, it was being used as a counterweight to another bad thing. Dammit, this is disappointing. I really thought pg was above saying things like that. Between this, thiel, and some other things, I am quite bummed out.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    This is why you never meet your hero. Everyone is falliable.
  - postramus 9y ago
    Always a mistake to expect communicative rather than instrumental use of language!
yablak 9y ago
Given Milner's background, I would think this is has been an "open secret" in Silicon Valley investment circles. Is that the case?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Yes.
EGreg 9y ago
Quick, investigate pg for Russia collusion LOL. But seriously, let's put these reactions in perspective. Supposs the same was revealed the other way, about a US company having ties to the US government investing in Russian technology. We wouldn't bat an eye. This hysteria about Russian collusion makes us waste our energy and attention which is necessary to pay attention to the real issues (which I list below.) I am not surprised that a Russian billionaire has ties to Putin, or invested in US companies. His company has since sold his stake and moved on, and nothing scary happened. Compared to what the USA does on a regular basis, Russia is a pretty good actor when it comes to external dealings. What's much more worrying is internal Russia policies. I personally know some people who started VKontakte (the Russian facebooj). They all sold their stake or were later pressured to do so by the Russian government after refusing to cooperate with the equivalent of the FBI's NSL + gag orders. and of course the Mail.ru conglomerate wanted to take it over. Not easy to maitain a business in Russia. (Note: the US has just as much spying and NSL+gag orders but far, far greater freedom of speech and property protections so we don't feel it as much.) But outside? Look US firms regularly make investments in companies around the world. The actual influence comes not from investment but from things like: The CIA approaching VK founder and developers hoping to install backdoors in Telegram Microsoft Windows new versions phoning home or cooperating with the CIA. There is a reason many nations including Russia have built and are now promoting ther own operating systems instead of Windows. It's just so sloppy to talk about "ties" to something. The hysteria cheapens the impact ahen something real happens. Like backdoors and hacking.
- smsm42 9y ago
  > Compared to what the USA does on a regular basis, Russia is a pretty good actor when it comes to external dealings. No it is not. Russia is a very bad actor when it comes to external dealings, and the reason not many in the US are aware of it is because when USSR crashed and dissolved, Russia emerged from the wreckage much weaker and not yet able to wreak major trouble like USSR could. But where it can (in its immediate vicinity) it is as bad as it always was. True, US is not idea too and does its share of mistakes. But I don't think US - at least now, not 150 years ago - would just grab a chunk of territory of another country and declare it its own because they like it. Russia does that. But it is currently not a major threat to the US (yet?) and most investments made by it are not for nefarious purposes, at least not in the US. With all their faults, those guys like earning money too.
YuriNiyazov 9y ago
I don't really get the hysteria. I work for an American company in San Francisco that has Tencent (practically an arm of the Chinese government) as a major investor. The number of times our CEO came in and told me that we need to implement features that benefit our geopolitical competitor is exactly zero. What precisely do all the commenters that are panicking here think happens at companies where the investors are people who became rich with the help of the governments of Russia and China?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lukasm 9y ago
  > The number of times our CEO came in and told me that we need to implement features that benefit our geopolitical competitor is exactly zero. Why would anyone told you that? Clearly, someone would told you to implement X because Y when the real reason is Z.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    Thus, it is impossible to disprove that the company is really controlled by lizardoids from planet Nibiru, since if it would be, they certainly wouldn't tell you about it, so any behavior can be interpreted as caused by lizardoids, while no behavior can be interpreted as refuting this.
    - lukasm 9y ago
      That is only true if these are the only variables. If you know that lizardoids invested in the company and CEO would told you to transport uranium to Nibiru, because think-of-the-children you are more likely to question the intent.
      - smsm42 9y ago
        But if they said to transfer uranium to Minnesota instead, maybe it's still lizardoids and they just have space ship landed in Minnesota. And if they said to ship cornflakes and not uranium, maybe they know how to make nukes from cornflakes. With enough imagination, it is not possible to refute literally anything. Any action can be proof of any connection, if you're willing to accept conjecture and "well, it doesn't prove X is false therefore X is true".
throwawaysml 9y ago
Is the difference to Chinese and Saudi money floating in the valley that we expect violent repercussions for anyone that opposes some aspect of the financiers' wishes? Or is it just that Russia is the most outspoken big nation that takes a different stance on critical issues where, say, Saudi and DC are in agreement. And that this is a danger to post-WW2 US influence? Genuinely curious. Back when Milner invested in Facebook I viewed it as potential money laundering and didn't think about it too much.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  When Saudis, Chinese or Russian individuals invest, they do so openly. When Uber took Saudi state money, they knew why the Saudis were buying. I think this sort of state-backed investing is fine. The issue here is companies didn't treat Milner et al as an extension of the Russian state. They treated them as private individuals who made money in Russia. The difference is night and day. The latter want to make money like other investors. The former may want things other than money. Transparency allows one to be wary about suspicious requests, requests which may not seem suspicious without context. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Speak to a lawyer before accepting, or making, investments.
  - throwawaysml 9y ago
    Sure, but aren't we forgetting that Russia is like China in that over a certain size of business you are in no way able to operate unless you are in agreement or cozy (more business) with the Kremlin? This is in stark contrast to the US where it's no problem for a company to operate HQ in Oklahoma and loudly oppose the current DC government. I mean, if we assume Milner wasn't backed and planted by the Kremlin for a moment, then one could consider it impossible for Milner to be untied to Kremlin if based primarily in Moscow, no?
