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I keep thinking what Iraqi startups would think about accepting american VC money. The thing is, international politics is really hard. I'm pretty sure that it
by mtrovo 8y ago
I keep thinking what Iraqi startups would think about accepting american VC money.
The thing is, international politics is really hard. I'm pretty sure that it makes sense to track where your money is coming from but every single country is going to have a different set of "worst offenders", and you will see that the list carry a lot of political interest. I mean, we're looking at Erdogan [1] pointing the finger at the Saudi's about how they're a ruthless regime.
Hell, go back 10 years and even the Saudi were in the other side of this hardball game, what changed from there?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt#Possible_government_motives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
- wp381640 8y agoAmerican VC money is distinct from American government money. The same cannot be said for Saudi, Qatar, UAE, Russia, the Central Asian kleptocracies, and to some extent - China, etc.
- sneak 8y agoThe people who are ultimately in charge of Google Ventures fly from a federal government airport on taxpayer subsidized jet fuel, and are currently embroiled in a dispute with their labor force about building ML tools for the military’s drone program—with the leadership being the initiators of the program and the objections coming from the rank-and-file. Don’t be so sure of the lack of integration here. If they’re willing to bend for China’s censorship, why wouldn’t they bend for any manner of much-more-palatable (to them) directives from their home government?