Investing in science is no less risky than getting married
Why is private capital investment in Russian high-tech technologies still rare? After all , now in Venture and seed funds are growing in Russia, and some of them have already paid attention to scientific institutions that have achieved results primarily in the field of fundamental science, that is, the least attractive for business. But it is difficult and unprofitable for financial companies to work directly with research institutes: the participation of a third party is necessary, which will take over the functions of "growing" and "packing" high-tech projects to the business stage. And there are still few such intermediaries in our market.
One of such positive examples is the interaction of the Troika Dialog investment company with the InQubit Center for the Commercialization of Scientific Developments. This business incubator in the field of quantum, bio- and information technologies works with leading scientific groups of academic institutes in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Novosibirsk. Now InQubit has become a link between Troika Dialog, the Institute of Theoretical Physics named after Landau and the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Chernogolovka. The business incubator plans to provide scientific projects with various opportunities in the field of patenting and legal advice, personnel management, marketing and PR, technology development, financial management.
Artem Yukhin, director of the Troika Dialog Venture Investment Fund, and the founders of InQubit, Andrey Vakulenko, CEO of the business incubator, and his deputy, as well as Deputy Director for Scientific Work of the Institute of Theoretical Physics, discussed which scientific laboratories are most attractive to investors and why cooperation between large financial companies and scientists is developing so slowly. Landau RAS Mikhail Feigelman. The meeting was held in Chernogolovka at the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Olga Orlova was talking.How will the audience comment on the following statement: "There are wonderful scientists in Russia, but we will not develop high-tech technologies, because neither our scientists nor our businessmen are psychologically ready for this"?
A. Yukhin: Economic, as well as mismanaged, people exist in any environment, including scientific, entrepreneurial.
Therefore, this generalization sounds like a myth that we have the best science, but a very poor implementation system. And both parts of this myth – both the first and the second – are a strong exaggeration. Yes, our scientists have multidisciplinary training. Yes, we have many talented people, there is a non-standard approach from which the best inventions grew. Yes, our people tried to survive and because of this "on the knee" came up with wonderful things. But in this sense, we have a wonderful climate zone, so that a knowledge-intensive "ecosystem" arises. When you sit in California in hothouse conditions, life clearly does not force you to do something new, so it's harder for people to start inventing.
Mikhail Feigelman: Ten years ago, my colleague Valery Ryazanov and I from the Institute of Solid State Physics thought about how to get modern equipment for nanotechnology for the laboratories of the scientific center in Chernogolovka – first of all, for the manufacture of those nanostructures, the study of which is the leading edge of modern physics. Since it was almost impossible to get funding from the state, we decided to try to get money for such projects from private business. But in the business environment, they explained to me that we have a rich idea, but the time has not come for it. I am telling you that even then, as scientists, we did not have any psychological barriers to think in this direction. Another thing is that nothing could really happen then... It really wasn't the right time.
But that is why many teachers are disappointed to say: "Well, what do you want from them, businessmen need money tomorrow, and money does not come out of scientific projects quickly."Mikhail Feigelman: And our work is not a charm at all...
And yet, for the first fifteen years, private business practically did not go into science. Is this normal or is it the specifics of our Russian business?A. Vakulenko: In general, this is a normal phenomenon.
And it will be a rare occurrence. There will always be more people who repair cars, bake bread rolls and treat children than those who earn on scientific and technological progress. Therefore, when they talk about the development of venture business, we must understand that we are talking about a very narrow segment. For example, there is a business that develops according to very simple or standard schemes. For example, you open a store and earn money...
A. Yukhin: Nothing simple...
A. Vakulenko: Yes, actually, nothing simple (laughter). It's still hard not to go broke. There is also an easier way: you make a hole in the ground and pump something from there (once it was called "borehole fluid"). And any business that involves investing in something more knowledge-intensive, this business is largely complex, difficult and risky.
What is its fundamental difference? Let's go sequentially: what do scientists not understand about technological and knowledge-intensive business?A. Vakulenko: In the early 1990s, scientists had hopes that now, finally, large factories would start investing money in scientific laboratories to develop technologies, and scientists would earn money from technologies.
These were ridiculous expectations, because it is easier and more profitable for the owner of the plant to buy ready-made technology than to invest in the technology of his plant.
That is, scientists did not understand that investing and profiting from new technologies are different processes?A. Vakulenko: Of course, many people broke down on this misunderstanding.