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      Tied to, and acting at the behest of, are night and day. One allows you to presume they're acting in their own financial interests, by and large, just like every other investor. The other merits caution. Your larger point, that we should have been more cautious, stands. We should have figured this out. But dollars danced, and even the best of us started rationalizing [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143894
malvosenior 9y ago
I’m having a very hard time understanding why anyone would be upset by the Russian government making technology positive investments. Especially technologists! I wish more money was deployed into software development. Russia seems to be a positive influence here.
- Asparagirl 9y ago
  Russia hasn't been a positive influence on anything since Shostakovich and Yuri Gagarin.
  - malvosenior 9y ago
    I know good developers that had meaning financial gain in some if the DST transactions listed in the OP. It was positive for them and our industry in a very real way.
  - nzmsv 9y ago
    It's interesting that most people would probably not say something so xenophobic about any other country on a public forum, but Russia is fair game. Don't believe me? Substitute $country in the above and see if it sounds more or less grating.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > It's interesting that most people would probably not say something so xenophobic about any other country on a public forum I've routinely seen the almost exact same thing, except with a much longer timeline. about the entirety of the Arab world, on public forums.
      - krapp 9y ago
        And China, and sometimes Japan. Hell... and America, by Americans.
    - oxide 9y ago
      It's interesting how often people pretend Russia is unfairly persecuted in internet comment sections around the globe. :)
Asparagirl 9y ago
I'd be interested in hearing from Silicon Valley and YC companies' teams about how they feel knowing that they've been taking dirty money from the Kremlin, having representatives even sit on their boards. Was it worth it? C'mon guys, don't hold back now. What's a few murdered dissidents between friends?
- MsMowz 9y ago
  Do you think the American money is nicer and cleaner than Russian money? It's all the same.
AzzieElbab 9y ago
99% of Russian money is oligarchs money. Either stop taking any or stop making so much fuzz about it. If NYT stock was as dynamic as FB's Milner would have bought a lot of it too
- Synaesthesia 9y ago
  We have to also remember the US role in the creation of the oligarchs. The US advised Russia in the early 90's to privatise and liberalise the economy very rapidly ...
  - AzzieElbab 9y ago
    Oh cmon
    - Synaesthesia 9y ago
      It’s true, the oligarchs were all created by the rapid privatization of Russian state assets which were sold incredibly cheaply. US advisors played a big role in this. See eg https://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-boys-do-russia/ https://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-boys-do-russia/ I’m not surprised that US politicians are still involved with the oligarchs, and that seems to be on both sides of the political spectrum.
      - psimpsonul 9y ago
        What if I told you that Yuri Milner was behind that?
johnrichardson 9y ago
Another day, another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia. My pet theory is that it's a big collective act of psychological sublimation to compensate for the shock of Hillary losing. I also find it ironic that the Chinese Communist Party, an institution which is at least on par with Russia in terms of shadiness and social repression, receives barely an iota of the flak that Russia receives in the American media.
- revelation 9y ago
  Peter Thiel alone has outspent all of those Russians we've been hearing so much about.
  - Asparagirl 9y ago
    That's not exactly reassuring.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia Imagine if Germany found out that Rocket Internet, a large European venture capital firm, was actually CIA backed. It would be a scandal and a lot of people would need to, rightly, question whether they had been compromised. The problem isn't solely the identity of the backer. It's the surreptitious deployment of state power deep into another country. Disclaimer: Hypotheticals are hypothetical. I am not a lawyer. None of this is legal advice.
  - revelation 9y ago
    Compromised? Compromised the shoe retail business? You are going to need some more meat other than James Bond language and a lot of money.
    - ellius 9y ago
      You don’t understand that states covertly use money to exercise power? I’m confused why you’re harping on that word unless you genuinely don’t understand what he’s getting at.
progman 9y ago
What if - theoretically - this is just "fake news"? I mean, how can you discern that the stuff the media reports is actually true, no matter in what direction? I think the most reliable source of information in this time of spreading "fake news" is personal witness by known people.
- sgustard 9y ago
  Of course you should make your own judgment of the validity of the source. In this case, it would seem to be a difficult task to invent all of this. "The Paradise Papers is a global investigation into the offshore activities of some of the world’s most powerful people and companies. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 95 media partners explored 13.4 million leaked files from a combination of offshore service providers and the company registries of some of the world’s most secretive countries. The Paradise Papers documents include nearly 7 million loan agreements, financial statements, emails, trust deeds and other paperwork from nearly 50 years at Appleby, a leading offshore law firm with offices in Bermuda and beyond." https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/
  - progman 9y ago
    What's the difference of trusting the media, or the data which backs the media?
jorblumesea 9y ago
Any money coming out of Russia is somehow related to Putin and his oligarchs. If you want to stop the Russian government from laundering money you'd need to stop trading with Russian companies in general. There's little separation between state and private interests. Money just doesn't come out of Russia at that level without the state being involved. Regardless, it's likely this move was more financially motivated than politically. Diversification is the key to any portfolio and with Russia's economy tanking it was probably to ensure their billions stayed billions and wasn't held in worthless rubles or corrupt state companies.
pheldagryph 9y ago
