14 ms·

Russia killed its tech industry

172 points by jajag 3y ago

rvba 3y ago
The elephant in the room is how many of those Russian programmers who run away from Russia are FSB / GRU assets. Even if they are not spies, their parents or grandparents are probably still in Russia, so the state has methods to blackmail them into spying.
- tempaccount420 3y ago
  Yep. Same tricks that the CCP plays on it's population.
- ymolodtsov 3y ago
  What's the incentive for a person in tech to be a FSB asset? FSB has no money. They'd often go to school and try to recruit students who excel in math and computer science. But they'd never be able to match the salary and conditions of any tech startup. The primary way hackers and developers end up in their hands is when they go blackhat and get arrested. Then FSB can keep you free as long as they cooperate. Still very different from a frontend developer working for Meta. I could understand the point of them attacking your family but I haven't heard of any cases like this in Russia.
  - rvba 3y ago
    Everything in Russia is run by the FSB clique, so it is funny when you claim FSB has no money. It has all the power and all the money. You cant do any business with Russia without connections.
protoc 3y ago
Russian news is control by the state. US/Western mass media news are control by "private company" that also have to align with the either the democrat party narrative or republican narrative. Both party must also align with the state.
- quattrofan 3y ago
  [dead]
d3vmax 3y ago
Tech industry is the last of their worries. They killed their own future in multiple verticals and industries.
the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
Russia killed a lot more than just its tech industry. While the real impact of this won’t show up for 20 years the impact will be severe. I’m pretty sure Russia will try very hard to attract foreign labor and immigration in the next years to fill some of the gaps that the country has to fill now.
- atemerev 3y ago
  If this abomination of a war will continue for a few more years, they (I cannot say “we” anymore, even though I’m Russian), they will have to resort to bona fide gulags to maintain their workforce. This is how it has happened before.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- slekker 3y ago
  Why do you say the real impact will take 20 years to appear? I’d say it will be even less, but the market and salaries for IT will grow higher as the brain drain intensifies.
  - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
    Because that's about the time it takes for the generation of Russians that are born (or not born) right now to enter the labor force.
- chinathrow 3y ago
  > I’m pretty sure Russia will try very hard to attract foreign labor and immigration in the next years to fill some of the gaps that the country has to fill now. Good luck...
  - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
    While Russia's reputation is in shatters in the west, I'm not sure if this is true for India, China, Pakistan and other countries. Also Russia's Wagner troupes are currently kicking out European ones in Africa, so I wouldn't be surprised if the reputation of Russia will be good enough for immigration in Africa either. This might very well be a solvable problem for Russia if they really want to.
javajosh 3y ago
You can vote yourself into authoritarianism, but you cannot vote yourself out. And when that authoritarian you love so much makes a major blunder, invading Europe for example, he takes everyone with him, and that's by design.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  Romania voted out their authoritarian ruler with a firing squad back in the mid to late 80s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu
  - xuhu 3y ago
    It could be said that Europe collectively voted out communism at the end of the 80's.
    - ElectricalUnion 3y ago
      s/communism/socialism/g
      - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
        As a French I wonder what your are talking about.
        Seb-C 3y ago
        As a French living abroad, I totally understand what he means.
        BrandoElFollito 3y ago
        Which is what?
    - ymolodtsov 3y ago
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
I find it heartbreaking. I grew up in the Cold War (my father was in the CIA). Russians were considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. Then, the Berlin Wall came down, and everything changed. I started to see amazing creativity come from Russia. Music, technology, art, actors, dance, all kinds of stuff. I loved working with Russian engineers. They were some of the best techs I'd worked with. I have a lot of Russian music in my iTunes rotation. I've enjoyed a number of Russian shows, on Netflix. At one time, that would never have been the case. It really seems as if the door has been slammed on that.
- RedCondor 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    Heh. I see what you did there. Have a nice day!
  - smeagull 3y ago
    I know right. It was stagnant afterwards too.
  - curious-im 3y ago
    90ss Russia I grew up in wasn't pretty, it was indeed dangerous. But still less dangerous than current Russia. It was free, full of hopes, developing. By 00ss we got to much better life. Last 10 years, while regime got worse and worse, people started to do interesting and succesfull projects in many areas. It was not just copy west as before, something unique started to happened. So yes, USSR before it's fall was stagnant, hopeless swamp of misery. And it's gravitating to the same direction now.
- kelipso 3y ago
