 Poster: A snowHead
|
| miranda wrote: |
| foxtrotzulu wrote: |
| @miranda, interesting point about 'too much money', although I can't easily think of any specific examples. Take a look at the very richest Brits or just richest people in the world and on the whole they seem OK. Buffett, Gates, Abramovich, Branson etc. They certainly have more than they 'need', but then so do most of us. Power can certainly corrupt, but money less so IMO. |
Do you know any of those super rich people you've mentioned personally? |
Yes. Not Gates or Buffett, but I've met Branson a few times. I probably know 20+ Russians who are in the $50m plus league and about 6 of them are billionaires. None of them are close 'mates' but people I've worked with closely enough to be on first name terms with.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
| Tinwhistle wrote: |
| Foxtrotzulu, your business interests have distorted your thinking. Inequality in wealth and living standards are increasing and, exacerbated by marketing and media, deeply disturbing to many 'at the bottom of the ladder'. Donations from billionaires doesn't fix it. We need volunteer assistants on NHS wards if you are interested, it may open your horizons a little ( although sounds like you would prefer your pedestal). |
I genuinely have no idea what you are on about. I wasn't suggesting that donations from billionaires fix anything. I was picking up on someone's point that the well adjusted ones give money to charity. I wasn't even commenting on the merits/perils of an unequal society. All we we discussing was whether the Russian billionaires were a particularly unpleasant lot (IMO they aren't) and whether the ONLY way they could have become rich was through crime (IMO some have, but many have not become rich like this).
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
| miranda wrote: |
| foxtrotzulu wrote: |
| @miranda, interesting point about 'too much money', although I can't easily think of any specific examples. Take a look at the very richest Brits or just richest people in the world and on the whole they seem OK. Buffett, Gates, Abramovich, Branson etc. They certainly have more than they 'need', but then so do most of us. Power can certainly corrupt, but money less so IMO. |
Do you know any of those super rich people you've mentioned personally? |
Yes. Not Gates or Buffett, but I've met Branson a few times. I probably know 20+ Russians who are in the $50m plus league and about 6 of them are billionaires. None of them are close 'mates' but people I've worked with closely enough to be on first name terms with.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
|
@foxtrotzulu, ok, ok, ok, we get the message that you've met Branson a few times!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
Great comment from Buffett at the end of that article. On further reflection I think you can have too much money. When I initially doubted it I was thinking of one of the Russian billionaires and whether an extra $10bn would make him a less pleasant person than the first billion. In most cases I don't think that makes much difference. However, thinking of the children of the mega-rich, as an example, then they can definitely have too much money. Arguably most of the population of the UK has too much money, in the sense that we have lost track of some of the things that actually matter and get our thrills from meaningless consumerism. E.g. The need for a bigger TV, or the latest mobile.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| pam w wrote: |
| Quote: |
I'd be surprised if snowHeads collectively know enough people in that bracket to make meaningful generalisations.
|
I;m sure that absolutely correct, not just about the "mega rich" but a lot of other groups about whom generalisations are often made. "The French", "benefit scroungers" "snowbladers" and "Muslims", to name just a few. |
I went on holiday with 4 snowbladers once, is that enough to make generalisations 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Quote: |
we have lost track of some of the things that actually matter and get our thrills from meaningless consumerism
|
I've just bought more new skis 
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
|
| Quote: |
I went on holiday with 4 snowbladers once, is that enough to make generalisations
|
I think that is a large enough sample group for anyone
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| foxtrotzulu wrote: |
| Arguably most of the population of the UK has too much money, in the sense that we have lost track of some of the things that actually matter |
… such as..?
