Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwawaysml | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

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?

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

True, and a fine line which is hard to judge from the seats we sit in. But I agree that a US company cannot be associated with the Kremlin or Beijing or Riad in 2017 without consequences. Maybe in 2023.

I just don't want to see a McCarthy witch hunt when a lot of the money floating in Wallstreet and the Valley is of dubious origin.

I would equally oppose taking money from one of the CIA VC firms, even that one where Dan Geer works. And I kinda have this idea that by now enough money is floating around valley from the money made in the valley that it should be possible to use that "pre-laundered" (if we may call it that) capital.

That said, I have no idea how a startup would vet the VC's capital backers, or what they should do when they find out some of it came from beijing, moscow, tel aviv, and you want to give it back to disassociate your startup.

> I would equally oppose taking money from one of the CIA VC firms, even that one where Dan Geer works.

Facebook's advisor on its $19B acquisition of Whatsapp was a "privately held boutique investment bank" called Allen & Company, which at the time was led (maybe it still is, it doesn't show up at all on his personal wiki page) by former CIA director George Tenet. Not 6-months had passed since this acquisition and Putin started talking in the media about how the Internet is controlled by the US 3-letter agencies. Shortly after that his cronies fully took control of VKontakte.

> The former may want things other than money.

There are plenty of Western businessmen who have political agendas of their own - who do things for reasons besides money. Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, etc. They are incredibly open about their goals, and none of them are good for the rest of us.

Agreed. And I hope people who care about civil society are equally squeamish about Murdoch or Koch money.

(The Koch's are actually more complex than Murdoch. The latter is just a scumbag while the former have beliefs and values. Which probably makes them more worrying.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com