  Russia and US were political enemies. > Russians were considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. Russia and US stopped being political enemies. > I started to see amazing creativity come from Russia. Russia and US started being political enemies again. > Russians are considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. It's not really clear but I think I'm starting to see a pattern here.
myko 3y ago
Putin has killed the entire society. I feel bad for the folks who can't get out.
- ForestCritter 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    where the state governments aren't behaving any better than Putin This is an insane thing to say. He is devastating an entire country. There are 354,000 people dead already. What is your evidence? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-war-already-with-up-354000-casualties-likely-drag-us-documents-2023-04-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-war-already-wit...
    - ForestCritter 3y ago
      I lived in a small Sanctuary city with double the crime rate than New York city which, in itself has skyrocketed. 1 in 143 chance of being victim of a violent crime besides the terrible stuff that goes on in the schools. Drug and Prostitution cartels run everything and get no jail time. Burglary statistic is 1 in 43. Shoplifting is a career. Nobody stops them from walking in and just taking because the state will just bounce them back on the street and nobody wants to get shot. The end result is businesses close an society and culture break down to ghetto status. Everything is held in place by fear and intimidation and gang rivalries.
      - ForestCritter 3y ago
        Chicago 500 homicdes for 2022 doesn't count non fatal crimes https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/chicago-blows-past-500-homicides-in-2022-more-than-32-entire-states-totaled-in-2020/ https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/chicago-blows-past-500-hom...
        3y ago
tazjin 3y ago
[flagged]
winstonprivacy 3y ago
Wish I could read it but the constant popups on mobile drove me away. I would have expected better from this website.
- wrycoder 3y ago
  TBF, half of the four popups were for cookie selection (targeting was on). Yes, annoying. But, it’s also true that many of the articles seem to be written by interns, and so the site is of lower quality than might be expected from MIT.
- politelemon 3y ago
  Firefox mobile and ublock origin make for a pleasant web experience, highly recommended.
- czottmann 3y ago
  Here you go. https://archive.ph/gFnLH https://archive.ph/gFnLH
diimdeep 3y ago
[flagged]
- diimdeep 3y ago
  This down vote parade is nothing more than proof of how poor information diet certain people have, while reality bubbles are so thick and adversarial, it is almost impossible for them to get out of it or for different perspective to get in.
timonoko 3y ago
There never was any real high tech industry. Everything good was done in gulags which my Russian schoolbook called "Nauki Gorods" ie science towns. Everything else was substandard garbage. However under harsh military rule labor camps work well to produce high tech. German V2-rockets and Curta calculators prove that. But there is time limit for that. You will run out of people.
- ymolodtsov 3y ago
  Russia is one of a few European countries which had a self-sufficient tech industry that Google, Facebook, Uber and others weren't able to take over.
- badpun 3y ago
  What about sending Gagarin to space in the 1950s? Was that tech developed in the Gulags as well?
  - timonoko 3y ago
    Very much so. But there was hierarchy. Top scientist had all the freedoms. You can clearly see in the Netflix-movie that cosmonauts were living in a creepy military camp, while american astronauts drove home to their family after hard day of space flying.
    - omega3 3y ago
      What Netflix movie?
      - timonoko 3y ago
        Gagarin: First in Space (2013) Plot: Khrushchev selected Gagarin because good teeth and nice smile.
    - iavael 3y ago
      Well... first cosmonaut candidates (and many after that) were military pilots. So no wonder that they lived in military camp. Also about appointing first cosmonaut by looks is not something strange. After all strict selections there's almost no difference among final candidates in health condition, skills or cognitive abilities. They are all as healthy as human can be and quite smart and trained. So final pick by these criterias would be pretty random anyway (even now for modern candidates it still is). And given that sending first human in space was a big deal about political prestige it's no wonder that it was made by the looks of candidates.
tootie 3y ago
It's only mentioned briefly but a large percentage of emigres ended up in the same place, Cyprus. My wife's Russian dev team all slipped away to Cyprus. Cyprus was once very cozy with Russia and pitched itself as a vacation spot for Russian tourists. It cost them a lot to sign on to sanctions but they found a silver lining by acquiring a whole tech sector almost for free.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  > acquiring a whole tech sector almost for free. Did they? Or they received a ton of people who are working in US/other European countries companies and at best are spending their money there?
- yakireev 3y ago
  Cyprus is not a cheap place to live. Some people went there, but many more ended up in Georgia, Armenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey and Kazakhstan. Why there? Well, these are the countries which let Russian citizens stay...
waihtis 3y ago
