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A comment on Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook Investments. Parent comment

Re:Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook In... by toyg on Sunday November 05, 2017 @04:20PM (#15631654)
It also means that said government has unfettered access to your books, reports and IP. They know everything you do. This can be significant in companies like Facebook, that are critical to propaganda efforts and are increasingly gamed in systematic ways by state actors. If they know everything about FB internal operations, they can probably exploit its weaknesses in very effective ways.

EDIT: to clarify, I used FB here as a generic example, I am not alleging that Milner got that sort of access at Facebook specifically - although it is possible, as others point out downthread. Corporate espionage certainly gets much easier when you have a seat on the board and/or you can do due diligence.

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Re:Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook In... by YuriNiyazov on Sunday November 05, 2017 @04:30PM (#15631726)
This is quite far-fetched. You are suggesting that the internals (source code? general algorithms? product design documents?) of the Facebook advertising and news feed systems were sent to the Kremlin via someone who sits on the board requesting them. That's not how due diligence works.
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Re:Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook In... by JumpCrisscross on Sunday November 05, 2017 @04:36PM (#15631762)
> You are suggesting that the internals (source code? general algorithms? product design documents?) of the Facebook advertising and news feed systems were sent to the Kremlin via someone who sits on the board requesting them. That's not how due diligence works.

Have you conducted early-stage due diligence? I have. We signed an NDA and got to review source, plans, blueprints; spoke with engineers; jockeyed with management on what it should prioritize, what it should not; made introductions; et cetera. Board members get a lot of latitude at young companies.

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Re:Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook In... by YuriNiyazov on Sunday November 05, 2017 @04:41PM (#15631793)
Yes, and now you are moving the goalposts:

https://techcrunch.com/2009/05/26/facebook-takes-that-200-mi...

Facebook was not a young company when it got the DST investment, and DST didn't get a board seat.

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Re:Kremlin Cash Behind Yuri Milner’s Twitter and Facebook In... by JumpCrisscross on Sunday November 05, 2017 @04:46PM (#15631824)
> Facebook was not a young company when it got the DST investment, and DST didn't get a board seat

When did I claim this? Not every investment is troubling, though I expect Facebook's counsel will be reviewing what advice, requests, introductions, et cetera Milner and his team made over the years.

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