A war correspondent who actually seeks out conflict and then sure. Its an interesting observation that you just made because you were introduced to research earlier on not as some blind you know dark im sipping tea or im no one but actually calculate to build probability that many people especially in this country tend to fear risk more they tend to fear they fear more and they risk it represents a threat how do you think it should be dealt with well i mean thats not always easy to hear motions of them to calculate everything right but certainly in what i do professionally and making investments thinks intellectually and emotionally got in the way and. Will for this to be us to make time for the information that. According to act logically now i know that you are not the. Big fan of talking about your experience on the mit Blackjack Team but let me ask a few questions the whole thing was depicted in in a famous movie 21 and its shown there as. Was it really as dramatic as it is a trait in the movie it has some dramatic moments but no nothing like about the movie that movie was based on the story it wasnt that actual story itself theres another movie on the History Channel that tells the story but even there i think they turned that into a little bit of a plot you know with the plot the curve in reality we got kicked out all the time and we came back and thats just the nature of the course in such a story thats didnt want to. Be alive you had that resentment when people were asking you about that because i mean you found that you had accomplished many other things but when you look back at those year is what is it in terms of Life Experience that you tube from. Early years is there something that stayed with you though there were many former important things that i learned while writing this book to chemicals my 1st start up. The graduate program and i to you to do it and it was also my 1st fund you know we were religious who paid taxes we made returns for investors we were all souls in the stores and learned lots of stuff about how to run an organization that can really trust everyone. Valid probabilities and opportunities and how to repeat well how to trust your intuition and how they synergy not so much about intuition i would say and then terms of working with your teammates and building the culture within the organization probably yes what we did in the casino and world no into this and it was just pure numbers like following an exact script writing down everything that happened and modeling it and those fires talking about it actually ive always been there transparent about the story and im happy to talk about it there was just a period of time when that was in the news a lot before this movie actually came out where i its not that i felt like i didnt want to talk about it its that i was actually frustrated because it was in fact at the time the most interesting thing that i have to say and the full of it are much driven to become more you quit playing because you started. Your own company down after a few attempts to start your own companies you move to investing whats so interesting whats thrilling about investing for you well i guess i felt like i had to run my own business. I started a Software Company in 97 the bull sold in 2000 and even before sold a few in child sex as and then jhelum the thing. And what i liked about it i think was actually the mentoring got a little bit mentored by older entrepreneurs around boston when i had my start up there was a group of people young founders hold a mentor and after i sold my company i was invited to come back to the group as a mentor even though i was much younger than other mentors. And i just really enjoyed that a Little Something maybe i missed out on the little when i was younger but i also realized operate over business i didnt have the patience to do one thing in the 15 years to build a big company i just didnt have it and i didnt have the purpose within the company that you need to have but i loved. Helping founders and i viewed them as my customers and so i started investing it to be involved in lots of different businesses which suited me but be to really learn to become a better mentor or better advisor to make an impact on these peoples lives because the one thing about black. Not satisfying to me was that the i made money didnt scale wasnt huge amounts of money but made a few 1000000. 00 but never really had any customers no one think that it was just money for the sake of money in your recent interviews you are pretty open about not being motivated by making money and this is pretty unusual for an american because you are an american right now its highly materialistic society you still being its biggest what sat you free from war shipping it. Thats a little bit question let me 1st on this i have an american passport and theres many things i like about the country from identity to know its a complicated thing and identity and i never really felt like i was an american i certainly dont feel like im a russian i feel like im russian and some ways but not a russian right i also feel in some ways like a jew its part of my identity the american part might be a little stronger than those other 2 but what ive discovered more recently is that what i really am as an immigrant as the son of parents that moved from one place to another that changed. In my life from the part in russia to the part of america actually became the defining moment and if anything i think my people all the other people whove gone through that from a new country to any other country i just have more in common with them than i do with with americans as a whole the russians as a whole if i may well on the issue of investing a little bit longer i heard you say that you are now trying to invest for the purpose of making change rather than money and as somebody who has covered a number of. Well america. I shiver at kohls of making the world a better place because that alone is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths that simply didnt have to be how do you go about. Understanding defining what kind of change you want to see in the world again for some reason youre packing a little some sense of a question in this case the function thats going to stop me. Doing what i do know to change the world not to make money so thats not strictly speaking correct. I do it from reading i may be wrong i mean phrasing phrase it in your own way and what i do today after many many years of angel investing at some point did become primarily not to change the world but to help