And our society needed to go through certain stages of understanding the development of high technologies. One of the most significant milestones in this regard was the development of mobile communications in Of Russia. It was an industry that made a kind of psychological breakthrough. What did Zimin show? How not to make a giant company out of "natural resources and products". He managed to build a certain chain from the state "mailbox", which dealt with mobile communications issues, to commercial structures. And his example has become indicative for Russian business. For Russian businessmen, it was a demonstration of how technology can be used to make a profit and build huge companies. And as a result, communications – as an industry – itself has so many different niches that a diverse technology business can grow within it.
The second very serious event that influenced the approach of Russian business to high–tech technologies is the development of the Internet in our country. There was another wave of investments, and new people came into the business. They were absolutely unlike traditional Russian businessmen, entrepreneurs from former Komsomol leaders or directors of "mailboxes". I know almost everyone who started these Internet companies: it was a different type of generation.
And businessmen are practical people. They look at this process and think: "Wow, Zimin and Yevtushenkov have taken up cellular communications, and that's what they have achieved... But there were strange boys with strange habits, strangely dressed, with a strange attitude to life... But, it turns out, how they turned their games into a multimillion–dollar business ..." As a result, businessmen are convinced that big business can be grown from high technologies, and from "strange" scientists and doctors of technical sciences – and this is one of Dmitry Zimin's many titles - brilliant businessmen can be obtained.
And yet, Andrey, you say that private business will rarely invest in high-tech business. And now Troika Dialog is already doing this. Artem, why are you here?A. Yukhin:
Everything is very simple here: there is a Troika Dialog, there are venture funds that find it quite difficult to finance a knowledge-intensive business. Don't look at the total number of venture investors. I also confirm that a very small number of them will invest in high-tech technologies. It is very difficult to create a profitable business based on high-tech technologies without additional expert support and a connecting structure. Investors unfamiliar with the field of scientific research carry insane risks and at the same time spend too much time and effort. That is why we need scientific expertise, we need business incubators that finance lawyers, managers and who are the link between research centers and large companies.
Is an incubator really so necessary?A. Yukhin: Yes.
It is unprofitable for us with our hundred million funds to invest 20 thousand each in some kind of laboratory: there are too many overhead costs. Therefore, let's say we cooperate with InQubit. I like it because it is not a specific precocious organization formed "from above" when the leaders of the science city decided to demonstrate something to the public. Andrey Vakulenko and his colleagues have been engaged in investment business since the beginning of perestroika. They can be considered veterans of venture financing. (Although I understand that it was a union out of desperation.) As an investor, it is beneficial for me to cooperate with an incubator that is engaged in growing "scientific startups" here in Chernogolovka. Therefore, our fund will be able to fully invest in some projects, partially invest in some, in half with InQubit, and some will not invest at all yet.
For example, a metallization project (application of thin-layer metal coatings from precious metals by a shockless method. – O.O.) too early for us. The incubator is still engaged in it independently. And we, in turn, help InQubit to get a grant from the state for this. If, as a result, some decent results are achieved in a year, the Fund will be able to invest in this project. So there is such a structure: venture fund–incubator–scientific laboratories. The incubator deals with patent lawyers, intellectual property issues, concludes Research and R&D with institutes, provides registration of law firms, is engaged in accounting. That is, it ensures the vital activity of all business processes that scientists cannot engage in.
And they shouldn't?A. Yukhin: Yes.
But we have a lot of people who say: let's arrange courses for scientists on how to conduct accounting and how to write a business plan. In my opinion, this is the wrong scenario for promoting scientific ideas. Why teach a spaniel to be a Labrador?
Artem, but the actions of the "Troika" in this case can be regarded as a targeted action. And what prevents a large-scale process?A. Yukhin: It's easiest to talk about what's in the way.
Bad dancers, as we know, are always hindered by something. Troika Dialog engaged in venture investments and, in particular, investments in high-tech technologies, realizing in advance that in the next five years this will not be a significant part of the profit. We decided to do this as a financial instrument. But in five years there will be a working mechanism. Troika itself began as a starter project created by economic scientists. Andrey was talking about cellular communication and the Internet. So, at the time of the beginning, it also seemed absolutely pointless for the leaders of the Troika to engage in charity, participate in prescribing the law on the stock market, prescribe licensing for brokerage – in a country where a hundred people know how a bond differs from a stock. But the market has consistently developed and mastered more and more complex mechanisms.