Russia set itself on this trajectory after the Bolshevik revolution. It's been brewing for a long time
- yogthos 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - waihtis 3y ago
    Now have a think how different things would look if Russia would've been an more liberal europeanesque superpower instead of a communist kleptocracy.
    - yogthos 3y ago
      USSR achieved around a century of advancement under capitalism in the west a few decades after USSR was formed. Despite US having vastly more resources than USSR, the Soviets were able to keep ahead of US in many technological advancements. Maybe you yourself should think of what the west could've achieved if it wasn't run by oligarch kleptocrats.
      - waihtis 3y ago
        Indeed. That's the point here. Russia was high up on the axis of overall innovation. But by adopting the bolshevist/communistic terror system, the direction of progress was permanently set into a downward direction. It is a loss for all of humanity at 100% certainty.
        larry_ralph_ 3y ago
        Every single of the innovations the OP listed was attained under "the bolshevist/communistic terror system". Prior to the 1917 Revolution, Imperial Russia was an Agricultural backwater that was widely derided as the least industrialized part of Europe. Honest question: Don't they teach history in school these days? The level of ignorance displayed in some of the comments in this thread is staggering.
mepian 3y ago
I'm one of those Russian engineers that fled, and I'm very grateful to my multinational employer for helping me with the relocation. I wanted to leave Putin's dominion since my freshman year, but life kept getting in the way until the last moment.
- meh8881 3y ago
  Do you have any insight to how other educated Russians feel?
  - mepian 3y ago
    I don't like to speak for others, but the educated Russians I'm in touch with are universally against this invasion.
    - meh8881 3y ago
      Does that include those in Moscow and St Petersburg? On what grounds are they opposed?
      - ymolodtsov 3y ago
        Both cities have a lot of affluent people with an income much larger that the country's average and access to multiple source of news and information. It could be my bubble, but my friends are heavily opposed. Most of them and myself have left the country. Some weren't able to (depends heavily on age and their family situation). Yes, there are some younger professionals who for some reason are OK with the war. Stopped talking to them completely.
- nevermindiguess 3y ago
  Can you share what freedoms are not available to young professionals like you in Russia that are available in other countries?
  - comonoid 3y ago
arisAlexis 3y ago
Also 100k people
justsomehnguy 3y ago
The best quote is at the end: > “I’m ready to come back to Russia, but under certain conditions,” she says. “I don’t want to live in a country where Putin is the president. I don’t want to live in a country that starts wars.”
- thriftwy 3y ago
  They did not want to live in a country that starts wars so they went to Turkey, Israel and the USA. Ba-dum-tss.
- nevermindiguess 3y ago
  IT workers are one of the most childish, arrogant, and entitled bunch. It is an issue for the industry. A solution should be implemented.
cudgy 3y ago
“Some 70% of the information on Yandex News was coming from state-controlled media sources pushing propaganda” This article reads like US propaganda. “Russia imposed increasingly restrictive laws, arresting social media users over posts, demanding access to user data, and introducing content filtering.” The US performs similar actions. The Twitter files have shown demanding access and content filtering by the government with Twitter and likely other social networks. Recent arrest of left wing US citizens for criticism of the Ukraine war and social media blocking criticism or demonetizing contributors for criticizing the US role in Ukraine war. An attempt to install a Czar of disinformation into the Department of Homeland Security was thankfully stymied mainly due to the character of the individual chosen. Many other examples abound in the US of attempts to control opinions and access to social networks.
- _kbh_ 3y ago
  > The Twitter files have shown demanding access and content filtering by the government with Twitter and likely other social networks. They show no such thing if you actually read the content, of course the person hired by Elon (Matt Taibbi), who can't even criticise him for the most simplest and basic things is not going to write an article saying he is wrong. You have to wonder what is in Taibbi's contract with Musk such that both parties are unwilling to make it public.
  - cudgy 3y ago
    Your view on the content of the Twitter files is false. There were clear communications demonstrated by the investigation including the hiring of an FBI lawyer as a top legal employee of Twitter. Further, Taibbi and Musk are currently feuding over Musk trying to strongarm Taibbi into using Twitter instead of Substack. Taibbi has openly criticized Musk for this and is no longer associated with new dumps from Twitter. Taibbi is a credible journalist and is one of the few willing to expose major corruption within the government and corporate realms. We need more like him.
    - _kbh_ 3y ago
      > Taibbi is a credible journalist and is one of the few willing to expose major corruption within the government and corporate realms. We need more like him. Why the super secret contract then?, why the unwillingness to criticise musk on some of the even simplest things?. His debate with Mehdi Hasan was very telling.
serko 3y ago