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
I'm very distantly related to a rich Russian (actually to his son in law). He left the Soviet Union in the 70's and went back in 89-90. Initially he made a lot of money - at one point he owned a private jet and a large yacht (both with crews). AFAIK he is not a criminal, but from what I heard, he had to develop criminal ties (pay the local crook/KGB boss, hire former SPEZNAZ goons to stand by him at various meetings, so the other side will know "he's a serious man", invite prostitutes to the meal/ drunk fest after the meeting etc). After a few years he got out of doing business in Russia, because of the criminal/danger factor in favor of Poland, Czech, Slovakia. He's still very, very well off, still owns a factory or three but much poorer compared to his Russian days (no more planes or yachts, no more booking a whole high end restaurant for the extended family of about 80-90 - I kind of miss this one  ). So not business like in western Europe
|
|
|
|
|
|
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
|
|
@foxtrotzulu, how do you know your Russian business buddies are pure as the driven? Have you asked them directly? And even if you have, do you think they would reply "yes I have criminal connections"?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
@foxtrotzulu,
I've met a few Russian billionaires but only briefly and I don't know any of them as well as you do. All but one were perfectly pleasant.
I confess I'm surprised though that you think that any of them have really clean hands. Unless you were prepared to aggressively defend your interests someone was likely to come along and take them from you (up to an including private armies in some cases). Unless you were able to scare your managers a bit your profits would walk out the door through fraud and kickbacks. Unless you bribed the right people the government would make life very uncomfortable. If you weren't prepared to play the game by these rules you weren't going to be in the game very long. Now I can accept the point that some of the oligarchs are probably perfectly nice people who have reluctantly adjusted to the reality of the country but they have all chosen to live with those "morally complex" issues rather than walk away from great wealth.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
|
@jedster, and you know this is fact because you read that in some tabloid? There are such people, and there are people who came to their money exactly same way in Britain, US or Germany. But there are people who got their money with their work and their ideas, just the same way as for example Bill Gates got it. But yes, once again, all Russians are bad... they just had to be!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
@primoz,
No not tabloids. I'm very familiar with some actual situations through my work. Some very big, high profile people / institutions / international companies have been shaken-down. I'd be amazed if lower profile people could resist.
| Quote: |
But yes, once again, all Russians are bad... they just had to be!
|
Where did I say that?
| Quote: |
Now I can accept the point that some of the oligarchs are probably perfectly nice people who have reluctantly adjusted to the reality of the country but they have all chosen to live with those "morally complex" issues rather than walk away from great wealth.
|
That is a lot more nuanced than your interpretation.
| Quote: |
But there are people who got their money with their work and their ideas, just the same way as for example Bill Gates got it
|
I'm not here to defend Bill Gates but give me one example of an oligarch who invented something and created a new market rather than got control of existing (state) assets at a knockdown price and exploited them well?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
|
I don't know... since I'm more into sport, let's say Oleg Tinkov for example.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
| jedster wrote: |
| I'm not here to defend Bill Gates but give me one example of an oligarch who invented something and created a new market rather than got control of existing (state) assets at a knockdown price and exploited them well? |
First mouse-controlled GUI - Xerox.
First mass market PC - Commodore.
First corporate market PC - IBM.
Microsoft initially funded by IBM as co-developers of OS/2 and IBM consequently remained a major shareholder.
Remind us again what Bill Gates invented?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
@dogwatch, the complete Office suite, the marketing of operating systems independently from the hardware. Yes, DOS and Widows are hardly technology pioneers, but before that each brand of computers ran it's own operating system, like Macs today. Bill Gates knew when it was time to break away from IBM and run his operating system on any odd hardware. Linux you say? I think that at that time it ran only on mainframes. Before MS Office you had to buy independent software for word processing, numbers cruncing, presentations, etc. A complete solution, with standardised menus was a MS innovation.
@primoz, had to google him. So he you think he never had to bring in the "right people" to guard his shipments? Outbid in bribes to make sure he got his grains? How about his electronics imports? How did he manage to not have his containers stolen/confiscated etc?
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
| pam w wrote: |
| Quote: |
I'd be surprised if snowHeads collectively know enough people in that bracket to make meaningful generalisations.
|
I;m sure that absolutely correct, not just about the "mega rich" but a lot of other groups about whom generalisations are often made. "The French", "benefit scroungers" "snowbladers" and "Muslims", to name just a few. |
You forgot snowboarders...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
| dode wrote: |
| @foxtrotzulu, how do you know your Russian business buddies are pure as the driven? Have you asked them directly? And even if you have, do you think they would reply "yes I have criminal connections"? |
I don't KNOW they are as pure as the driven snow, but I do often know their businesses extremely well and can see very clearly how they could very easily have made the money they have. Yes, in many cases I have specifically asked them if they have made their money through dodgy contracts or organised crime. I don't KNOW the truth, but the answers I have received have been entirely credible.