Senate Intelligence Committee has expressed concerns that Jack Dorsey is favoring the Russian government over the United States government. Senator Tom Cotton, CIA Director John Brennan, transcript from Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on June 2016: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=414 https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=414 SENATOR COTTON: I want to discuss cooperation with our Intelligence Community from Silicon Valley, specifically Twitter and a company called Dataminr. According to the Wall Street Journal from May 8th, as well as some other media reports, Dataminr which is owned in part by Twitter and is the only company authorized to access the full real-time stream of public tweets that Twitter has, recently cooperated with the CIA. But just a few weeks ago ended that cooperation. So our Intelligence Community no longer has access to Dataminr's information, could you comment on these reports? DIRECTOR BRENNAN: It appears as though Dataminr was directed to not provide its service to the CIA Intelligence Community and so therefore, we need to be able to leverage other capabilities in order to make sure that we have the insight we need to protect this country. COTTON: So those reports are correct? BRENNAN: I am not going to dispute them. COTTON: The Wall Street Journal also reported that the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, directed Dataminr to stop the contract because he was worried about the "optics" of helping intelligence agencies. Do you believe that to be accurate? BRENNAN: I do not know his motivation for any corporate decision he may have made, but I have no basis to dispute that. COTTON: The Wall Street Journal also reports that among customers of Dataminr remains RT, Russia Today, a propaganda outlet of Vladimir Putin's government, which Putin has said is "trying to break the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on global information streams." To your knowledge, is Russia Today a client of Dataminr? BRENNAN: I believe so, I'm not certain of that. But I don't have any information that they have been excluded from their services.
- smsm42 9y ago
  OTOH, a commercial company can sever links with foreign government agency buying their services at any time. Doing the same with US government agency is not that easy, as we know on NSA example. So maybe the question that needs to be asked here is how come people in the US see reputation risks of cooperating with CIA as worse than ones for cooperating with Russians? Is there something that CIA and US government should be doing to fix this shameful situation?
1776once 9y ago
The bay area got so caught up in their liberalism and inclusion, they didn't think that some of the people they are accepting (not just Russia, Chineese are everywhere in SF and many don't speak any english) might have deceptive and un-american intentions.
jacquesm 9y ago
This was totally obvious and led to an interesting exchange between PG and Fred Wilson: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604
- paganel 9y ago
  Sad to see a guy like jedberg so naive (I like to think that he was naive) as to ask for evidence as to why "Milner was linked to the looting of state resources". And if we're talking about reddit, as a long-time user I remember that I first encountered political shill accounts and paid posters on reddit, in the summer of 2006, during the Hezbollah vs Israel conflict (the accounts were "rooting" for Israel, of course). Next time I encountered them was 2 years later, in 2008, during the Russia vs Georgia conflict (the shills being on Russia's side). It'd be interesting to hear what a guy like jedberg remembers about all this (not sure if he was working for reddit back in 2006, but I'm pretty sure he was there in 2008). I also remember reading a one-page story about influencing opinions on geo-political facts on the web in the Financial Times, around November 2011, where a Israeli army colonel or something like that was acknowledging the issue at hand (that opinion on the web should be in part controlled by State actors) and that Israel was already implementing something to meet that goal (I have a screenshot of that article, but it's on my older laptop, too lazy to transfer the photo now). Come 2017 and the US is taken by surprise that one of those State actors has influenced its Presidential election.
jackcosgrove 9y ago
I will not dispute anything in this article, and it is discouraging if the allegations are true. However I will point out that an outlet like the NY Times is threatened by Twitter and Facebook financially. I would keep that in mind as to one reason the legacy media have been choosing to report on topics (and they don't always choose to report just what is newsworthy) concerning foreign influence and "fake news" emanating from social media.
- davesque 9y ago
  I think you place the Times in an impossible position. If it's not the responsibility of traditional media organizations to report on the real problem of fake news in social media, then whose responsibility is it? Where else are people going to spread the word about something like that? Face to face? Furthermore, you must realize that the people questioning the veracity traditional media are, by and large, conspiracy theorists with very particular agendas and motives for doing so. The Times also has something that Facebook and the like don't and probably won't -- a hard-earned trust built over a period of decades.
  - articleswewrite 9y ago
    Yup. Do me a favor and mention that they've sold their Facebook and Twitter holdings but mention nothing of the current holdings in Cadre in the headline. By the way, C Corporations are not prevented from taking foreign investment; though S Corporations are. In contrast to Facebook and Twitter, The Times writes articles and headlines and picks which ones to publish.
davesque 9y ago
In a business culture that values growth above all else, is it really any surprise that this happened? American corporations have an ethics problem and we're going to learn our lesson one way or another -- whether it's the easy way or the hard way.
orsenthil 9y ago
Everyone knew "Yuri Milner" was a Russian and Russian is not an open system or democracy or system run by a rule of law. Why is the news any surprise now? What I think is happening is - Russia by bring up these topics in news (in outlets like nytimes) so that it can de-emphasize it's partnership with Trump government and the role it played in bringing that egoist to power.
c-smile 9y ago
Yeah, it's really time to build another wall then. You've opened Internet to share your point of view and so to influence their choice? Expect others to share their views and influence you too. Don't like that? See #1 You've opened your market and asking for investments? You've got them. Don't like color of their money? See #1 Do we have other options realistically speaking?
dmitri1981 9y ago
We had this discussion on HN in 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3144351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3144351 where PG noted that "I have never heard of a case where a startup refused investment from a venture fund because of who their LPs were."
rajup 9y ago
Funny how this story dropped off the front page...
0xbear 9y ago
And to think that none of this would even come up had the “right” candidate won.
TaylorGood 9y ago
Timely? Milner takes $50m mortgage on a house he had originally paid for in cash.. http://www.yolandaslittleblackbook.com/blog-1/2017/11/02/yuri-milner-house-los-angeles-holmby-hills/ http://www.yolandaslittleblackbook.com/blog-1/2017/11/02/yur...