particular founders because i enjoyed helping people i enjoyed the gratitude i got back from work in the selfish way after years of and running another accelerator started a new venture fund the fund is not a Philanthropic Organization yes we invest in companies started by immigrants we do have a mission around impacting the world in particular way we believe that the Financial Success of our fund will actually. Show it will point out the fact that people who move from one place to another to create value to create jobs create companies to just consume services because the fund is structured as a purely for profit vehicle we have this mission road but the only way for us to achieve the impact you want to achieve is to build very large fonts with partners in many countries that will take a couple of decades the rest of my professional life and the only possible path through that is through outsized venture returns to my limited partners and to myself right now so the actual path towards our mission is one of pure money making we use the fact that we are an organization which helps our marketing it helps our thinking it gets gains as the respect of this founders and ultimately the hopes of getting to deals that are very competitive. Where money alone doesnt get through you have to actually provide value and People Like Us the phone like the idea that there is a fund especially for immigrant founders and that puts you at odds with the current president of the United States President Trump who i know you dislike very strongly as he does like the leader of this country which we will talk about later but speaking of President Trump he seems to be somebody who is known to many. Who is not afraid of breaking the socially politically imposed dog must he really goes against the tide to achieve what he passionately believes in. Respect the results of going not just against the tide but against the opprobrium i like that part i do respect the decent hes successful in terms of achieving the results he is out for himself i think you have some positive things. For the open about the fact that i do dislike a style i dislike personality but. Many things. I think oprah very positive for the economy lowering taxes corporations many other things of all sorts of immigrants and im very sure i think we probably have some more left and some disagreements for it i think youll probably agree that he probably doesnt want the kind of im going to be investing in to come to the us i know that you wrote an open letter to President Trump delineating the contribution of immigrant interpreters to the economy and i thought it was a very eloquent ladder but it was also a very misplaced argument because President Trump is not arguing for closing the u. S borders completely what hes asking for is preselecting who comes in then this is what you do in all your investing ventures being very selective about who you share your resources your time your reports why are 1000 died applied to immigration i mean thats what i just agree with throw i think trump agree with me that the kind of immigrants we are investing in are in fact positive for america and we have some other disagreements about some of the folks going i dont like his methods i can tell you what i dont like at all but what i really dislike. Feel like he is. Building a populist appeal to groups of people the middle left behind. Globalization by the but acknowledging and helping them find ski. And giving them someone to blame for their problems that bothers me but you know other politicians do as well its just i mean why do you think its just a political slogan because i mean if you actually look at the figures on the trunk the United States accepted roughly the same amount of immigrants of roughly a 1000000 each year thats very comparable. I dont think its just a political going to look let me say for the 3rd time i agree with President Trump on the fact that the kind of highly educated immigrants that come to the us to take. Qualified jobs and to build businesses i think ought to come to the country more and more occasionally in the implementation of these i think in addition to slowing down migration for for migrants for an educated workers they have also made it hard to get certain kinds of professional these i mean this is something that all countries still developed countries in the world practice Canada Australia new zealand you know all these champions of human rights theyre extremely selective about who they take and they have the benefit of the how do you hold as a buffer against those who they dont want to take so i guess what im saying is that i think president probably has the same attentions to more of those kinds of people in practically speaking i think what i see is that its gotten harder for those people to go around but where this integration figures dont support that last year the United States accepted more legal immigrants in 2014 a particular examples but but they are i think youre looking for this agreement so the area of disagreement is that i believe the qualified workers should also be allowed another people invest them but people like we were i heard you say that you are for open borders you dont think that immigration should be controlled at all but there are a couple of interviews i can side where you stand out and i just dont understand how you square that with Property Rights reach depan degree deal on some notion of jurisdiction how do you square that with. Private property you have thats an excellent question. Lets talk about open borders so i do believe in Property Rights quite strongly. When i say open borders im talking about basic human rights i think. The random circumstances of your birth the papers to receive based on where you were born its not up to you i think there should be equality of opportunity people property there is a 1000000 and theyre refugees in their world today and you know why should you have a Privileged Access to your apartment when people are still living on the streets i mean you can make this sort of argument but. Not on the part on the border and the reason is that i believe in private property i dont believe the country is like your partner simon lets take a very short break now we will return to this interesting conversation in just a few moments. And the United States president ial candidates debate the future of the u. S. And the world. Is a red state see her but to get into the burning questions of this election cycle. Every week. Student trade was money universal basic. Catch up with whats front running this