The business environment in Russia today is utterly different from what it was in the early 90's and I'm not sure that a few of the posters on this thread have grasped that. I'm not naive enough to believe that organised crime doesn't still exist (although I gather many of those involved went legit because they saw they could make plenty of money within the law). You also have to take into account that Russia is not the same as the UK and corruption of one sort or another is a way of life. Of the guys I know the greatest crime most, not all I presume but most, are guilty of is paying off local officials to speed up a planning application or similar. In the context of how Russia and most countries in the world operate I don't really regard that as serious crime.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
| jedster wrote: |
@primoz,
No not tabloids. I'm very familiar with some actual situations through my work. Some very big, high profile people / institutions / international companies have been shaken-down. I'd be amazed if lower profile people could resist.
| Quote: |
But yes, once again, all Russians are bad... they just had to be!
|
Where did I say that?
| Quote: |
Now I can accept the point that some of the oligarchs are probably perfectly nice people who have reluctantly adjusted to the reality of the country but they have all chosen to live with those "morally complex" issues rather than walk away from great wealth.
|
That is a lot more nuanced than your interpretation.
| Quote: |
But there are people who got their money with their work and their ideas, just the same way as for example Bill Gates got it
|
I'm not here to defend Bill Gates but give me one example of an oligarch who invented something and created a new market rather than got control of existing (state) assets at a knockdown price and exploited them well? |
You could start with Yuri Milner, Andrey Molchanov, Kiril Pisarev.
Just a reminder, I've never suggested that every Russian billionaire is as pure as the drive snow, but I do disagree with the notion that none of them are honest or that none have made their money legitimately
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| sugardaddy wrote: |
| @dogwatch the marketing of operating systems independently from the hardware. Yes, DOS and Widows are hardly technology pioneers, but before that each brand of computers ran it's own operating system, like Macs today. |
Well OT but that isn't the case. Prior to the introduction of the IBM PC (and other 8088 based machines), the 8 bit (i.e. Z80 etc processors) world was fairly standardised on the CPM operating system e.g. a Northstar or an Osborne 1 PC ran CPM (from Digital Research).
| Quote: |
| Bill Gates knew when it was time to break away from IBM and run his operating system on any odd hardware. |
This was always the case. Mircosoft essentially rebadged an OS that they bought/licenced from SCP as MSDOS for generic 8088/8086 PCs and as PCDOS for IBM PCs (IBM dropped a major clanger by not getting an exclusive on MS/PCDOS). The 16 bit version of CPM (CPM86) was also available on both IBM and IBM-clone PCs but fairly soon disappeared.
| Quote: |
| Before MS Office you had to buy independent software for word processing, numbers cruncing, presentations, etc. A complete solution, with standardised menus was a MS innovation. |
In the "old" days Microsoft sold Word and Excel as separate packages. The bundling was just a marketing decision rather than a break through technical innovation and was probably in response to IBM's Office suite for its OS/2 (mis-)adventure.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Quote: |
You could start with Yuri Milner, Andrey Molchanov, Kiril Pisarev.
|
Milner in tech seems highly plausible. But building real estate and construction businesses in Russia in the '90s? Ouch. I reckon you need to be pretty rugged to pull that off.
My experience is on the oil, metals and mining side so I'll admit to being a little biased given German Khan and is chrome plated revolver...
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
|
| sugardaddy wrote: |
| A complete solution, with standardised menus was a MS innovation. |
Not really. AppleWorks on the Apple II was an integrated word processing / spreadsheet / database package, years before
That said, people discount the effort and skill involved in packaging up others' inventions in convenient ways, and producing them in volume at a price that people are able to pay. I think Bill Gates deserved his billions, despite the relative lack of raw innovation at Microsoft.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| sugardaddy wrote: |
| @primoz, had to google him. So he you think he never had to bring in the "right people" to guard his shipments? Outbid in bribes to make sure he got his grains? How about his electronics imports? How did he manage to not have his containers stolen/confiscated etc? |
Honestly, I don't know. So you think Gates never had to bring in the "right people" to guard his shipments? Outbid in bribes to make sure he got his sales? How did he manage to not have his packages with Windows stolen? Seriously... you do rely a little bit too much to information you get from The Sun. You can do normal business in Russia, and they don't steal everything what is not attached with big chain.