I can't imagine how it can be a surprise that (large) money from Russia are connected to Putin and his fellows. That's literally what Putin has been working on for the last decade at least - so that all money worth speaking of in Russia will be controlled by him. That's the unifying theme of all major things happening in Russia's business world. If you see somebody with money headquartering in Russia, yes, it is because Putin wants it to be so. The official term is "The Power Vertical" and the idea is that nothing worth of note happens without the will and the control of Putin and his fellows. It doesn't mean everybody is literally mind-controlled by Putin, but if there's big money, you'll get from it to Putin very quickly. It can't be any other way.

patkai 9y ago

And there goes integrity. It applies to many other situations, where taking investment, accepting help, or committing to excessive mortgage makes you lose your integrity - you simply won't be able to afford it. One of the many down sides of aiming to build Facebooks instead of Basecamps.

oxide 9y ago
Well said.

mankash666 9y ago

Worthy noting that Yuri Milner automatically invented ~$150K in YC companies till 2013 [1]. Russian money might be making this very site possible. [1]: http://bit.ly/2y4cIU6 http://bit.ly/2y4cIU6

Asparagirl 9y ago
What YC companies tell everyone else: Milner wants to invest in us because he recognizes that we're we're awesome! What YC companies tell themselves: Milner wants to invest in us because he wants to make money, and if he has enough fingers in enough pies, one or more of his investments will pay out nicely. What the rest of the world is telling YC companies: Milner wanted to invest in you because Russian oligarchs and the successors of the mf'in KGB wanted to get root at your tools, your data, your users, your insights, your ability to spread their crooked point of view...
- Asparagirl 9y ago
  ...and possibly pick up some kompromat on you, your co-workers, and your users along the way, which could come in useful for them down the road... Yeah, your company is an investment for them. But not the way you think.

killjoywashere 9y ago

If you haven't read Bill Browder's Red Notice, read it now. Wow. Wow. Just wow. YCombinator is in the Kremlin's pocket. Wow. I fully expect this to be downvoted to oblivion. But wow. In essence, Putin used Browder's investigations of Gazprom and other oligarch-controlled Russian businesses (huge national orgs that were privatized after the collapse of the Soviet Union) to jail the richest man in Russia, effectively making all the oligarchs his bitches. Milner is investing oligarch money. These people will kill you (see: Sergei Magnitsky). How bad do you want Milner' money now? https://www.amazon.com/Red-Notice-Finance-Murder-Justice/dp/1476755744 https://www.amazon.com/Red-Notice-Finance-Murder-Justice/dp/...

