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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 inv

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".
deleted 9y ago
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toyg 9y ago
It also means that said government has unfettered access to your books, reports and IP. They know everything you do. This can be significant in companies like Facebook, that are critical to propaganda efforts and are increasingly gamed in systematic ways by state actors. If they know everything about FB internal operations, they can probably exploit its weaknesses in very effective ways. EDIT: to clarify, I used FB here as a generic example, I am not alleging that Milner got that sort of access at Facebook specifically - although it is possible, as others point out downthread. Corporate espionage certainly gets much easier when you have a seat on the board and/or you can do due diligence.
- YuriNiyazov 9y ago
  This is quite far-fetched. You are suggesting that the internals (source code? general algorithms? product design documents?) of the Facebook advertising and news feed systems were sent to the Kremlin via someone who sits on the board requesting them. That's not how due diligence works.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > You are suggesting that the internals (source code? general algorithms? product design documents?) of the Facebook advertising and news feed systems were sent to the Kremlin via someone who sits on the board requesting them. That's not how due diligence works. Have you conducted early-stage due diligence? I have. We signed an NDA and got to review source, plans, blueprints; spoke with engineers; jockeyed with management on what it should prioritize, what it should not; made introductions; et cetera. Board members get a lot of latitude at young companies.
    - YuriNiyazov 9y ago
      Yes, and now you are moving the goalposts: https://techcrunch.com/2009/05/26/facebook-takes-that-200-million-investment-from-the-russians-at-a-10-billion-valuation/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/05/26/facebook-takes-that-200-mi... Facebook was not a young company when it got the DST investment, and DST didn't get a board seat.
Judgmentality 9y ago
Although I tend to agree with you, are you high enough up in the company to know how Tencent has influenced the company? Even so, much like you I'm skeptical that investing in startups is part of some illuminati scheme to spread political influence. I think people on the internet just love to jump on the bandwagon, and right now being associated with Russia is a controversial subject. I think people with money want to invest in order to make more money. Unless people can point to Russian money somehow having an obvious pattern on startup investing, there just doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary (rich people trying to get richer).
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
Point is, you (and your CEO) know Tencent is an arm of the Chinese government. Passive state-backed investors are fine. If a random Board member told your CEO "let's get an NDA with so and so and then give them such and such sensitive data; it may help us break into a new market," your CEO may be inclined to take the advice. If Tencent made that request, most CEOs (and Boards) would do more digging. There are Boards, today, realizing that suggestions that were made over the years may have been compromised. They sounded like they were for furthering the company's financial interests. In truth, they may have been about compromising the company, and through it, American geopolitical goals.
- YuriNiyazov 9y ago
  To anyone that has kept track of geopolitical news across the last 20 years, it is obvious that no one in Russia gets rich without the approval of Kremlin. The fact that Yuri Milner is walking the earth is sufficient evidence that he's friendly with the Kremlin. No one who managed to rise to the rank of CEO would misunderstand the unstated implication that a request from an associate of Yuri Milner is a request that is at least done with the approval of the Russian government, so in that case, just the same amount of digging would be done as with Tencent.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > The fact that Yuri Milner is walking the earth is sufficient evidence that he's friendly with the Kremlin You're moving goalposts. Nobody is worried about someone being friendly with the Kremlin. Acting at their behest, however, is new and troubling. (I agree that this should have been obvious. Unfortunately, when dollars start dancing people tend to rationalize.)
    - smsm42 9y ago
      What constitutes "acting at their behest" that Milner did and Saudi, Chinese, etc. foreign investors did not? I suspect that this Red Scare is trying somehow to present doing any business with Russians as a crime, while a) avoiding to explain how it is different from doing business with Saudis, Chinese, Pakistanis, Qatarians or any other countries with centralized power structures and questionable records in freedom & human rights department; and b) trying to expose specific dealings as nefarious while neglecting to mention same dealings in other areas at all and explain why those are OK. Since it is in fashion to bash SV now, here is an article how SV is basically owned by Putin. Do you want to look at other Russian investments, maybe? At all people getting investments linked to Russia or lobbying for Russians or having business linked to any part of Russian money? Nah, that probably would upset to many people. Let's concentrate on Silicon Valley now.
diogenescynic 9y ago
The investment money came from dictators and their allies/cronies—money that they obtained illegally. Then they invest it here where they are able to legitimize/launder the money, reap the rewards of investing in companies they shouldn’t be allowed to (since they screw over foreign investors like Bill Browder), and then it puts Facebook and Twitter into a conflict of interest. No wonder Facebook and Twitter didn’t stop Russia’s influence during the elections and offered RT ad space... It’s the same reason Fox News is always screaming about Islam and jihad but carefully tiptoes around Saudi’s Arabia because one of their biggest investors after the Murdoch’s is a Saudi Prince. This is how democracy fails. It’s like hitting a boulder with a hammer. The first ten thousand times not much happens, but eventually it collapses all at once. America has allowed itself to be manipulated through political divisions, politicization of facts and science, cultures wars, dividing us by race (encouraged by Trump’s actions), campaign finance reform failures, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and our Supreme Court selling us all out and allowing corporations (including foreign corporations) to spend unlimited amounts of money in our elections. We are destroying ourselves and allowing this to happen because big oil, the Christian Y’all Qaeda, and racists have formed an alliance on the right to refuse to acknowledge reality and have then the right into a cult ideology. I hope this is a cultural bottom, but it seems like things will just continue to get worse.