In order for the link between science and commercialization to work, it is necessary to build a whole spaceship from individual components. This is the most difficult thing that can be in business. There is fundamental science, there is oriented research, there are investors, there are factories. It is clear that the plant itself will not finance any research and development in science. Financiers and bankers themselves will also not invest in projects in the field of solid state physics. They all need to dock with each other and they all need to be coordinated with each other: first, so that there is somewhere to explore, so that there is someone to finance early developments now, and then so that there is someone to finance developments at the next stage in five years.
In the West, the venture financing tool has been perfected for decades. And that's why there are animals of different kinds in this "zoo". Venture funds are those that enter into high–tech projects at the earliest stages (they have their own name - "seed funds"), when there is not yet a businessman who will lead this project, but there are only scientists. There are venture funds that are already entering the last phase. They pass the project to each other. There are "vultures" who come when the project did not work out, but a lot of things are invested in it. And then investors buy out the failed project on the cheap, change the business team and then continue the business.
That is, these are all different specializations that we just have to appear and earn?A. Yukhin: Yes.
But in addition, there are mechanisms of public-private partnership in this area. There are several different government initiatives to support innovative projects. There is a Russian venture company, the main condition in which: 51% is invested by the state, and the rest is private business money. The main thing is to stimulate business, to create a structure in which it is impossible to steal, that is, it is impossible to spend state money, and at the same time keep your own. After three years, private investors have the right to buy out the state share at face value. This is a very correct mechanism. This idea can be traced in all funds. Another example: private-state venture funds have been created, when 50% belongs to the state and 50% belongs to a commercial company. It is important that in all mechanisms the state does not make a decision, it is a passive partner. The state creates wonderful conditions in which the fund can show good performance. Having stimulated the creation of the fund, the state holds a competition for a management company, after choosing which the state withdraws from participating in the project.
This type of participation is called a limited partnership – passive investment. The management company is the general partner.
Are these mechanisms already working in our country?A. Yukhin: Thank God, they are not being invented here, but they are trying to take the best from existing experience.
In Israel, for example, in Europe and in the USA, everything began largely thanks to impulses that came from the state. An example of this is the Israeli venture program "Yozma" ("Yozma" – "Initiative"), which is led by Yigal Erlich. He was invited as a member of the Board of Directors to RVC (a Russian venture company) in order to scale the Israeli experience in Russia.
For that complex science-intensive "ecosystem" that you described, certain environmental conditions are needed. Do they exist in Russia?A. Yukhin: The main thing is that these conditions are natural.
But the environment is a multifactorial concept. Legislation, taxation, etc.A. Yukhin: If there was no market demand and the market itself did not come to the need to develop a knowledge-intensive business, then no laws, no administrative teams would help.
We can command "Train, stop, one-two!", allocate a lot of money, but there will be no private investment in science if it is not interesting to business. If the "Troika" is engaged in this, then this is already a serious sign.
But sometimes such things are done for image or political reasons.A. Yukhin: Yes, but then such "investors" have problems with qualifications.
And it often turned out that such image-based scientific and technological projects failed. Troika has no other side considerations and incentives other than the understanding that our market is ripe for this process. And if we put aside some other things - political, etc. – then there is a feeling that those very different "species of animals" necessary for the existence of a knowledge–intensive "ecosystem" are already able to survive in our market.
A. Vakulenko: I would also add: it is very important that this "ecosystem" is not closed. Today, the talk that we invent great things on paper, but we cannot bring them to the final result, sounds like an outdated myth. Now there is no such problem, because the whole world is open. Our designers draw the circuit board they need, I send it to five different factories in Taiwan, I make a request how much it will cost and when it will be ready, then I get a box of ready samples. That's just that in my production they could not find the right chips, which were not at the moment in Of Russia. Then ordered in America. And a parcel came with them. Therefore, what are the problems with bringing scientific ideas to realization? The world is open!
A. Yukhin: And while it is open, the main conditions in our country for the emergence of this "ecosystem" will be.
A. Vakulenko: If you know how to do something today, you will be able to bring it to mind. But you have to be willing to take responsibility.
What does it mean?A. Vakulenko:
This means being ready to be responsible for the result of your work or sloppiness.
Give an example when you refused to cooperate with scientific institutions.A. Vakulenko: This is the classic version.