dosgonlogs 9y ago
Putin bathes in milk and honey and wears track pants that cost thousands of dollars. He has been making Oligarchs his bitches for longer and on a much larger scale than Bill Browder was ever able to uncover, and as you see, "uncovering" it backfired spectacularly. Anyone who cares that could potentially do something about all this, won't.
akhilcacharya 9y ago
I was under the impression that Milner was above board BECAUSE he had ties to American companies. Crazy.
conistonwater 9y ago
To add to this, if you want something shorter to read, there is this prepared statement by Browder to the Senate Judiciary Committee: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bill-browders-testimony-to-the-senate-judiciary-committee/534864/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/bill-br... Also, being a prepared statement to a senate committee, it has more meat to it than the average news interview.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  To be fair, Browder has his own patrons and political interests to represent, particularly in this situation.

fascinated 9y ago

Maybe rename topic, but also lets think of happier days in 2011: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2154706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2154706 :P

killjoywashere 9y ago
How would you rename it? YCombinator money is from Putin (via oligarchs)? Also, why are you wanting to remember happier times?
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  When Russian adventurism was a blip on the American radar, the '08 Russo-Georgian War aside.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

Holy crap. DST Global and its affiliates have (or had in formative years) significant stakes in Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, ZocDoc, Planet Lab, Xiaomi, Stripe, Alibaba, WhatsApp and Airbnb [1]. Milner has close ties to Y Combinator [2]. It's been a deal-terms setting, behind-the-kimono peeking major investor for a decade. This is immensely scary. We've utterly failed, as an industry, to self regulate. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Milner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Milner [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venture-milner-ycombinator/facebook-backer-yuri-milner-exits-automatic-y-combinator-investments-idUSBRE9BF1GA20131216 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venture-milner-ycombinato...

pinewurst 9y ago
Why is this surprising? When Milner came virtually out of the blue (or red, as the case may be) a few years ago, it seemed obvious that he was a conduit/laundry for oligarch cash at least. I even remember telling someone at the time that if we were chosen for YC, we didn't want Milner's dirty money. The additional Kremlin state ties seem only an additional technicality. (I mean the formalized acknowledgement of what I presumed existent.)
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > The additional Kremlin state ties seem only an additional technicality The line between investing for potentially-corrupt interests and acting at the behest of a geopolitical competitor is night and day. DST didn't just hand cash over to companies. They conducted extensive diligence and sat on Boards.
  - pinewurst 9y ago
    Maybe that wasn't good phrasing. I'm trying to say that I never saw the division between those corrupt interests and the nation state they belonged to. I always felt they were acting in their national interests. What will be interesting here is how fast it falls off HN.
    - 9y ago

seizethecheese 9y ago

Concerns about Milner And his ties to YC are not new. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604

mercer 9y ago
pg's comments there are interesting.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  Yup The aspect of "VCs fine like him because he makes fewer requirements" is a very interesting one and I'm not in the least feeling sorry for the VCs
pen2l 9y ago
> I meant that even if Yuri's money was tainted in some way, it was being used as a counterweight to another bad thing. Dammit, this is disappointing. I really thought pg was above saying things like that. Between this, thiel, and some other things, I am quite bummed out.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  This is why you never meet your hero. Everyone is falliable.
- postramus 9y ago
  Always a mistake to expect communicative rather than instrumental use of language!

yablak 9y ago

Given Milner's background, I would think this is has been an "open secret" in Silicon Valley investment circles. Is that the case?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 9y ago
Yes.

EGreg 9y ago

Quick, investigate pg for Russia collusion LOL. But seriously, let's put these reactions in perspective. Supposs the same was revealed the other way, about a US company having ties to the US government investing in Russian technology. We wouldn't bat an eye. This hysteria about Russian collusion makes us waste our energy and attention which is necessary to pay attention to the real issues (which I list below.) I am not surprised that a Russian billionaire has ties to Putin, or invested in US companies. His company has since sold his stake and moved on, and nothing scary happened. Compared to what the USA does on a regular basis, Russia is a pretty good actor when it comes to external dealings. What's much more worrying is internal Russia policies. I personally know some people who started VKontakte (the Russian facebooj). They all sold their stake or were later pressured to do so by the Russian government after refusing to cooperate with the equivalent of the FBI's NSL + gag orders. and of course the Mail.ru conglomerate wanted to take it over. Not easy to maitain a business in Russia. (Note: the US has just as much spying and NSL+gag orders but far, far greater freedom of speech and property protections so we don't feel it as much.) But outside? Look US firms regularly make investments in companies around the world. The actual influence comes not from investment but from things like: The CIA approaching VK founder and developers hoping to install backdoors in Telegram Microsoft Windows new versions phoning home or cooperating with the CIA. There is a reason many nations including Russia have built and are now promoting ther own operating systems instead of Windows. It's just so sloppy to talk about "ties" to something. The hysteria cheapens the impact ahen something real happens. Like backdoors and hacking.

smsm42 9y ago
> Compared to what the USA does on a regular basis, Russia is a pretty good actor when it comes to external dealings. No it is not. Russia is a very bad actor when it comes to external dealings, and the reason not many in the US are aware of it is because when USSR crashed and dissolved, Russia emerged from the wreckage much weaker and not yet able to wreak major trouble like USSR could. But where it can (in its immediate vicinity) it is as bad as it always was. True, US is not idea too and does its share of mistakes. But I don't think US - at least now, not 150 years ago - would just grab a chunk of territory of another country and declare it its own because they like it. Russia does that. But it is currently not a major threat to the US (yet?) and most investments made by it are not for nefarious purposes, at least not in the US. With all their faults, those guys like earning money too.

