Max Skibinsky: Putin gave Silicon Valley talents that will make the US even stronger

Max Skibinsky performs in Palo Alto. Photo from Facebook
Aurora chiste

Max Skibinsky is a successful entrepreneur from Silicon Valley, a business angel, a mentor at startup accelerators, and until recently an investment partner of the world-famous venture fund Andreessen Horowitz. 20 years ago he immigrated from Russia to the United States. Behind him is the legendary YCombinator incubator and several of his own startups. In 2010, he sold his social media company Hive7.com, which is now owned by Disney.

Outside of business circles, Max Skibinsky became famous after his Blog 2014 of the year, in which he accused Russia of killing passengers of a Malaysian airline, Russia itself called the evil empire and failed mafia state and urged US companies not to give orders to enterprises associated with the Russian government.

Maxim Skibinsky also refers to Russian startups with a great deal of skepticism, emphasizing that they are drastically behind the level of Silicon Valley. However, a venture investor is also critical in relation to Ukrainian startups that were taken hostage by the war in the east of Ukraine. For the rest of the post-Soviet space, Maxim actually actually gave up.

Forum Daily talked with Maxim Skibinsky about the past, present and future of Ukrainian and Russian elders, as well as the impact of the war in eastern Ukraine on the mood of people in Silicon Valley.

A year has already passed since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict. How did it affect people working in Silicon Valley?

Russia had not been represented in Silicon Valley before, so there were essentially no changes. When a fraction of a percent turns into zero, it is very insignificant. No one here even noticed anything.

But earlier there were Russian organizations, Russian conferences here, but now this field of activity has become a scorched earth. That is, if before this there was at least a small niche, now it is filled with concrete. For any serious person to even accept an invitation to become a speaker at a conference that is clearly focused on Russia means harming his professional reputation. This is not yet working with fascist or Nazi Germany, but it is already getting closer. No one with a normal reputation will participate in such events. The last 10-20 years of minimal progress that the Russian community has achieved in Silicon Valley has now been erased, destroyed.

You in your sensational blog A year ago, they wrote that in connection with the Russian-Ukrainian military actions, we should expect an influx of creative class from Ukraine and Russia to Silicon Valley. Many arrived during this time?

This wave began in the summer of last year, and then only intensified. If you go out into the mountain view (here is the main office of Google. - Auth.) or in palo alto (one of the centers of Silicon Valley, where Stanford University is located. - Auth.), then after 5-10 minutes you will hear the Russian language. The colossal increase in the Russian-speaking community is absolutely obvious. But it is mostly people who come to join existing companies.

Max Skibinsky during one of his speeches. Photo from Alina Popova Facebook

That is, these are hired employees, and not the founders of startups who can develop in Silicon Valley?

There was a very small sprout, which, very slowly, under a certain influence of the Medvedev program of the Skolkovo, began to develop. There were a outline of the positive. But this is, if it is figurative to say, as if you need to go a distance of one hundred kilometers, and you have passed a kilometer. Well, of course, that you started to move, but there is still a lot left to do. Now this kilometer has been destroyed by bombardment, in terms of the development of Russian startups, everything has rolled back to 50 kilometers back from the starting point. The creative class has come here and, most likely, will create local startups in the Valley, and those people who have remained are engaged in another - they fly with blessed St. George ribbons and so on. But from this startups do not appear.

Silicon Valley is lucky. Thousands of young talented people, whom Putin simply gave us, have arrived and will now develop the economy of Silicon Valley. It will become even more powerful and even more competitive.

Ukraine has another problem. Who wants to invest in an actual military zone, in teams that have uncertainty with the local political system? In addition, it is clear to everyone that the level of corruption in Ukraine is approximately equal to that of Russia.

At the same time, in Ukraine, programmers who work on outsourcing for Western companies are gradually learning to make a quality product, someone grows into their own product. Naturally, when war, political instability, and the devaluation of the national currency are superimposed on top of this, it is very difficult to compete with these baggage companies of Silicon Valley, who have no such problems.

In Russia, the current situation will not change after three years or five. Ukraine has the same backlog that was before the start of military events - this is a huge amount of know-how that their outsourcing teams receive and the opportunity to train on their basis and try to make their product. When it will turn out in hundreds of Ukrainian companies, then there will be its own technical industry. But if Russian tanks go to Mariupol and to other regions, then frankly, there will be no time for startups.

Maxim Skibinsky during the mentoring session. Photos from Facebook Denis Kondratovich

Do you have experience with Ukrainian or Russian startups?

I meet with them, I talk with them, but they are not quoted the way Silicon Valley startups do. They rather fall into the category of very talented children who make their first attempts.

Crops before the war were visible. I spoke with promising teams. I saw that there was still some porridge in my head, they did not really understand what they were doing, but the potential was visible. It was necessary to still 2-3 of the year - and they could have something serious that they do not want to bounce. I saw this potential very clearly in the 2012-2013 years, and he came mainly from Ukraine, and not from Russia.