Good. Russia should be a wasteland in all possible meanings
- nevermindiguess 3y ago
  Would you care to explain why you feel like that? Since you are an inhabitant of this planet, your thoughts and actions affect us all. If you hate a country so much we ought to know at least why.
  - serko 3y ago
    Of course. Among many, many things, why I think that there should be far fewer Russians in this world, I remember one situation, that I still vividly and unpleasantly see from time to time. It was in the middle of the night during one of many air, rocket, and shelling attacks. There was a sound and a feeling of rocket strikes, then the air alert signal went off. And I had to run with the child in my arms to the basement of the neighbor's apartment building, hoping that we are lucky enough and fast enough to not get hit, and hoping that if there were a direct missile hit, there would be another exit in this basement. So we would not get trapped there under layers of concrete, as has happened to less fortunate people in my hometown.
    - nevermindiguess 3y ago
      Thank you for the explanation. From that I would infer you wish there be less people from every country that has done the same as Russia. Would that be correct? Do you wish, for example, that there be less Americans, French, Germans, Italians, and Japanese? Also, have you thought of ways how our society could implement your recommendation and reduce the number of people from these countries? Would you suggest a quota of mass extermination for each country, perhaps to be agreed by an international panel? How about the logistics of that? Perhaps something like the Nazi camps with incinerators? I’m genuinely curious about your desires because, as a fellow citizen, your wishes and desires affect us all.
      - 3y ago
comonoid 3y ago
> with three-quarters of Russians still saying they support the war The link that statement refers to doesn't mention that polls like that have huge percentage of people who refuse to answer. Given that expressing anti-war opinion is dangerous in Russia, most of non-supporters may simply stay unrecorded, giving incorrect share to the supporters. Supporters do not have such strong reason to refuse to answer.
russian-troll 3y ago
As a russian dev who actually stayed in Russia I find it both hilarious and sad that this horrible piece of propaganda found a way to MIT Tech Review. Firstly, how many IT workers fled the country is an interesting question with no definite answer. We have some figures from "ministry of IT" which Masha linked. She conveniently forgot to add that 80% of IT workers who left actually continued to work for Russia. Admittedly any number here will be a rough estimate at best. Still better than nothing. Another point is that though some experienced IT guys left the country juniors and interns are in insane competition for jobs. Another important point left out by Masha is that the incentive program contains a guarantee that qualified (finished uni with appropriate specialisation and works in IT company) IT guys are exempted from the draft. Secondly, Yandex. It is presented as if it was that democratic and freedom-driven company and national success but then the war started and it was forced to censor the content blah blah blah. This is a blatant lie. Yandex censored search and news results before. We have good reasons to believe that Yandex cooperates with FSB regarding user content (emails and yandex drive). Moreover, IT companies in Russia are not limited to Yandex and VK. There is Sber. It is a government-controlled bank that now is more than a bank. Sber has its own ecosystem (streaming, location, delivery services, marketplace, AI department, AI assistants etc). You ain't seen nothing yet! There is a cluster of big b2b companies that work on the domestic market and CIS. Thousands of people work there but most russians don't even know that they exist. Speaking of VK and social networks. Telegram is an interesting thing. It is not a Russian startup and government tried to ban it earlier. As far as I know in USA and Europe it is mostly used by people with more radical views. But in Russia everyone (I mean everyone who try to be modern, since VK is not cool) uses it now. Goverment, opposition, radically pro-Russia guys and ordinary people. It is more than a messenger now and something like social network. Telegram is a gray zone in terms of banned content. Btw I have a strong opinion that Durov reached an agreement with the russian government. While tech giant in Russia are undeniably influenced/controlled by/depend on the state and hence censor their content and spy on customers, there are no compelling arguments that "Russia killed its tech industry". I'm sad that this kind of sentiment towards russian industries and people (as if all the brights have left the country) is the default in western media. It should be especially pleasant to think that russians are brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. I mean we are from jungle, and you are enlightened intellectuals living in your beautiful garden. But content like this lacks intellectual honesty moreso depth. It worsenes the chances to understand each other. I wish I read on that page about the ways how russian IT industry is not actually dead (because it's the truth). How people living in autocracy manage to do cool tech things. I wish there was an analysis of russian government attempts to control the IT industry and media that would take into account worldwide trends in goverment and big tech relations (and no, that's not "whataboutism"). Instead there was another RUSSIA BAD.

