March 11, 2012
by investimentoanjo.com
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Among US business angels, Esther Dyson is probably the one who has invested the most to date in Russia. Her portfolio includes no fewer than 15 Russian startups as well as Yandex, the search giant which she advises as a member of its board of directors.
In this exchange with East-West Digital News, Esther Dyson speaks openly about her business successes and failures. She also reveals why she considers Russia her “second country,” and why she thinks that information technologies could bring a better future to Russia by “reducing the cost of being honest.”
You speak commendable Russian, you have invested in a range of Russian companies, you often visit Russia and even went through cosmonaut training here. How does your personal Russian story start? What role does Russia play in your life?
In some strange way, Russia is my second country, even though I have no Russian roots. I learned Russian in high school, because my father before me had learned it in England as a student at Cambridge, where most of his math and science profressors were Russian. And then he was involved in the US space program, which cooperated well with the Russian space program. So in our family we liked the Russian people, even though we did not like the Soviet government.
Why do so many US web and tech companies come late to Russia, or do not come at all?
Because many other markets are more attractive and easier to operate in. For foreigners, the language itself is a problem. Because there are so many Russians, fewer Russians have learned English than in countries such as the Czech Republic or Hungary, let alone the Netherlansds or Sweden. In this way, Russia is similar to Germany or Spain, where there is a large enough local market that fewer people learn a second language.
But second, there’s a lack of business experience. Most people don’t have parents or other relatives who ran a bookstore, worked as manager, sold industrial piping or started a restaurant. Very few have been well managed, so they themselves dont know how to manage either. They don’t know how to write an email that makes it clear what kind of response they want. It’s the simple things that Westerners take for granted that are most lacking.
Do you see differences between a Western and a Russian startup?
The big difference is that in Russia there is much more regulation and corruption, and that it is hard to find experienced business managers (even though it is easy to find highly intelligent and qualified engineers).
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