Though Yandex has to follow government regulations (especially in its media department), a lot of which are obviously biased.
2. I read it differently. The screws are tightened and company will be under control of board if Volozh dies, 2 of 12 board members are government-appointed. So I agree that government is trying to control Yandex tightly. It hasn't happened yet.
3. As far as I can see - Yandex does not support the war. And no russian commercial company can be openly against the war without effectively stopping the opperations immediately. Living under insane dictator is hard, but I don't think it is reponsible behaviour to turn shareholders investments into nil, leaving 20k people without job and millions of people without services (the last part is the least important because there are other local substitutes for most Yandex services). Genuine western companies can be openly against the war, because neither sufficient part of their income comes from Russia, nor most of their production/workforce is in Russia.
About your small things:
1. What kind of news can be aggregated from other sources is regulated by law. I mentioned that in my firs comment. There are _no_ non-pro-government news sources left in Russia. The ones that were still operating a short while ago regularly recieved strikes from regulators. You could make a point that it would have been better if Yandex just closed its news service entirely; and I would agree with you. I bet Yandex is thinking the same right now, but it is hard to make this decision when things were slowly regressing for 10 years and the tipping point was reached and news became toxic.
2. Right, because making statements to Putin makes such a great difference?
P.S. It is quite clear that in the recent years Yandex was trying to migrate from Russia as soon as possible to be less dependent on the whims of the regime. They did find the niches where they could be successful outside of Russia (at the very least - delivery, taxi and ride-heiling, cloud) but didn't have time to execute the plan.
2. You may read it differently, only if you are kind of very biased towards 'beautiful' Yandex, cause even in official statement it was written that's due to Russian politics system :) plus - read Government statement before and after this board was appointment. - 2 of 12 government appointed? lets read:
The PIF will be governed by a board comprising 11 directors, including representatives from five leading Russian universities (Higher School of Economics, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Moscow State University, St Petersburg State University and the St Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics) and three non-governmental institutions (the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), Moscow School of Management Skolkovo and the Endowment of Moscow School #57)
all above is government appointed and 'pro'-government.
3. Yes, that's what Tigran told as CEO. We have to care about 20k employees and all that bullshit when at the same time Yandex.ru page showed all news that 'everything is fine, there is no war, some special kind of operation against nazi' being one of the major player of Russian propaganda.
No, you can't be 'anti-war' and doing that, you can't be silent, and yes if 20k stopped to worry about have 0 ability to buy new iPhone and millions of people service disrupted may be we saw not 4k people on the streets of Moscow but 100k-200k and then we could talk with government.
So yes, exactly that behavior allowing corrupt and crazy government doing anything they want.
lets talk about 'small things' as you say: 1. Bullshit. Meduza, novaya, skr - they could do it. they could close it as you say but they choose not. They are currently sold Yandex news to VK group, but basically they are telling look we are showing not Yandex news, but VK-news on our main page - we have no power over there. Disgusting.
// It is quite clear that in the recent years Yandex was trying to migrate from Russia as soon as possible to be less dependent on the whims of the regime. They did find the niches where they could be successful outside of Russia (at the very least - delivery, taxi and ride-heiling, cloud) but didn't have time to execute the plan.//
They were trying to do it as part of Yandex Group. So no, they was not trying to 'migrate from Russia', they was trying to find new markets, like they was trying do search in Turkey at 2010.
2. You are talking abut PIF board. I am talking about Yandex board. 2 of 12 Yandex board members are appointed by PIF.
3. Are you located in Russia or know people or organizations located in Russia who openly stated their anti-war statement while still being in the Country? I personally know a couple of people who have to spend a few years in prison now. Not much fun. I know a lot of people who moved away and stated their position openly, knowing that they can't be reached now. Yandex is obviously not in that position.
> They were trying to do it as part of Yandex Group. So no, they was not trying to 'migrate from Russia', they was trying to find new markets, like they was trying do search in Turkey at 2010.
They did. And 60% of revenue (in Russia) is coming from the services which were trying to expand abroad. As well as they started relocating employees in offices in other countries. If Yandex had any real business outside of Russia (which it finally had a chance to have) then it would have been a lot more willing to stand openly against this stupid shit.
> if 20k stopped to worry about have 0 ability to buy new iPhone and millions of people service disrupted may be we saw not 4k people on the streets of Moscow but 100k-200k and then we could talk with government.
We saw 100k people in 2011, nothing really changed. And that is when we had way milder police force. Right now, we gonna have more people in prisons when they try to come out to protest. _If_ they come out, because if I learned something, is that a lot of Russian people would say "OK, fine, fuck those rich software engineering bastards, we used to live without hot water, we can live without a few internet websites" (and go use competing services)
Also you missed the part where I talked about obligations to shareholders. I doubt most of them are willing to lose all they have invested. And CEO is kind of supposed to act in their interests.
> They are currently sold Yandex news to VK group, but basically they are telling look we are showing not Yandex news, but VK-news on our main page - we have no power over there. Disgusting.
