An interesting article on connections between the Russian mob, Putin, the KGB, and Russian investors.<p>The Facebook angle is just a bit of linkbait spice, and is only a small part of the article.<p>If I were Zuckerberg, I wouldn't really care where my investors were. Once you are liquid, you just can't control what happens to your shares. And at Facebook's stage of development, they aren't going to change direction just to get another minority investor (unlike a new start-up, which can be sunk by a VC overthrowing their CEO, stacking the board, wiping out the value of employee options, and other such tricks). I'd watch my back when travelling in Russia, though (whether or not I'd taken their money).<p>edit: other interesting bits - legal threats against bloggers; and ISPs taking down blogs due to the threats.
This is exactly why Yuri's Milner's involvement in YC is controversial. Most likely, given the political and economical climate in Russia he did not earn his wealth by playing fair.<p>Now some of that tainted money are being handled over to our best for a quick wash...
Andrey Ternovskiy also turned down several large investment offers from U.S. firms. His refusal to deal with DST doesn't necessarily mean he had ethical problems with the source. Maybe he just didn't want VC money.
I always find these sorts of allegations lacking a certain credibility. In the sense that a 10% share holder really can't over whelm the company's direction without a lot of help from other share holders.
Its always been scary to do business in that part of the world. I had a few buddies who were in telecom and were working there shortly after the fall of Communism. They used to tell stories of caring large sums of cash to pay bribes and keep the KGB at bay while they went about their work. They made it seem like this was just the way business was done.<p>It seems like it's getting more dangerous since these people have no problem killing influential and powerful people. Scary, very, very, scary.
“Are these the folks you want having access to all the personal data on your Facebook account?”<p>If I had to choose, I would say these folks do indeed sound scarier than Zuckerberg.<p>The piece needed a better closing sentence.
i'd venture to guess that the majority of fb's shareholders are based outside the u.s.<p>fb manages to remain not only a creepy, privacy invading behemoth but also, for its size and investment, an unusually secretive one. by all means you should share everything with them, but it doesn't work the other way around. their books are closed to public view. how is this accomplished?<p>the newyorker ran a piece about this back in jan.
I get it, Russia is becoming strong again but it's not a business partner, so let's turn on the old propaganda machine that has been off since the cold war.<p>Is the russian mob or the kgb so different than other organizations in other countries? Would an article on chinese government inteligence still be recieved as seriously?