172 points by jajag 3y ago

rvba 3y ago

The elephant in the room is how many of those Russian programmers who run away from Russia are FSB / GRU assets. Even if they are not spies, their parents or grandparents are probably still in Russia, so the state has methods to blackmail them into spying.

tempaccount420 3y ago
Yep. Same tricks that the CCP plays on it's population.
ymolodtsov 3y ago
What's the incentive for a person in tech to be a FSB asset? FSB has no money. They'd often go to school and try to recruit students who excel in math and computer science. But they'd never be able to match the salary and conditions of any tech startup. The primary way hackers and developers end up in their hands is when they go blackhat and get arrested. Then FSB can keep you free as long as they cooperate. Still very different from a frontend developer working for Meta. I could understand the point of them attacking your family but I haven't heard of any cases like this in Russia.
- rvba 3y ago
  Everything in Russia is run by the FSB clique, so it is funny when you claim FSB has no money. It has all the power and all the money. You cant do any business with Russia without connections.

protoc 3y ago

Russian news is control by the state. US/Western mass media news are control by "private company" that also have to align with the either the democrat party narrative or republican narrative. Both party must also align with the state.

quattrofan 3y ago
[dead]

d3vmax 3y ago

Tech industry is the last of their worries. They killed their own future in multiple verticals and industries.

the_mitsuhiko 3y ago

Russia killed a lot more than just its tech industry. While the real impact of this won’t show up for 20 years the impact will be severe. I’m pretty sure Russia will try very hard to attract foreign labor and immigration in the next years to fill some of the gaps that the country has to fill now.

atemerev 3y ago
If this abomination of a war will continue for a few more years, they (I cannot say “we” anymore, even though I’m Russian), they will have to resort to bona fide gulags to maintain their workforce. This is how it has happened before.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
slekker 3y ago
Why do you say the real impact will take 20 years to appear? I’d say it will be even less, but the market and salaries for IT will grow higher as the brain drain intensifies.
- the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
  Because that's about the time it takes for the generation of Russians that are born (or not born) right now to enter the labor force.
chinathrow 3y ago
> I’m pretty sure Russia will try very hard to attract foreign labor and immigration in the next years to fill some of the gaps that the country has to fill now. Good luck...
- the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
  While Russia's reputation is in shatters in the west, I'm not sure if this is true for India, China, Pakistan and other countries. Also Russia's Wagner troupes are currently kicking out European ones in Africa, so I wouldn't be surprised if the reputation of Russia will be good enough for immigration in Africa either. This might very well be a solvable problem for Russia if they really want to.

javajosh 3y ago

You can vote yourself into authoritarianism, but you cannot vote yourself out. And when that authoritarian you love so much makes a major blunder, invading Europe for example, he takes everyone with him, and that's by design.

jjtheblunt 3y ago
Romania voted out their authoritarian ruler with a firing squad back in the mid to late 80s. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu
- xuhu 3y ago
  It could be said that Europe collectively voted out communism at the end of the 80's.
  - ElectricalUnion 3y ago
    s/communism/socialism/g
    - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
      As a French I wonder what your are talking about.
      - Seb-C 3y ago
        As a French living abroad, I totally understand what he means.
        BrandoElFollito 3y ago
        Which is what?
  - ymolodtsov 3y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

I find it heartbreaking. I grew up in the Cold War (my father was in the CIA). Russians were considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. Then, the Berlin Wall came down, and everything changed. I started to see amazing creativity come from Russia. Music, technology, art, actors, dance, all kinds of stuff. I loved working with Russian engineers. They were some of the best techs I'd worked with. I have a lot of Russian music in my iTunes rotation. I've enjoyed a number of Russian shows, on Netflix. At one time, that would never have been the case. It really seems as if the door has been slammed on that.

RedCondor 3y ago
[flagged]
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  Heh. I see what you did there. Have a nice day!
- smeagull 3y ago
  I know right. It was stagnant afterwards too.
- curious-im 3y ago
  90ss Russia I grew up in wasn't pretty, it was indeed dangerous. But still less dangerous than current Russia. It was free, full of hopes, developing. By 00ss we got to much better life. Last 10 years, while regime got worse and worse, people started to do interesting and succesfull projects in many areas. It was not just copy west as before, something unique started to happened. So yes, USSR before it's fall was stagnant, hopeless swamp of misery. And it's gravitating to the same direction now.
kelipso 3y ago
Russia and US were political enemies. > Russians were considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. Russia and US stopped being political enemies. > I started to see amazing creativity come from Russia. Russia and US started being political enemies again. > Russians are considered brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. It's not really clear but I think I'm starting to see a pattern here.

myko 3y ago

Putin has killed the entire society. I feel bad for the folks who can't get out.