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
| jedster wrote: |
| Quote: |
You could start with Yuri Milner, Andrey Molchanov, Kiril Pisarev.
|
Milner in tech seems highly plausible. But building real estate and construction businesses in Russia in the '90s? Ouch. I reckon you need to be pretty rugged to pull that off.
My experience is on the oil, metals and mining side so I'll admit to being a little biased given German Khan and is chrome plated revolver... |
Milner is probably the toughest of the three! Pisarev was only 25 when he found his mortgage company and its hard to imagine anyone less thuggish. Molchanov was only 22 when he started. Yes there was a lot of nasty business going on at the time but it was also an era of huge opportunity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
|
| jedster wrote: |
| Quote: |
You could start with Yuri Milner, Andrey Molchanov, Kiril Pisarev.
|
Milner in tech seems highly plausible. But building real estate and construction businesses in Russia in the '90s? Ouch. I reckon you need to be pretty rugged to pull that off.
My experience is on the oil, metals and mining side so I'll admit to being a little biased given German Khan and is chrome plated revolver... |
Milner is probably the toughest of the three! Pisarev was only 25 when he found his mortgage company and its hard to imagine anyone less thuggish. Molchanov was only 22 when he started. Yes there was a lot of nasty business going on at the time but it was also an era of huge opportunity.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Try sitting next to them in a car on a race track 
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
|
My guideline is this: would they flog their Wimbledon final ballot tickets for £3k? If the answer's no, I'll do business with them
|
|
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
@jtr, interesting. I had some limited play time with a Sinclair, but I remember the 80's building IBM PC's clones out of Taiwan made parts (I just bought one) and all of them running on DOS. That was the big bang moment for MS, no?
@laundryman, I've not seen a Mac in real life until I got to Uni (mid 90's and remember hating their mouse). MS Office was the first integrated suite I encountered
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
@sugardaddy,
| Quote: |
| That was the big bang moment for MS, no? |
Certainly landing the PCDOS deal with IBM whilst still being able to supply MSDOS to other manufacturers was a major "moment". However, the early 1980s were a bit chaotic in the PC arena e.g. it should be remembered that IBM was targeting the home market with the original PC (complete with Charlie Chaplin advertising) and the last thing they wanted was it anywhere near the corporate market where they made huge margins on more proprietary machines in comparison to the PC side. Even when the IBM PC did get into corporates, IBM was still trying to push machines like the DisplayWriter against it. Microsoft was also backing a number of OS horses and was well into Xenix (aka Unix) as well as developing the early versions of Windows. The OS/2 joint venture with IBM was another option they were keeping open. A number of things went in Microsoft's favour e.g. WordPerfect was probably better that Word but didn't get developed (or marketed as well), OS/2 demanded (for the time) very fast processors and huge memory to run; a Windows/Office alternative was just more viable in cost terms alone (IBM were also muddying the waters with their PS/2 Micro Channel Architecture PCs - but that is another story).
As for Gates, IHMO, he is not a great speaker but I have witnessed more than a few of his Q&A sessions and he is absolutely on the ball technically. I've seen him take apart "experts" in Unix, IBM's SNA/SDLC, OO programming etc et al. He is very impressive.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
|
@miranda, they are unlikely to ever flog their Wimbledon tickets, whether or not they turn up is a different matter
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
They have all come and gone in chamonix over the years.
The Brits
The Yanks
The Japanise
The Russians
The Chinese are just starting to appear, mainly on coach trips.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
Bill G is technical, and he made lots of technical people rich, hence I like him. Seeing him give talks isn't the same as knowing someone though. His daddy was rich to start though, so he came in with a head start. I don't think he rides.
Business isn't about the best technology and never was: that's a misunderstanding which will prevent some technical people making money.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
| Quote: |
The Chinese are just starting to appear, mainly on coach trips.
|
maybe Indian tourists next - I was surprised how many Indian families there were when we did the Jungfraujoch railway a few years ago.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