Ukrainian programmers need outsourcing to earn money, so they have to constantly learn, and Russian programmers just sit in banks that exist for petrodollars, get paid and they don’t care for all the new technologies.

Now everything has become much more problematic.

If you host an outsourcing project, you start to choose: Ukraine, India, Latin America or any other country. Prices for all about the same. Will you choose a team that sits in calm Brazil, or one that is threatened with rocket attacks? You can sympathize with the Ukrainian problems, but you will choose what is right for your business.

The main negative effect of the events - it seems to people in Ukraine and Russia that they have some kind of progress. In Russia, progress is measured by how many territories they have bitten off, who was bombed. On the Ukrainian side, how many airports are protected. The problem is that while there is competition in such medieval terms, neither China, nor India, much less Silicon Valley, lose any time. The quality of their work grows continuously. The competition is intensifying. This conflict will later come back around five years, decades of delay.

After all, the positive modern hi-tech in what? You can sit in Mariupol or in Kiev and compete with the whole world through the Internet. And now the negative: you are sitting in Mariupol or in Kiev and you are competing with the whole world. This means that you need to show the highest quality of work.

I can draw such an analogy. If you don’t want to fight an ambal in the street, and he really wants to fight with you - and Russia definitely does it - you still won’t get an IT lesson in school. This is the main problem of Ukraine now.

In Silicon Valley, there are practically no multi-million startups with Russian or Ukrainian roots. We may find the 5-10 commands over the past 10 years, but this is not an industry, these are brilliant exceptions to the rule.

And if you add up all startups from Ukraine, Russia, and the entire former USSR, we will still be left with a round-off error compared to India and China.

Are startups from other post-Soviet countries - Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, etc. represented in Silicon Valley?

No, there are no startups, no principled presence. What is - so it is money.

Everyone likes to place assets from the former Soviet Union in Silicon Valley.

Usually it looks like this: we are such a group, help us locate capital in Silicon Valley. And the owners of this capital want to invest not in Russian and not in Ukrainian startups, but in potential Airbnb and Uber in the initial stages. They do not try to invent something for their money almost in the desert.

Max Skibinsky discusses the problems of Russian and Ukrainian startups at Stanford. Photo from Facebook Katya Fedoseeva

I spoke with Stanford professor Burton Lee, who believes that in order to preserve the IT sphere in Ukraine, there is no need to mobilize programmers. What is your recipe for preserving the Ukrainian IT industry?

On the one hand, I see in this the logic that, let's say, let's protect this flower. But keep in mind that Ukraine will protect outsourcers who work on projects that are sent to them from all over the world, including from Silicon Valley. On the other hand - do not forget that one of the most powerful IT clusters is Israel, which throughout its history of existence has been at war. Israeli IT security startups are now greatly respected at the highest levels.

In such a situation it is very difficult for me to give advice. What is happening, in fact, may be the impetus for the development of the sphere. It may be worthwhile to take the Israeli model of development as a basis, since the neighborhood with Russia will not go anywhere.

Look, Russia is now at war with Ukraine with the drones it buys from Israel.

Perhaps Ukrainian programmers should pay attention to drone technology.

Now in the world there is a large market for military-oriented or paramilitary technologies. Everything is arming now, and technologically.

What projects, in your opinion, are now popular in Silicon Valley?

Silicon Valley is absolutely meritocratic and reactive. If a trend does not work, then it is immediately abandoned and people start doing something else. About three years ago, for example, the trend of Google glass appeared. Start-ups began to form under it, money was distributed, and then it turned out that no one needed Google glass in general, that this was an absolutely inconvenient and practically offensive invention. The speed with which all these Google glass startups merged was just lightning fast.

I can only highlight my priorities. This is so far only potential projects, they have not become trends. First of all, I do bitcoins. He is attracted by the fact that despite all the attempts to say that this is an absolutely frivolous project and not needed by anyone, he stubbornly does not die.

The second priority is virtual reality technology, from which everyone, as it turned out, is literally sick. There are already augmented reality glasses by HoloLens from Microsoft, Valve and HTC have also created their own virtual reality glasses. I think we’ll come up with something nauseous. But this technology creates a huge layer of software. When using this technology, the concept of a monitor disappears, there may be an infinite number of them around you. Many offices, despite all Skype, depend largely on personal communication. And what if in virtual reality you can go to someone in the office, knock and sit down to talk? It is not known how this technology will change the world, but it will definitely change it.

Another direction is drones. They can be used not only for military purposes, but also for civilian purposes. I just saw the presentation of the company "Airdog". They are looking for money for their new development, designed for people who are engaged in active sports. A person puts a bracelet on his hand, for example, goes for a run, and the drone constantly hangs over it, which shoots it from different angles, creating an action-video. I think there will be hundreds of such companies.

Here is a challenge for Ukrainian programmers. Can they come up with something new in these three areas that no one has thought of before, and do they have the technological knowledge to create a product, bring it to the market and tell the press about it?