ForestCritter 3y ago
[flagged]
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  where the state governments aren't behaving any better than Putin This is an insane thing to say. He is devastating an entire country. There are 354,000 people dead already. What is your evidence? https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-war-already-with-up-354000-casualties-likely-drag-us-documents-2023-04-12/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-war-already-wit...
  - ForestCritter 3y ago
    I lived in a small Sanctuary city with double the crime rate than New York city which, in itself has skyrocketed. 1 in 143 chance of being victim of a violent crime besides the terrible stuff that goes on in the schools. Drug and Prostitution cartels run everything and get no jail time. Burglary statistic is 1 in 43. Shoplifting is a career. Nobody stops them from walking in and just taking because the state will just bounce them back on the street and nobody wants to get shot. The end result is businesses close an society and culture break down to ghetto status. Everything is held in place by fear and intimidation and gang rivalries.
    - ForestCritter 3y ago
      Chicago 500 homicdes for 2022 doesn't count non fatal crimes https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/chicago-blows-past-500-homicides-in-2022-more-than-32-entire-states-totaled-in-2020/ https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/chicago-blows-past-500-hom...
      - 3y ago

tazjin 3y ago

[flagged]

winstonprivacy 3y ago

Wish I could read it but the constant popups on mobile drove me away. I would have expected better from this website.

wrycoder 3y ago
TBF, half of the four popups were for cookie selection (targeting was on). Yes, annoying. But, it’s also true that many of the articles seem to be written by interns, and so the site is of lower quality than might be expected from MIT.
politelemon 3y ago
Firefox mobile and ublock origin make for a pleasant web experience, highly recommended.
czottmann 3y ago
Here you go. https://archive.ph/gFnLH https://archive.ph/gFnLH

diimdeep 3y ago

[flagged]

diimdeep 3y ago
This down vote parade is nothing more than proof of how poor information diet certain people have, while reality bubbles are so thick and adversarial, it is almost impossible for them to get out of it or for different perspective to get in.

timonoko 3y ago

There never was any real high tech industry. Everything good was done in gulags which my Russian schoolbook called "Nauki Gorods" ie science towns. Everything else was substandard garbage. However under harsh military rule labor camps work well to produce high tech. German V2-rockets and Curta calculators prove that. But there is time limit for that. You will run out of people.

ymolodtsov 3y ago
Russia is one of a few European countries which had a self-sufficient tech industry that Google, Facebook, Uber and others weren't able to take over.
badpun 3y ago
What about sending Gagarin to space in the 1950s? Was that tech developed in the Gulags as well?
- timonoko 3y ago
  Very much so. But there was hierarchy. Top scientist had all the freedoms. You can clearly see in the Netflix-movie that cosmonauts were living in a creepy military camp, while american astronauts drove home to their family after hard day of space flying.
  - omega3 3y ago
    What Netflix movie?
    - timonoko 3y ago
      Gagarin: First in Space (2013) Plot: Khrushchev selected Gagarin because good teeth and nice smile.
  - iavael 3y ago
    Well... first cosmonaut candidates (and many after that) were military pilots. So no wonder that they lived in military camp. Also about appointing first cosmonaut by looks is not something strange. After all strict selections there's almost no difference among final candidates in health condition, skills or cognitive abilities. They are all as healthy as human can be and quite smart and trained. So final pick by these criterias would be pretty random anyway (even now for modern candidates it still is). And given that sending first human in space was a big deal about political prestige it's no wonder that it was made by the looks of candidates.

tootie 3y ago

It's only mentioned briefly but a large percentage of emigres ended up in the same place, Cyprus. My wife's Russian dev team all slipped away to Cyprus. Cyprus was once very cozy with Russia and pitched itself as a vacation spot for Russian tourists. It cost them a lot to sign on to sanctions but they found a silver lining by acquiring a whole tech sector almost for free.

justsomehnguy 3y ago
> acquiring a whole tech sector almost for free. Did they? Or they received a ton of people who are working in US/other European countries companies and at best are spending their money there?
yakireev 3y ago
Cyprus is not a cheap place to live. Some people went there, but many more ended up in Georgia, Armenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey and Kazakhstan. Why there? Well, these are the countries which let Russian citizens stay...

