>>Jonathan Zittrain: Yuri Milner.
>>Yuri Milner: Yes. >>Jonathan Zittrain: Yuri, when you were ten,
what are you dreaming about? >>Yuri Milner: Physics.
>>Jonathan Zittrain: Physics. What kept you away?
>>Yuri Milner: I think about 25 years ago, I've seen for the first time Stephen Hawking,
who is going to speak later today, in Moscow, in our institute where I was doing my Ph.D.,
which I never finished, so.... >>Jonathan Zittrain: And that inspired you
not to finish your Ph.D. is the story I'm hearing.
>>Yuri Milner: Yes. >>Jonathan Zittrain: Because you said, "I'm
never going to be as smart as Stephen Hawking." >>Yuri Milner: Absolutely.
>>Jonathan Zittrain: "So what's the point?" Not bad.
So then what did you do? When, you know -- if you roll forward, you
know, 15 years, I started to invest in Internet. >>Jonathan Zittrain: Yes.
>>Yuri Milner: And then there were, you know, a few things in between, like Wharton, World
Bank, and a few other things. >>Jonathan Zittrain: And in some way, it would
probably be an exaggeration anybody is the Stephen Hawking of anything. But you were
kind of the Stephen Hawking of investing in the sense that you've made some extremely
forward-looking investments, not least of which has been to get, I guess, a 2% piece
or nearly 2% piece of Facebook for about 200 million U.S. dollars. It just leads to the
obvious question you must get asked all the time. When you size up something in which
to invest, how central is innovation to what you're sizing up? And do you have some way
of sifting the good from the bad? >>Yuri Milner: That's very kind of you to
make that comparison. But I think it's -- actually, interestingly
enough, it's not about innovation. It's about people. So I think, you know, what I do is
really geared towards trying to assess people and founders behind the business.
>>Jonathan Zittrain: Is it possible if somebody came in and said, great conversation. They're
clearly really smart. They actually say, I got nothing. I have no idea, but I am planning
to sit down and think hard, and with your $50 million, I am confident I can make it
happen? >>Yuri Milner: I think that's pretty close
to what Y Combinator is doing. And -- >>Jonathan Zittrain: 'Cause you guys invest
in every single thing that comes out of Y Combinator, sight unseen.
>>Yuri Milner: Yes. So we believe they have an amazing -- actually, they automated, they
built a factory to select innovation very early.
And I think that they are getting a bigger and bigger market share of innovation in the
Silicon Valley. So it's basically a bet on their production
factory. >>Jonathan Zittrain: Mm-hmm.
And you have a lot of views on social. Has that been an area you have specifically targeted,
to the extent you have targeted anything? >>Yuri Milner: Not as early as Y Combinator,
which is the thing that -- it's a dominant theme in the last few years, and we believe
it will continue to be for the next few years. Probably Naveen will certify to that.
>>Jonathan Zittrain: What's your experience in the innovative or entrepreneurial environments,
geographically speaking, around the world? Silicon Valley versus, say, Russia versus
Europe. Are there major differences or wherever there is talent, good ideas can happen?
>>Yuri Milner: I think so. Somehow it happens. Yeah, I think it can happen anywhere, but
the way it does happen most of the time is where a lot of concentration already exists,
most innovation happens. It's almost like a network effect where it's
exponentially more innovative where there is a critical mass, which happens to be Silicon
Valley at the time. >>Jonathan Zittrain: And do you think government
and provision of government services is ripe for innovation as well? I know you were appointed
by President Medvedev to a commission on government reform.
>>Yuri Milner: Well, It's not government reform. It's actually called --
>>Jonathan Zittrain: Modernization. >>Yuri Milner: -- modernization and innovation.
>>Jonathan Zittrain: What does the commission do?
>>Yuri Milner: Well, it basically is supposed to encourage innovation in Russia, and one
would think, you know, why would somebody do something like that in a country which
is famous for natural resources, mostly. But it turns out that it is actually a good place
to do that because if you look at the -- probably the best programming competition, what is
called ICM championship, so Russian teams won every second one of them. So it's kind
of interesting that it kind of makes sense to encourage innovation in Russia.
When I first invested in Facebook, I discovered a lot of Russians are working at Facebook.
>>Jonathan Zittrain: That was after you invested. >>Yuri Milner: Yes.