I come to some institute where they tell me: "We have amazing ideas! But we don't have enough investment. Give me money." I say, "Okay. You just said that if we implement your ideas, then everything will flourish and we will all be enriched. I believe you. But I will send you my financial manager, and he will work in your laboratory. I will finance all the research that you say you need. But my financial manager will make sure that you don't spend a penny on other needs. We will only fund research. We will not finance the rent of the premises, repairs, the salary of the director of the Institute, etc. We only finance direct expenses. After three years, the profit is halved. Do you agree?"
And what's the answer?A. Vakulenko: 99% percent immediately refuse: "No.
It suits us only if you give us a certain amount, and we give you a scientific report." When I tell them: "I don't need a report, you just assured me that you have a very profitable idea. So let's bring it to income," people immediately back down...
Mikhail, what do you say?Mikhail Feigelman: Well, it's hard for me to be responsible for the whole of Odessa...
But you have to!M. Feigelman: I'm a theorist.
I don't produce any product at all.
But you can theoretically justify it.M. Feigelman: Yes, but for this I need another group of experimenters in the company.
So you have it.M. Feigelman:
It's true. Nevertheless, I cannot yet judge the readiness of Russian scientists to interact with business. My personal experience is that you need to do only what you think is necessary yourself. And I am not interested in knowing what the authorities or the scientific community think until the moment when this knowledge becomes necessary. So, until recently, information about the interaction of science and business in Russia was really useless knowledge. We have repeatedly written all kinds of projects and tried to seduce someone with them. But nothing worked...
And how did it all start?Mikhail Feigelman: Back in 1996, when my experimental colleagues and I began to think about how we could get modern technology in our institutes, one of our colleagues told me: "Well, this is a long way off.
Let's start with something more understandable. For example, we will make an inventory of those who are currently available to us. Let's call together people from Moscow and the surrounding area who are interested in this area." And we organized a seminar. Then we decided to organize an international conference. We were almost the very first to hold an international conference without using paper letters. At that time it was still customary to send invitations on paper, and we were in an environment where the mail practically did not work, and we, of course, did not have money for Federal Express. I don't even remember if he was working for us even then. But we already had an email. And we organized a conference in this field of science, at which there were more than half of the participants who came from abroad.
And why do you say so cryptically – "this area"?M. Feigelman: The field of nanophysics.
At that time we called it mesoscopic physics.
Were you ashamed?A. Yukhin: There was nothing to be ashamed of back then.
Mikhail Feigelman: No, it's just the way terminology develops. Thus, it turned out that there is a convenience in doing something from scratch: you can ignore the side circumstances. We certainly didn't have these circumstances then. And as a result, the percentage of refusals to participate in the conference was surprisingly low. The first time – about 20%, and at the second and third conferences – already about 5%. People realized that something interesting was happening here.
And where did you get the money?Mikhail Feigelman: Here it is appropriate to recall the aphorism of my good friend, to whom I turned when I was looking for money.
I asked him where he gets the money for his wonderful institution. He replied to me: "You know, if you don't steal, then you don't need that much." He didn't tell me, though, where he gets the little that he still needs. But the idea, in general, is correct.
A. Yukhin: After all, if the only question was where to get money for the conference. Today you have looked at six laboratories that ensure the life of the entire institute. Their managers are young guys who make repairs with their own hands. There are managers who put grants from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research in their pockets, and there are those who "let them down" to equip their native home-institute, rent apartments to their graduate students.
Vakulenko: You see, now a new generation of scientists, heads of laboratories and directors of institutes has appeared, or even more correctly, crystallized. These people perceive their institution as a kind of business, as their household. "If I want to get good grants," they think, "then I need to have good graduate students, and for this we need good students." And students need to pay extra to the scholarship. If they are not paid extra, they will draw web pages for $ 300, because they want to eat, but they will not do anything and will not study. I even know such managers who buy apartments for their young graduate students. And this attitude to his laboratory and to his business primarily attracts the investor.
M. Feigelman: I have a similar example myself. In 1975, I came to the Institute of Theoretical Physics as a twenty-year-old boy. And I immediately felt that I was in a place where people do real physics and treat those students who don't know anything yet very humanely. And the requirements for students were simple: "Are you able to learn quantum mechanics? Can you solve these tasks? If you can, you're ours. Now it's up to you to learn and solve the tasks that are given to you– and soon come up with them yourself." It was an exceptional place created by Isaac Markovich Khalatnikov and his closest colleagues. And since this atmosphere was radically different from the general environment, it strongly sunk into my soul.