waihtis 3y ago

Russia set itself on this trajectory after the Bolshevik revolution. It's been brewing for a long time

yogthos 3y ago
[flagged]
- waihtis 3y ago
  Now have a think how different things would look if Russia would've been an more liberal europeanesque superpower instead of a communist kleptocracy.
  - yogthos 3y ago
    USSR achieved around a century of advancement under capitalism in the west a few decades after USSR was formed. Despite US having vastly more resources than USSR, the Soviets were able to keep ahead of US in many technological advancements. Maybe you yourself should think of what the west could've achieved if it wasn't run by oligarch kleptocrats.
    - waihtis 3y ago
      Indeed. That's the point here. Russia was high up on the axis of overall innovation. But by adopting the bolshevist/communistic terror system, the direction of progress was permanently set into a downward direction. It is a loss for all of humanity at 100% certainty.
      - larry_ralph_ 3y ago
        Every single of the innovations the OP listed was attained under "the bolshevist/communistic terror system". Prior to the 1917 Revolution, Imperial Russia was an Agricultural backwater that was widely derided as the least industrialized part of Europe. Honest question: Don't they teach history in school these days? The level of ignorance displayed in some of the comments in this thread is staggering.

mepian 3y ago

I'm one of those Russian engineers that fled, and I'm very grateful to my multinational employer for helping me with the relocation. I wanted to leave Putin's dominion since my freshman year, but life kept getting in the way until the last moment.

meh8881 3y ago
Do you have any insight to how other educated Russians feel?
- mepian 3y ago
  I don't like to speak for others, but the educated Russians I'm in touch with are universally against this invasion.
  - meh8881 3y ago
    Does that include those in Moscow and St Petersburg? On what grounds are they opposed?
    - ymolodtsov 3y ago
      Both cities have a lot of affluent people with an income much larger that the country's average and access to multiple source of news and information. It could be my bubble, but my friends are heavily opposed. Most of them and myself have left the country. Some weren't able to (depends heavily on age and their family situation). Yes, there are some younger professionals who for some reason are OK with the war. Stopped talking to them completely.
nevermindiguess 3y ago
Can you share what freedoms are not available to young professionals like you in Russia that are available in other countries?
- comonoid 3y ago

arisAlexis 3y ago

Also 100k people

justsomehnguy 3y ago

The best quote is at the end: > “I’m ready to come back to Russia, but under certain conditions,” she says. “I don’t want to live in a country where Putin is the president. I don’t want to live in a country that starts wars.”

thriftwy 3y ago
They did not want to live in a country that starts wars so they went to Turkey, Israel and the USA. Ba-dum-tss.
nevermindiguess 3y ago
IT workers are one of the most childish, arrogant, and entitled bunch. It is an issue for the industry. A solution should be implemented.

cudgy 3y ago

“Some 70% of the information on Yandex News was coming from state-controlled media sources pushing propaganda” This article reads like US propaganda. “Russia imposed increasingly restrictive laws, arresting social media users over posts, demanding access to user data, and introducing content filtering.” The US performs similar actions. The Twitter files have shown demanding access and content filtering by the government with Twitter and likely other social networks. Recent arrest of left wing US citizens for criticism of the Ukraine war and social media blocking criticism or demonetizing contributors for criticizing the US role in Ukraine war. An attempt to install a Czar of disinformation into the Department of Homeland Security was thankfully stymied mainly due to the character of the individual chosen. Many other examples abound in the US of attempts to control opinions and access to social networks.

_kbh_ 3y ago
> The Twitter files have shown demanding access and content filtering by the government with Twitter and likely other social networks. They show no such thing if you actually read the content, of course the person hired by Elon (Matt Taibbi), who can't even criticise him for the most simplest and basic things is not going to write an article saying he is wrong. You have to wonder what is in Taibbi's contract with Musk such that both parties are unwilling to make it public.
- cudgy 3y ago
  Your view on the content of the Twitter files is false. There were clear communications demonstrated by the investigation including the hiring of an FBI lawyer as a top legal employee of Twitter. Further, Taibbi and Musk are currently feuding over Musk trying to strongarm Taibbi into using Twitter instead of Substack. Taibbi has openly criticized Musk for this and is no longer associated with new dumps from Twitter. Taibbi is a credible journalist and is one of the few willing to expose major corruption within the government and corporate realms. We need more like him.
  - _kbh_ 3y ago
    > Taibbi is a credible journalist and is one of the few willing to expose major corruption within the government and corporate realms. We need more like him. Why the super secret contract then?, why the unwillingness to criticise musk on some of the even simplest things?. His debate with Mehdi Hasan was very telling.