YuriNiyazov 9y ago

I don't really get the hysteria. I work for an American company in San Francisco that has Tencent (practically an arm of the Chinese government) as a major investor. The number of times our CEO came in and told me that we need to implement features that benefit our geopolitical competitor is exactly zero. What precisely do all the commenters that are panicking here think happens at companies where the investors are people who became rich with the help of the governments of Russia and China?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lukasm 9y ago
> The number of times our CEO came in and told me that we need to implement features that benefit our geopolitical competitor is exactly zero. Why would anyone told you that? Clearly, someone would told you to implement X because Y when the real reason is Z.
- smsm42 9y ago
  Thus, it is impossible to disprove that the company is really controlled by lizardoids from planet Nibiru, since if it would be, they certainly wouldn't tell you about it, so any behavior can be interpreted as caused by lizardoids, while no behavior can be interpreted as refuting this.
  - lukasm 9y ago
    That is only true if these are the only variables. If you know that lizardoids invested in the company and CEO would told you to transport uranium to Nibiru, because think-of-the-children you are more likely to question the intent.
    - smsm42 9y ago
      But if they said to transfer uranium to Minnesota instead, maybe it's still lizardoids and they just have space ship landed in Minnesota. And if they said to ship cornflakes and not uranium, maybe they know how to make nukes from cornflakes. With enough imagination, it is not possible to refute literally anything. Any action can be proof of any connection, if you're willing to accept conjecture and "well, it doesn't prove X is false therefore X is true".

throwawaysml 9y ago

Is the difference to Chinese and Saudi money floating in the valley that we expect violent repercussions for anyone that opposes some aspect of the financiers' wishes? Or is it just that Russia is the most outspoken big nation that takes a different stance on critical issues where, say, Saudi and DC are in agreement. And that this is a danger to post-WW2 US influence? Genuinely curious. Back when Milner invested in Facebook I viewed it as potential money laundering and didn't think about it too much.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
When Saudis, Chinese or Russian individuals invest, they do so openly. When Uber took Saudi state money, they knew why the Saudis were buying. I think this sort of state-backed investing is fine. The issue here is companies didn't treat Milner et al as an extension of the Russian state. They treated them as private individuals who made money in Russia. The difference is night and day. The latter want to make money like other investors. The former may want things other than money. Transparency allows one to be wary about suspicious requests, requests which may not seem suspicious without context. Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Speak to a lawyer before accepting, or making, investments.
- throwawaysml 9y ago
  Sure, but aren't we forgetting that Russia is like China in that over a certain size of business you are in no way able to operate unless you are in agreement or cozy (more business) with the Kremlin? This is in stark contrast to the US where it's no problem for a company to operate HQ in Oklahoma and loudly oppose the current DC government. I mean, if we assume Milner wasn't backed and planted by the Kremlin for a moment, then one could consider it impossible for Milner to be untied to Kremlin if based primarily in Moscow, no?
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    Tied to, and acting at the behest of, are night and day. One allows you to presume they're acting in their own financial interests, by and large, just like every other investor. The other merits caution. Your larger point, that we should have been more cautious, stands. We should have figured this out. But dollars danced, and even the best of us started rationalizing [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143894

malvosenior 9y ago

I’m having a very hard time understanding why anyone would be upset by the Russian government making technology positive investments. Especially technologists! I wish more money was deployed into software development. Russia seems to be a positive influence here.

Asparagirl 9y ago
Russia hasn't been a positive influence on anything since Shostakovich and Yuri Gagarin.
- malvosenior 9y ago
  I know good developers that had meaning financial gain in some if the DST transactions listed in the OP. It was positive for them and our industry in a very real way.
- nzmsv 9y ago
  It's interesting that most people would probably not say something so xenophobic about any other country on a public forum, but Russia is fair game. Don't believe me? Substitute $country in the above and see if it sounds more or less grating.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > It's interesting that most people would probably not say something so xenophobic about any other country on a public forum I've routinely seen the almost exact same thing, except with a much longer timeline. about the entirety of the Arab world, on public forums.
    - krapp 9y ago
      And China, and sometimes Japan. Hell... and America, by Americans.
  - oxide 9y ago
    It's interesting how often people pretend Russia is unfairly persecuted in internet comment sections around the globe. :)

Asparagirl 9y ago

I'd be interested in hearing from Silicon Valley and YC companies' teams about how they feel knowing that they've been taking dirty money from the Kremlin, having representatives even sit on their boards. Was it worth it? C'mon guys, don't hold back now. What's a few murdered dissidents between friends?