And then?Mikhail Feigelman: Then the newest period of history began, and it became clear that everything was changing.
State financing has been reduced to a minimum. And I wanted to keep all the good things that were in our institute. But it had to be preserved in the new conditions... I had to think hard about how to do it.
A. Yukhin: And for an investor, it is precisely such laboratories that are important, where they treat their business as if it were their own. A team that lives like a family, where graduate students are paid extra from the pocket of the head, is already a good company. It is only in such farms that you can invest money. Only when you see that for a scientist his department is his life's work, you can give him money and make money on it yourself. After all, the investor's task is to make money after all. He invests in something that will increase the capitalization, so that he can sell it more expensive later. And investing in a hole, where there are paper reports, research and development, but there is no team with specific outlines and facial expressions that is responsible for everything, is a meaningless investment, and a normal investor will not go for it.
If I start a bakery and agree with a friend about the terms of business, I look at the partner... Moreover, if I get married, I choose who I marry. Investors also reason the same way. Investing is tougher than getting married. They invest in people. And it turns out that this attitude, which was at the Landau Institute and which we see in some other institutes and laboratories, when everything is with their own hands, everyone goes into the house and tries to keep all the good things, raise all the "children" – this attitude is the most attractive for investors.
Do you think there are many such research teams in our country? Do you encounter them often?A. Yukhin: I think about
2% of the zavlabs treat their business this way – for the whole of Russia.
A. Vakulenko: I am not a sociologist, but according to personal observations, it also seems to me that there are no more than 3% of such scientific supervisors today.
A. Yukhin: But it is they who will build a new science.
Vakulenko: That's why I started with the fact that private business investment in science will never be a mass phenomenon. This should be a normal, not the broadest industry.
But there is an example of the USA, where almost nothing disappears from the valuable things that are born around scientific laboratories and universities. Private business "picks up" and uses everything.A. Yukhin:
On the other hand, how much did we miss in We will never know how many of the valuable things that are being born in Russia, or how many of the same things were missed in America!
Yes, but we can see who got how much. In the USA, the knowledge-intensive business is much more developed. There is a complex environment where everyone is ready to pick up a scientific discovery or invention at some stage and further bring it to commercialization. And we have, as you say, 2-3% of laboratories in which it is worth investing money, the owners of which have matured and hardened in battles, and now a progressive, but also a very small part of investors have paid attention to them. And why, in fact, is this the limit for us?A. Vakulenko: It's hard to say....
In Moscow, for example, I mostly met scientific administrators who are engaged in renting out space, but there are also directors who vigorously promote their laboratories. There are commercial departments at the Institute, grants are sought, technologies are licensed. These managers spend excess profits on theoretical research.
Do you think that it is the task of the director of the institute to engage in scientific marketing?A. Vakulenko: Yes!
This director believes or does not believe in what his laboratories are doing.
That is, it turns out that we have separate elements for the necessary complex knowledge-intensive chain: there are strong laboratories and institutes with traditions, there are companies with financial power, there are those who should create incubators, there are some small firms that first develop technologies on prototypes. And what does it take for this chain to strengthen and work?A. Vakulenko: Time!
A. Yukhin: And the overall favorable political and economic climate for business. If we fence everything with barbed wire now, classify everything and say that we will develop super-secret nanotechnology, and invest huge amounts of money, then we will not succeed. We already had such a secret incubator – the Soviet Union. There was a lot of science. There were wonderful scientists. Have you made a commercial product? No. Where are our computers? Where are our technological developments? A closed system cannot develop. If in Russia will have an open system, scientists will come, there will be international scientific centers, everything will go by itself. Scientists are very cosmopolitan. Where you can stay without problems in a hotel, have coffee and discuss what is important with your best colleagues, that's where they will work best.
Well, with coffee and hotels in Russia, it has clearly become better now... So we don't have any special factors that would limit the interaction of business and science?A. Vakulenko: No, of course not!
Here's another example: IKEA came here to Russia. Before that, they were told that in Russia has very special people, special conditions for business, and nothing will work out for them. But they answered: "Nothing like that, we have come to countless countries, in every country we have been told the same thing."
And as a result, the Russian IKEA turned out to be one of the most successful.A. Yukhin: But, let's note, they did all the same things there as in other countries.
