Yuri Milner
Yuri Milner
Yuri BorisovichMilnerМи́льнер; born 11 November 1961) is a Russian entrepreneur, venture capitalist and physicist. He founded investment firms Digital Sky Technologies, now called Mail.ru Group and DST Global. Through DST Global, Milner is an investor in Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, Flipkart, Spotify, ZocDoc, Groupon, JD.com, Planet Labs, Xiaomi, OlaCabs, Alibaba, Habito, Wish and many others. Milner's personal investments also include a stake in 23andMe and Beepi...
NationalityRussian
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth11 November 1961
CountryRussian Federation
Facebook can be an accumulation of different intelligences.
You have to travel globally today to know what's going on and maintain an edge.
Social is a better way to interact with digital world. It is better than search. Implications for... everything. Total change.
You can transmit a thousand times more information.
Russia is one of the places where significant presence of social networks are driven by domestic players right now.
I have invested in four social networks. More than any other. But that's in Russia and Poland.
There is a significant momentum behind the social Internet. A wide range of public investors were very enthusiastic about that.
There is huge demand for artificial intelligence technologies.
Facebook now is mostly about people you know. In the future it could be about people you know less but are more important.
I must analyze, from what I do now, what will be the impact two or three or five years in the future. What is the statement I want to make?
The largest newspaper in the United States is only reaching 1 percent of population. We are kind of assuming that 'Wall Street Journal,' 'USA Today,' and other newspapers are very important. Yes, they're extremely important, but only to 1 percent of the population on a daily basis.
The problem is that modern fundamental physics is so far from you and me. The mathematics has become so much more complicated that you need at least 10 years to understand it. Fundamental physics has advanced so far from the understanding of most people that there is really a big disconnect.
Facebook can be an accumulation of different intelligences. Ask a question, translated into many languages and somebody, somewhere in the world, will have an answer.
I think top scientists need to be compensated at a different scale in society. Somebody with experience will tell you that true scientists are not motivated by money - they are motivated by the quest itself. That is true. But I think an additional recognition will not hurt.