MsMowz 9y ago
Do you think the American money is nicer and cleaner than Russian money? It's all the same.

AzzieElbab 9y ago

99% of Russian money is oligarchs money. Either stop taking any or stop making so much fuzz about it. If NYT stock was as dynamic as FB's Milner would have bought a lot of it too

Synaesthesia 9y ago
We have to also remember the US role in the creation of the oligarchs. The US advised Russia in the early 90's to privatise and liberalise the economy very rapidly ...
- AzzieElbab 9y ago
  Oh cmon
  - Synaesthesia 9y ago
    It’s true, the oligarchs were all created by the rapid privatization of Russian state assets which were sold incredibly cheaply. US advisors played a big role in this. See eg https://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-boys-do-russia/ https://www.thenation.com/article/harvard-boys-do-russia/ I’m not surprised that US politicians are still involved with the oligarchs, and that seems to be on both sides of the political spectrum.
    - psimpsonul 9y ago
      What if I told you that Yuri Milner was behind that?

johnrichardson 9y ago

Another day, another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia. My pet theory is that it's a big collective act of psychological sublimation to compensate for the shock of Hillary losing. I also find it ironic that the Chinese Communist Party, an institution which is at least on par with Russia in terms of shadiness and social repression, receives barely an iota of the flak that Russia receives in the American media.

revelation 9y ago
Peter Thiel alone has outspent all of those Russians we've been hearing so much about.
- Asparagirl 9y ago
  That's not exactly reassuring.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> another mainstream media publication shilling hysterical articles about Russia Imagine if Germany found out that Rocket Internet, a large European venture capital firm, was actually CIA backed. It would be a scandal and a lot of people would need to, rightly, question whether they had been compromised. The problem isn't solely the identity of the backer. It's the surreptitious deployment of state power deep into another country. Disclaimer: Hypotheticals are hypothetical. I am not a lawyer. None of this is legal advice.
- revelation 9y ago
  Compromised? Compromised the shoe retail business? You are going to need some more meat other than James Bond language and a lot of money.
  - ellius 9y ago
    You don’t understand that states covertly use money to exercise power? I’m confused why you’re harping on that word unless you genuinely don’t understand what he’s getting at.

progman 9y ago

What if - theoretically - this is just "fake news"? I mean, how can you discern that the stuff the media reports is actually true, no matter in what direction? I think the most reliable source of information in this time of spreading "fake news" is personal witness by known people.

sgustard 9y ago
Of course you should make your own judgment of the validity of the source. In this case, it would seem to be a difficult task to invent all of this. "The Paradise Papers is a global investigation into the offshore activities of some of the world’s most powerful people and companies. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 95 media partners explored 13.4 million leaked files from a combination of offshore service providers and the company registries of some of the world’s most secretive countries. The Paradise Papers documents include nearly 7 million loan agreements, financial statements, emails, trust deeds and other paperwork from nearly 50 years at Appleby, a leading offshore law firm with offices in Bermuda and beyond." https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/ https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/
- progman 9y ago
  What's the difference of trusting the media, or the data which backs the media?

jorblumesea 9y ago

Any money coming out of Russia is somehow related to Putin and his oligarchs. If you want to stop the Russian government from laundering money you'd need to stop trading with Russian companies in general. There's little separation between state and private interests. Money just doesn't come out of Russia at that level without the state being involved. Regardless, it's likely this move was more financially motivated than politically. Diversification is the key to any portfolio and with Russia's economy tanking it was probably to ensure their billions stayed billions and wasn't held in worthless rubles or corrupt state companies.

pheldagryph 9y ago

Senate Intelligence Committee has expressed concerns that Jack Dorsey is favoring the Russian government over the United States government. Senator Tom Cotton, CIA Director John Brennan, transcript from Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on June 2016: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=414 https://www.cotton.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=414 SENATOR COTTON: I want to discuss cooperation with our Intelligence Community from Silicon Valley, specifically Twitter and a company called Dataminr. According to the Wall Street Journal from May 8th, as well as some other media reports, Dataminr which is owned in part by Twitter and is the only company authorized to access the full real-time stream of public tweets that Twitter has, recently cooperated with the CIA. But just a few weeks ago ended that cooperation. So our Intelligence Community no longer has access to Dataminr's information, could you comment on these reports? DIRECTOR BRENNAN: It appears as though Dataminr was directed to not provide its service to the CIA Intelligence Community and so therefore, we need to be able to leverage other capabilities in order to make sure that we have the insight we need to protect this country. COTTON: So those reports are correct? BRENNAN: I am not going to dispute them. COTTON: The Wall Street Journal also reported that the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, directed Dataminr to stop the contract because he was worried about the "optics" of helping intelligence agencies. Do you believe that to be accurate? BRENNAN: I do not know his motivation for any corporate decision he may have made, but I have no basis to dispute that. COTTON: The Wall Street Journal also reports that among customers of Dataminr remains RT, Russia Today, a propaganda outlet of Vladimir Putin's government, which Putin has said is "trying to break the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on global information streams." To your knowledge, is Russia Today a client of Dataminr? BRENNAN: I believe so, I'm not certain of that. But I don't have any information that they have been excluded from their services.