sunday exclusively on. Join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and ill be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business im showbusiness ill see you then. Freddy super cool for sure both of us will try to get there was a News New York at the songs you have to start with you should be the cheapest we are stuck you feeling i mean the streets full bore for your clothing or i dont know i do it is me going for bush but i will push through it so for the sugar i mean you got us know. Youre going to. Welcome back to worlds apart to see me on the russian american investor and business mentor just before the break we were discussing present. Immigration policies and as far as i understand in point in response to your disagreement in 2017 you set out your own venture its you how foreign born interpreters is the goal to how down where they are or is the goal ultimately to introduce them today American Market on the goal of one of the metrics of action at the center a maximum return a star element of partners of which im the largest one myself we have discovered companies with an immigrant founder in the us and the canada a farmer. Likely to grow to be very large the majority of all the socalled going to courts the 1000000000. 00 plus valerie some private companies have an immigrant father 55 percent of them so this is not the kind of population the President Trump is actually cutting anyway lets stop talking about President Trump because i want to talk about another country russia and its leader who are not particularly about either you left russia 979. When i hear you discuss it right now my jaw literally drops because last year for example you compared moscow to berlin during the 2nd world war and when hitler was still in power and you are entitled to your own opinions please explain me why. You seriously believe russia more than russia is the key to nafta jim. I dont believe this i dont. Recall making a comparison. I may have made a mistake in the interview too about. Maybe the taking of context im not sure if i made that comparison i think i was exaggerating i dont really feel that way here no i dont i dont find that but im sure you still pretty critical about the state of affairs in russia and what was the gist of your disagreement with the policies of the direction this country has been taking the expert on russia right having been here in 9 years. About planning to disagree with my point of view and it seems like theres a fairly high level of corruption still in the country today that may be getting a little better. In some ways some its become a little bit more like like when i left in the seventys and you know what. The propaganda the nationalism i dont like i dont when there was a conflict with ukraine you know i was i had been travelling to i was pretty sympathetic to the ukrainian view of things and. You know there are particular areas of disagreement but i dont think its fair to say that i like anti russian anyway and. I heard you say maybe again im taking you out of context but i heard you say that you are not particularly keen on supporting russian interpret nice partially because of how bad you think the situation in the country is at the moment the situation of a floor you know it can all make freedoms media freedoms. Russia found in america and canada why not here well were not really investing in europe at all right we are fairly Small Organization and were very focused now returns and so the way we generate higher turnout this by getting to know the founders and so just graphically we invest in areas where we have partners. I didnt have that many russian speaking founders but i would say at this point if anything else im learning to sort of use my. Core strength and i have another partner no thats russian speaking from lithuania. And i think well be investing probably in more not less from russia but as far as people building businesses here its very far from me and be sure i mean i think its probably harder to build a big Global Company in russia and your odds of making the world greater better place greater if you actually. Risk open practive people to break the ground for who they are because its not only about growing business and i think it was someone whos trying to make the world a better place you know i dont have such ambitions i dont have such capability but i know how to make money by investing in early stage startups generated 35 percent per year returns for 20 years straight with my own capital around the tech stocks in boston the great Financial Success and building a venture fund arbitraging away the low valuation of going to founders versus the proportional ability to create very large outcomes and where i do best which is where i live but you know you often talk about making an impact and supporting a startup is not just about growing business its about stimulating it Phenomenal Growth and at the hands of the day its also about changing political environment because. One can argue that this country will never change unless there is an off people who can take responsibility for themselves for other people for the country and challenge the admittedly paternalistic even authoritarian system and make sure that the heat is on the authorities to treat down with respect gruel or think its for. Your own money and. Im doing what im doing i believe the Financial Success of the fund will have a positive impact on the world because i think it will demonstrate that having a more open society is better than the immigrants actually likely to create jobs create the wealth build the economy right i think. There is a global retrenched. Towards nationalism in the u. K. And brazil right now to some degree here at the borders more and more here and i think the world will be better when its moral put out or for whom because i mean we can see i mean its not populism when you look at the. You know who benefit globalization the most its a very very thin layer of people in the stories of the people who are disadvantaged by. Well it is a problem and i mean there are some political tensions and dressing up globally as well. To bring everybody along but long term i do believe that the only good the world is an interconnected world i think were going to be more connected like thats an obvious long term trend or theyre not going to get more isolated from each other were going to get it i think it could go both ways because i mean if you i mean even though weve just coronavirus suddenly everybody used to be argued that you know lots produce good drugs good medicine wherever