I am not sure that this is the plan, they haven't yet sold anything yet, so we don't know what will happen once they do. I doubt that they will do that (VK group is a direct competitor, and news will still be perceieved as part of Yandex if they are show there). I don't want to speculate further until we see what happens.
I am probably as much unhappy about what is happening as you are. But I do think that Yandex was a net-positive for Russia, and the mistakes that they've made (by not closing news) are bad but they wouldn't have changed anything in the course of history.
> Taxes, land ownership, banking, bankruptcy etc. The economic block in the government remains very professional and impartial even now.
Russia has one of highest inequalities and quite poor population. It is also heavily corrupt. The macroeconomics works, but lower levels don't.
> The only thing Russia really needed to become a normal state was to reform judicial branch, police and security services.
That is kind of problem, given that Putin is former KGB agent, surrounded himself by alike people, became president duet to former KBG agents cooperating on gaining power ... Also, used both judicial branch and police against political opponents including journalists from day 1. They are corrupt basically as a matter of policy.
Putin did reformed judicial branch, police and security services. Just not the way we would like.
But Putin has always been the man he is now – the war in Chechnya began in 1999.
This is a very generic and abstract statement. If you think that the growth could happen without economic reforms that took place in early 2000s, please explain how exactly could that happen in the aftermath of second Chechen War and economic crisis of 1998.
What you saw in early 2000s in Russia was mostly caused by reforms in 1990s, but times were already turning to worse.
1. Tax reform: flat income tax of 13%, reduction in total number of taxes by 70%, reduction in social security tax, introduction of severance tax (captured 84% of profits from oil and gas in state budget)
2. Zero budget deficit and significant reduction of foreign debt
3. Reform of land ownership: created free market of the land
4. New Labor code and pension reform
5. Reform of banking sector and new bankruptcy law
Also, afaik, journalists writing against Putin were attacked (arrests, taking over of business) right as he got into power. The changes leading to contemporary ideology, effective rehabilitation of Stalin, the state murders were happening right away.
The events around Russia apartment building, the ones suspect of being done by FSB and Chechnya war were in 1999.
>The large ones were not independent in anything but the name long before being taken over by state.
Let's take a few concrete examples of really big companies: VKontakte, Wildberries and Magnit. How exactly Putin and his gang exercised the control over them before acquisition (Wildberries still belongs to the founder)?
1. Father of one of the co-founders had a business in St.Petersburg in 1990s, but already in 2001 he was arrested for kidnapping charges. Doesn't sound like a "friend", does not prove Putin's control over VK at that moment.
2. Source? The only thing I know is that the founder is distant relative of a person, who became VP in Rosneft in 2016, long after the company was founded. Quite a stretch for "patronage", though they could use their connections to defend from raider attacks and extortion.
3. Every large company in every country has some relationship with the government. This is not the same as control, not the same as having political influence over the company and not the same as using the business for embezzling the funds for political purposes. I know some companies where their GR was basically a CSO playing tennis with an old friend from FSB, which kept them under the radar of the regime - I would not even call it corruption (how often can you see a DA in USA playing golf with some businessman?). You have to be more specific.
The reason why government or affiliated oligarchs take over the businesses, is to gain control because they did not have it before.
2. Look into Bell research against widberries, its quite public.
3. Yep, fair point.
Sorry, I do not understand this. I did not mean literally Putin himself, but VK was not in any relationship with anyone from his inner circle (e.g. Timchenko, Rotenberg) or other oligarchs (e.g. Matvienko clan). Founders were forced to sell the company under pressure exactly because the government intended to get control over the most important social network, which it did not have.
>Look into Bell research against widberries, its quite public.
Do you mean the one from which I got information about relatives? https://thebell.io/nastoyashhaya-istoriya-wildberries-kak-ta...
It is a typical success story of an online retail business. It actually does not show anything that could be even slightly resemble affiliation with Putin and his inner circle. I know other relatively big companies which had similar growth trajectory and are still controlled by their founders.
//It is a typical success story of an online retail business. It actually does not show anything that could be even slightly resemble affiliation with Putin and his inner circle. I know other relatively big companies which had similar growth trajectory and are still controlled by their founders.//
In Russia? really? show me them. For now, I think you are really trying to look fav into Russian biz-scene, but that's not the case for the last 9 years. You either work with gov or you f-ked. That the rule here. Last example is Tinkoff, who at the beginning of his bank licked Putin ass as hard as he could, but now was forced to sell )
I will not give you a name, but this is a large online DYI retailer with over $0.5B in revenue. I know execs from there personally.
>For now, I think you are really trying to look fav into Russian biz-scene, but that's not the case for the last 9 years.
You probably forgot that we were talking about 2000s, not 2010s. Until 3rd term of Putin relationship of business and siloviki was usually transactional, but the economy was booming and the pie was big enough that some of the businesses were operating unnoticed. After events of 2012-2014 many things changed, but the climate was still tolerable - new companies were starting (e.g. Miro - it's great that they relocated early), there was visible progress in quality of life in big cities etc. 24.02.2022 changed everything.
Professional, yes.
Impartial, no. Complicit is the word.