As soon as we try to stand out and begin to consider ourselves special, nothing happens.
Mikhail Feigelman: No, I think that, after all, in this sense, our Russian scientific environment does have some peculiarities. At least one of them is that those scientists who really work effectively are more willing to take risks and take on a case that is unknown to what will lead.
What is the reason for this, in your opinion?Mikhail Feigelman: That's not entirely clear.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that people are not afraid to lose the crumbs they have. If you risk losing a lot, then people take their time. But one way or another, Russian scientists are generally more ready for risky projects.
A. Vakulenko: If you are a professor in Germany at the C4 position (permanent professorial position. – O.O.), then why would you get involved in any venture projects at all?
Mikhail Feigelman: Yes, it is not necessarily venture, even purely scientific projects where there is an element of risk, such a professor is no longer attracted. Why would he get involved in a very complicated experiment?
A. Yukhin: When people in Princeton laboratories, among deer and pine trees, with an excellent salary, are engaged in research, then they have a minimal incentive to change something. And here, people of level C4 are forced to invent something every day in order to survive.
A.M. Feigelman: Or at least in order to feel decent.
A. Yukhin: Or to keep their graduate students.
Andrey, how risky are high-tech projects for a business incubator?A. Vakulenko: Insanely risky.
Let's say we have an oil well. And I register ownership of it in any shares. That is, what pours out of it, we divide in these proportions. And in the case of a research team, the problem is that if this research team ceases to be happy, if it loses interest in our joint project with it, then despite any patents that are hung on the walls, despite the extortionate conditions of profit sharing that I have claimed for myself, my business will remain with nothing.
A. Yukhin: For such a deplorable ending, it is enough that a key person in the laboratory simply gets sick or dies. It seems that this is an obvious thing, but in fact it is not so obvious to many investors. Some investors think: "We will get a patent now, and these scientists would go to the forest!" But neither patents nor program code solves anything in this case. The program code becomes obsolete in six months, and the scientific invention is even faster. And if there is no technology carrier, then there is no technology at all.
A. Vakulenko: In this sense, a knowledge–intensive business is a new type of business that not all entrepreneurs are able to conduct. It is akin to the business of design studios, film production, where people are your main capital and where the human factor is decisive. For example, Mikhail and I agree that in some high-tech business I will have 98%, and he will have 2%. In a normal situation, this is a very big difference in profit, but in this case – no. What will I do without him if he wants to leave the project and at the same time even bequeaths me all his records and computers? He loses only 2%, and I lose everything.
And this is exactly what private capital does not understand very well about knowledge-intensive business?A. Yukhin: Yes, business incubators are "exotic animals".
But venture funds are no less exotic. And many businessmen and financiers do not understand this. People who have previously issued loans in other areas, in the same way come to high-tech projects and think that they need to take more interest from the profit. And here the situation is completely different than with a loan. There, from the moment of signing the contract between the lender and the lentee, the lender no longer cares how the borrower is doing.
Why?A. Yukhin: Because in any case, the lender will get the collateral provided by the borrower.
And in high–tech investments, a scientist is my partner from the very beginning. If I "bend" him and he remains dissatisfied or decides that I offended him, then the business is gone. Here, on the contrary: from the moment the contract is signed, everything is just beginning... That's why I compare investing in a high-tech business with getting married.
If in doubt, don't get married?A. Yukhin: That's right.
If you have at least some doubts about investing in the project from the very beginning, then whatever supertechnologies you were promised, do not do it. And there are more crooks or mediocre scientists than outstanding ones. But in conclusion, to add optimism, I note that recently I was in London at a forum of venture funds, where there were exactly the same conversations that scientists do not have enough entrepreneurial spirit, that they are not ready for anything... Everything is the same – only if Russia is replaced by Europe. And then someone noticed: "Allow me, but all the American venture funds that are so commonly referred to, for some reason, nevertheless strive to the countries of Europe and the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China)." All the latest venture technology deals – starting with the Estonian Skype – have come either from the European zone or from the BRIC zone.
It turns out that in this scenario, our scientists have the best position – they have nothing to lose?A. Yukhin: Yes, we – large investment companies – are losing money.
A. Vakulenko: We are wasting time.
And the scientists? What do they lose?M. Feigelman: Reputation!
So let's drink to the fact that none of you lost anything!"Elements"