smsm42 9y ago
OTOH, a commercial company can sever links with foreign government agency buying their services at any time. Doing the same with US government agency is not that easy, as we know on NSA example. So maybe the question that needs to be asked here is how come people in the US see reputation risks of cooperating with CIA as worse than ones for cooperating with Russians? Is there something that CIA and US government should be doing to fix this shameful situation?

1776once 9y ago

The bay area got so caught up in their liberalism and inclusion, they didn't think that some of the people they are accepting (not just Russia, Chineese are everywhere in SF and many don't speak any english) might have deceptive and un-american intentions.

jacquesm 9y ago

This was totally obvious and led to an interesting exchange between PG and Fred Wilson: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3143604

paganel 9y ago
Sad to see a guy like jedberg so naive (I like to think that he was naive) as to ask for evidence as to why "Milner was linked to the looting of state resources". And if we're talking about reddit, as a long-time user I remember that I first encountered political shill accounts and paid posters on reddit, in the summer of 2006, during the Hezbollah vs Israel conflict (the accounts were "rooting" for Israel, of course). Next time I encountered them was 2 years later, in 2008, during the Russia vs Georgia conflict (the shills being on Russia's side). It'd be interesting to hear what a guy like jedberg remembers about all this (not sure if he was working for reddit back in 2006, but I'm pretty sure he was there in 2008). I also remember reading a one-page story about influencing opinions on geo-political facts on the web in the Financial Times, around November 2011, where a Israeli army colonel or something like that was acknowledging the issue at hand (that opinion on the web should be in part controlled by State actors) and that Israel was already implementing something to meet that goal (I have a screenshot of that article, but it's on my older laptop, too lazy to transfer the photo now). Come 2017 and the US is taken by surprise that one of those State actors has influenced its Presidential election.

jackcosgrove 9y ago

I will not dispute anything in this article, and it is discouraging if the allegations are true. However I will point out that an outlet like the NY Times is threatened by Twitter and Facebook financially. I would keep that in mind as to one reason the legacy media have been choosing to report on topics (and they don't always choose to report just what is newsworthy) concerning foreign influence and "fake news" emanating from social media.

davesque 9y ago
I think you place the Times in an impossible position. If it's not the responsibility of traditional media organizations to report on the real problem of fake news in social media, then whose responsibility is it? Where else are people going to spread the word about something like that? Face to face? Furthermore, you must realize that the people questioning the veracity traditional media are, by and large, conspiracy theorists with very particular agendas and motives for doing so. The Times also has something that Facebook and the like don't and probably won't -- a hard-earned trust built over a period of decades.
- articleswewrite 9y ago
  Yup. Do me a favor and mention that they've sold their Facebook and Twitter holdings but mention nothing of the current holdings in Cadre in the headline. By the way, C Corporations are not prevented from taking foreign investment; though S Corporations are. In contrast to Facebook and Twitter, The Times writes articles and headlines and picks which ones to publish.

davesque 9y ago

In a business culture that values growth above all else, is it really any surprise that this happened? American corporations have an ethics problem and we're going to learn our lesson one way or another -- whether it's the easy way or the hard way.

orsenthil 9y ago

Everyone knew "Yuri Milner" was a Russian and Russian is not an open system or democracy or system run by a rule of law. Why is the news any surprise now? What I think is happening is - Russia by bring up these topics in news (in outlets like nytimes) so that it can de-emphasize it's partnership with Trump government and the role it played in bringing that egoist to power.

c-smile 9y ago

Yeah, it's really time to build another wall then. You've opened Internet to share your point of view and so to influence their choice? Expect others to share their views and influence you too. Don't like that? See #1 You've opened your market and asking for investments? You've got them. Don't like color of their money? See #1 Do we have other options realistically speaking?

dmitri1981 9y ago

We had this discussion on HN in 2010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3144351 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3144351 where PG noted that "I have never heard of a case where a startup refused investment from a venture fund because of who their LPs were."

rajup 9y ago

Funny how this story dropped off the front page...

0xbear 9y ago

And to think that none of this would even come up had the “right” candidate won.

TaylorGood 9y ago

Timely? Milner takes $50m mortgage on a house he had originally paid for in cash.. http://www.yolandaslittleblackbook.com/blog-1/2017/11/02/yuri-milner-house-los-angeles-holmby-hills/ http://www.yolandaslittleblackbook.com/blog-1/2017/11/02/yur...