you have the best production chains but now many countries not only the United States but many countries in europe including russia i mean russia was among the 1st to start to saying well we better have some production facilities in here in case of disaster strikes at the end of the day yes they would do well theres more interconnected but it also makes sense to preserve certain Production Capacity in your own backyard. Perhaps in some cases but i do think in the long term everyone will move better off in a more open more accountable world now and i think countries will eventually lose their usefulness and i think its not that. Its not the final organization of humanity i think its its a layer at this but 1st they had cities then they had me in a sense and thats good right i think in order to solve some of the biggest problems that i think are going to have to have more and more cooperation at the global level one day might have a Global Parliament i dont know. I think youre more idealistic down some of the founders of this sort of uni i seem to be honest with you whats the organisational principles to hold the countries together because i mean one of the reasons why marxism fail is because they did not take into account the irrationality of human nature and do you are now you now seem to be so optimistic about the void humans are capable of in terms of cooperation arent you discounting the darkest side to humanity. Just fundamentally enough the most and im not making in the short term for their actions i think they sense arent going away tomorrow and probably will never entirely go away but i do think that the concept of human rights for instance is a universal one right i think equality of opportunity is an appealing idea universally and there are others but i think people today are about the planet as a whole and i believe in this kind of positive change in the long term i actually want to ask you about that because a few years back you founded the trouble maker a word of warning to reach in 2015 to 29. A member of the group who spent 4 months in the russian prison for dancing in a balaclava in a church. The russian were defined as hooliganism by really just hatred why did you feel she should use or the award. Actually wasnt correct in the church. And the reason in the world was something i was doing for fun of the time. The reason given to her was the letter of the 2 wrote while in prison. I think she went on a Hunger Strike i want to say she was complaining about conditions that are brave the troublemaking in this case was as a prisoner making trouble with the authorities of the prison the way it was presented in her own you know with a young lady in prison and a lot of the if you look at the impact that Hunger Strike had on trees and conditions and in russia its close to nil i mean its 0 block that many other activists in russia perhaps last slushie who go to prisons on a regular basis who provide legal aid mate who work with the authorities to compile damn abide by the law dont you think that by celebrating somebody like the dash they you are actually celebrating begin make activism rather than painstaking impactful but also a very boring change its possible its possible look i didnt have a will photo. On the lot of research in those in the form of thing that was 10000. 00 prize once a year and ive since you know stopped doing it for a few years. The idea the purpose of motherhood was to change the specific issue like prison conditions in russia obviously have no way to think that the idea was just to send the signal out there to other people who will take some risk make some trouble for the sake of something positive thats all thats all it was i mean the 1st of us knows when one of these people are this kind of trouble maker i was just you know some of them speired by people who think the rest i want to give a prize you understand that this is i mean tell me if you disagree with me this is a very american thing the american tradition of having these very noisy activism workers for a country like russia a change is very difficult it takes a lot of perseverance but it takes much less crowded i mean people who are really changing this country theyre receiving no attention whatsoever and yet they. Greatest thing i mean given how much criticism i see some connection that you or your house for this country 71 to see as a more prosperous more democratic more transparent. Each way we do things about our what is a better role model for the Younger Generation somebody who dances in a church in a balaclava and goes in a Hunger Strike in prison for a couple of days or somebody who you know gives 2 years of his or her alive to you you know im noticeable but meaningful change you know i know the question i wasnt concerned with how to find the right role model for chance in russia per se yes i would love to see their friends in russia and elsewhere but you know like i said the purpose of the award was just to do the small philanthropic going to once a year. To somebody who has taken some risk to try to make the world a better place in some way and you know if you believe that i think theyre wrong. And its a reasonable if any and they probably if not then there are the best possible i know it wasnt the best possible recipient to have very limited time at the project thank you for spending some time with that as i appreciate that. Thank you and thank you for watching i hope to see you again next sunday on the part of. Why do we go to war because we view the key to Economic Growth as oil and energy we go to war is Vice President cheney said for the oil thats why they invaded iraq. The oil thats why trump says the one thing we want syria we really dont want to go to war with russia we want to just control the oil. And the gas lines and the pipelines through afghanistan so the military is really an extension of controlling a world of energy and oil. Super tuesday is votes narrow the race for the u. S. Democratic president ial nomination with joe biden and Bernie Sanders leading but with a number of challenges dropping out sewin door spidered theres a growing belief the Party Establishment has already shown its press. These refugee dispute with greece dainton says tens of thousands of Asylum Seekers trying to cross into the European Union even those who have made it into the block are being rounded up and deported. Italy puts millions in the north of the country on lockdown after the number of coronavirus cases jumps by 1200 d people in just a single day
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