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".

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

toyg 9y ago

It also means that said government has unfettered access to your books, reports and IP. They know everything you do. This can be significant in companies like Facebook, that are critical to propaganda efforts and are increasingly gamed in systematic ways by state actors. If they know everything about FB internal operations, they can probably exploit its weaknesses in very effective ways. EDIT: to clarify, I used FB here as a generic example, I am not alleging that Milner got that sort of access at Facebook specifically - although it is possible, as others point out downthread. Corporate espionage certainly gets much easier when you have a seat on the board and/or you can do due diligence.

YuriNiyazov 9y ago
This is quite far-fetched. You are suggesting that the internals (source code? general algorithms? product design documents?) of the Facebook advertising and news feed systems were sent to the Kremlin via someone who sits on the board requesting them. That's not how due diligence works.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > You are suggesting that the internals (source code? general algorithms? product design documents?) of the Facebook advertising and news feed systems were sent to the Kremlin via someone who sits on the board requesting them. That's not how due diligence works. Have you conducted early-stage due diligence? I have. We signed an NDA and got to review source, plans, blueprints; spoke with engineers; jockeyed with management on what it should prioritize, what it should not; made introductions; et cetera. Board members get a lot of latitude at young companies.
  - YuriNiyazov 9y ago
    Yes, and now you are moving the goalposts: https://techcrunch.com/2009/05/26/facebook-takes-that-200-million-investment-from-the-russians-at-a-10-billion-valuation/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/05/26/facebook-takes-that-200-mi... Facebook was not a young company when it got the DST investment, and DST didn't get a board seat.

Judgmentality 9y ago

Although I tend to agree with you, are you high enough up in the company to know how Tencent has influenced the company? Even so, much like you I'm skeptical that investing in startups is part of some illuminati scheme to spread political influence. I think people on the internet just love to jump on the bandwagon, and right now being associated with Russia is a controversial subject. I think people with money want to invest in order to make more money. Unless people can point to Russian money somehow having an obvious pattern on startup investing, there just doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary (rich people trying to get richer).

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

Point is, you (and your CEO) know Tencent is an arm of the Chinese government. Passive state-backed investors are fine. If a random Board member told your CEO "let's get an NDA with so and so and then give them such and such sensitive data; it may help us break into a new market," your CEO may be inclined to take the advice. If Tencent made that request, most CEOs (and Boards) would do more digging. There are Boards, today, realizing that suggestions that were made over the years may have been compromised. They sounded like they were for furthering the company's financial interests. In truth, they may have been about compromising the company, and through it, American geopolitical goals.

YuriNiyazov 9y ago
To anyone that has kept track of geopolitical news across the last 20 years, it is obvious that no one in Russia gets rich without the approval of Kremlin. The fact that Yuri Milner is walking the earth is sufficient evidence that he's friendly with the Kremlin. No one who managed to rise to the rank of CEO would misunderstand the unstated implication that a request from an associate of Yuri Milner is a request that is at least done with the approval of the Russian government, so in that case, just the same amount of digging would be done as with Tencent.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > The fact that Yuri Milner is walking the earth is sufficient evidence that he's friendly with the Kremlin You're moving goalposts. Nobody is worried about someone being friendly with the Kremlin. Acting at their behest, however, is new and troubling. (I agree that this should have been obvious. Unfortunately, when dollars start dancing people tend to rationalize.)
  - smsm42 9y ago
    What constitutes "acting at their behest" that Milner did and Saudi, Chinese, etc. foreign investors did not? I suspect that this Red Scare is trying somehow to present doing any business with Russians as a crime, while a) avoiding to explain how it is different from doing business with Saudis, Chinese, Pakistanis, Qatarians or any other countries with centralized power structures and questionable records in freedom & human rights department; and b) trying to expose specific dealings as nefarious while neglecting to mention same dealings in other areas at all and explain why those are OK. Since it is in fashion to bash SV now, here is an article how SV is basically owned by Putin. Do you want to look at other Russian investments, maybe? At all people getting investments linked to Russia or lobbying for Russians or having business linked to any part of Russian money? Nah, that probably would upset to many people. Let's concentrate on Silicon Valley now.

diogenescynic 9y ago

The investment money came from dictators and their allies/cronies—money that they obtained illegally. Then they invest it here where they are able to legitimize/launder the money, reap the rewards of investing in companies they shouldn’t be allowed to (since they screw over foreign investors like Bill Browder), and then it puts Facebook and Twitter into a conflict of interest. No wonder Facebook and Twitter didn’t stop Russia’s influence during the elections and offered RT ad space... It’s the same reason Fox News is always screaming about Islam and jihad but carefully tiptoes around Saudi’s Arabia because one of their biggest investors after the Murdoch’s is a Saudi Prince. This is how democracy fails. It’s like hitting a boulder with a hammer. The first ten thousand times not much happens, but eventually it collapses all at once. America has allowed itself to be manipulated through political divisions, politicization of facts and science, cultures wars, dividing us by race (encouraged by Trump’s actions), campaign finance reform failures, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and our Supreme Court selling us all out and allowing corporations (including foreign corporations) to spend unlimited amounts of money in our elections. We are destroying ourselves and allowing this to happen because big oil, the Christian Y’all Qaeda, and racists have formed an alliance on the right to refuse to acknowledge reality and have then the right into a cult ideology. I hope this is a cultural bottom, but it seems like things will just continue to get worse.