Right. We can bound this by getting the total market size of the macaroni business in Russia, and comparing to public investment numbers by Milner in other companies. Does the top down (revenue, profits) match the bottom up (sum of investments)?
Unless he built the Russian Chef Boyardee, it strains the imagination to believe that macaroni was anything but a front for money laundering, from the Russian Mafia, Usmanov, or who knows where.
Though I doubt YC companies are at risk of having their legs broken by Russian gangsters should they fail, because Milner is in the US and wants to play by American rules (though the US itself is rapidly moving towards the cynicism/crony capitalism/venture socialism of the Soviet bloc).
Sort of like Michael Corleone becoming a pillar of the community, these sorts of transactions buy respectability.
All that said, Americans shouldn't be too self satisfied. We'll probably realize in a few years that the $787B stimulus and the $9T Federal Reserve bailout ended up in the pockets of a few politically connected American oligarchs like George Kaiser, as the euphoria of 2009 Obama America was similar to the euphoria of 1992 Yeltsin Russia. Massive amounts of money flew around with little accountability and the hangover will be a bitch.
Anyway, from a blackbox perspective Milner's presence is good for startups at all stages, as even if he is only a threat to invest his presence forces better terms from others. I think that is the pragmatic perspective: he is a feature of the landscape, so might as well benefit from him.
(still, that macaroni calculation would be a damn interesting public spreadsheet. should be done anonymously of course...)
The next step might be to figure out the size of that Extra M deal, in order to gauge its then-profitability. (Even though that has no bearing on its profitability afterwards, it is at least a starting point.)
This is little bizarre: http://search.appliances-china.com/Look.php?ID=CaoGP4TW%2F%2... ...
Extra M "company details" reads as follows: "We are international purchaser of Machinery & Industrial products for long time." It's proving difficult to find much info about Extra M.
Unless he built the Russian Chef Boyardee, it strains the imagination to believe that macaroni was anything but a front for money laundering, from the Russian Mafia, Usmanov, or who knows where.
Though I doubt YC companies are at risk of having their legs broken by Russian gangsters should they fail, because Milner is in the US and wants to play by American rules (though the US itself is rapidly moving towards the cynicism/crony capitalism/venture socialism of the Soviet bloc).
Sort of like Michael Corleone becoming a pillar of the community, these sorts of transactions buy respectability.
All that said, Americans shouldn't be too self satisfied. We'll probably realize in a few years that the $787B stimulus and the $9T Federal Reserve bailout ended up in the pockets of a few politically connected American oligarchs like George Kaiser, as the euphoria of 2009 Obama America was similar to the euphoria of 1992 Yeltsin Russia. Massive amounts of money flew around with little accountability and the hangover will be a bitch.
Anyway, from a blackbox perspective Milner's presence is good for startups at all stages, as even if he is only a threat to invest his presence forces better terms from others. I think that is the pragmatic perspective: he is a feature of the landscape, so might as well benefit from him.
(still, that macaroni calculation would be a damn interesting public spreadsheet. should be done anonymously of course...)