Anybody know first-hand what the situation is like for startups in Russia today?
We see so little innovation coming out of that country nowadays, except for a few fields, that I assume that the atmosphere is pretty bad, like lots of bribes to pay, and if you really get anywhere, a corrupt businessman with political connections will get the courts to take your enterprise away and give it to him. You certainly don't see ambitious techies from other countries flocking to Russia, like they do with the US. Am I reading things right?
Start-ups are no longer about innovation but rather about eyeballs, aren't they? Russia is in economic recession so Russian eyeballs nonlonger worth very much. So many new developments target wider world audience, and they don't even have to be startups. Make a good mobile game, for example. But often, just outsourcing is simpler.
Atmosphere is bad mainly for internal projects which we don't see much of, anymore.
But the economic recession has been for only the last two years. Are you saying there was a vigorous startup scene before that? That is sure not the impression I have had.
And beyond that, there is lots of technological innovation going in the US and other countries, but not Russia, even before the recession. It seems to me this must be due to fundamental problems like the ones I described.
Well wasn't there? Russia has multiple social networks, webmail providers, multiple search engines, multiple mapping services complete with traffic and navigation, multiple UBER-style mobile taxi services, etc, etc...
Most of those alive and kicking today, holding against megacorps' offerings.
You can say most of those are copycats of preexisting ideas, but face it, people have copycat needs that still need to be fulfilled. People don't fall for uniqueness alone.
What's technological innovation? Is maps.me one? Because it's a game changer isn't it?
Unfortunately, most people on the whole territory are still not free from Soviet spell.
Even those who claim to be anti-Soviet express all the same thinking patterns.
WRT the article: The real start-upers bartered western PCs (faxes, etc) for raw materials, quickly got a good capital and were able to start serious enterprises.
You could get a train car of aluminium for a fax machine, since having one was A Thing for late soviet bureaucrats and they had aluminium to spare.
I think Volozh did something like that before he decided to start Yandex.
Cudos to the author. Having joined a cooperative in Kiev in 1988, I can relate to this story, and I wish my son asked me what I was doing back then and posted it to HN!
We see so little innovation coming out of that country nowadays, except for a few fields, that I assume that the atmosphere is pretty bad, like lots of bribes to pay, and if you really get anywhere, a corrupt businessman with political connections will get the courts to take your enterprise away and give it to him. You certainly don't see ambitious techies from other countries flocking to Russia, like they do with the US. Am I reading things right?