serko 3y ago

Good. Russia should be a wasteland in all possible meanings

nevermindiguess 3y ago
Would you care to explain why you feel like that? Since you are an inhabitant of this planet, your thoughts and actions affect us all. If you hate a country so much we ought to know at least why.
- serko 3y ago
  Of course. Among many, many things, why I think that there should be far fewer Russians in this world, I remember one situation, that I still vividly and unpleasantly see from time to time. It was in the middle of the night during one of many air, rocket, and shelling attacks. There was a sound and a feeling of rocket strikes, then the air alert signal went off. And I had to run with the child in my arms to the basement of the neighbor's apartment building, hoping that we are lucky enough and fast enough to not get hit, and hoping that if there were a direct missile hit, there would be another exit in this basement. So we would not get trapped there under layers of concrete, as has happened to less fortunate people in my hometown.
  - nevermindiguess 3y ago
    Thank you for the explanation. From that I would infer you wish there be less people from every country that has done the same as Russia. Would that be correct? Do you wish, for example, that there be less Americans, French, Germans, Italians, and Japanese? Also, have you thought of ways how our society could implement your recommendation and reduce the number of people from these countries? Would you suggest a quota of mass extermination for each country, perhaps to be agreed by an international panel? How about the logistics of that? Perhaps something like the Nazi camps with incinerators? I’m genuinely curious about your desires because, as a fellow citizen, your wishes and desires affect us all.
    - 3y ago

comonoid 3y ago

> with three-quarters of Russians still saying they support the war The link that statement refers to doesn't mention that polls like that have huge percentage of people who refuse to answer. Given that expressing anti-war opinion is dangerous in Russia, most of non-supporters may simply stay unrecorded, giving incorrect share to the supporters. Supporters do not have such strong reason to refuse to answer.

russian-troll 3y ago

As a russian dev who actually stayed in Russia I find it both hilarious and sad that this horrible piece of propaganda found a way to MIT Tech Review. Firstly, how many IT workers fled the country is an interesting question with no definite answer. We have some figures from "ministry of IT" which Masha linked. She conveniently forgot to add that 80% of IT workers who left actually continued to work for Russia. Admittedly any number here will be a rough estimate at best. Still better than nothing. Another point is that though some experienced IT guys left the country juniors and interns are in insane competition for jobs. Another important point left out by Masha is that the incentive program contains a guarantee that qualified (finished uni with appropriate specialisation and works in IT company) IT guys are exempted from the draft. Secondly, Yandex. It is presented as if it was that democratic and freedom-driven company and national success but then the war started and it was forced to censor the content blah blah blah. This is a blatant lie. Yandex censored search and news results before. We have good reasons to believe that Yandex cooperates with FSB regarding user content (emails and yandex drive). Moreover, IT companies in Russia are not limited to Yandex and VK. There is Sber. It is a government-controlled bank that now is more than a bank. Sber has its own ecosystem (streaming, location, delivery services, marketplace, AI department, AI assistants etc). You ain't seen nothing yet! There is a cluster of big b2b companies that work on the domestic market and CIS. Thousands of people work there but most russians don't even know that they exist. Speaking of VK and social networks. Telegram is an interesting thing. It is not a Russian startup and government tried to ban it earlier. As far as I know in USA and Europe it is mostly used by people with more radical views. But in Russia everyone (I mean everyone who try to be modern, since VK is not cool) uses it now. Goverment, opposition, radically pro-Russia guys and ordinary people. It is more than a messenger now and something like social network. Telegram is a gray zone in terms of banned content. Btw I have a strong opinion that Durov reached an agreement with the russian government. While tech giant in Russia are undeniably influenced/controlled by/depend on the state and hence censor their content and spy on customers, there are no compelling arguments that "Russia killed its tech industry". I'm sad that this kind of sentiment towards russian industries and people (as if all the brights have left the country) is the default in western media. It should be especially pleasant to think that russians are brutish, non-creative, and untrustworthy. I mean we are from jungle, and you are enlightened intellectuals living in your beautiful garden. But content like this lacks intellectual honesty moreso depth. It worsenes the chances to understand each other. I wish I read on that page about the ways how russian IT industry is not actually dead (because it's the truth). How people living in autocracy manage to do cool tech things. I wish there was an analysis of russian government attempts to control the IT industry and media that would take into account worldwide trends in goverment and big tech relations (and no, that's not "whataboutism"). Instead there was another RUSSIA BAD.