
Silicon Valley is awash with Saudi Arabian money - dsr12
https://qz.com/1426370/silicon-valley-is-awash-with-saudi-arabian-money-heres-what-theyre-investing-in/
======
hollerith
SA get more negative press now than they did after the 9/11 attacks even
though 14 of the 15 attackers grew up in SA and even though wealthy Saudis
were the main source of funds for the madrassas that created most Islamic
extremists.

The US doesn't need SA the way it did in 2001 what with its having become
self-sufficient in petroleum.

~~~
dialtone
USA still imports about 50% of the oil barrels it uses each day, about 10m[1],
and there is not enough pipeline capacity to move shale oil to refineries[2].
It's a long way to being self-sufficient.

[1]: [https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/10/18/americas-
shale-...](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/10/18/americas-shale-
industry-faces-constraints) [2]:
[https://www.economist.com/business/2018/10/20/the-shale-
boom...](https://www.economist.com/business/2018/10/20/the-shale-boom-has-
made-america-the-worlds-top-oil-producer)

~~~
hollerith
I accept your correction; the US in not self-sufficient: "in June America
produced 13% of global crude oil" (economist URL in child comment) whereas it
consumes about 20%:

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/273565/share-of-the-
majo...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/273565/share-of-the-major-
consuming-countries-in-global-oil-consumption/)

------
sidcool
I am not the only one saying this since eons, but power and money are the only
things that work in global relations. Countries are forced to develop nuclear
weapons because treaties are not honored owing to special interests. If your
big brother is powerful, you can get away with almost anything. As much
outrage the journalist killing has caused, they will be able to buyout any
powerful dissidents, corporations or countries.

~~~
mc32
Something’s different about this. Journalists get killed by rogue government
elements in Mexico, Russia, probably even Turkey itself, but you don’t see the
same reaction. What gives?

~~~
danso
The difference here is that critics don’t believe that Khashoggi was killed by
“rogue government elements” — they believe he was killed because of orders
from the top of government. Can you recall the last time a journalist, or
other controversial citizen, was killed inside their country’s own embassy?
Nevermind one that had such a blatant coverup? I would agree that other
governments may have had citizens assassinated and made it look like “rogue
government elements”, but not nearly as obvious.

~~~
barry-cotter
This is bullshit. The difference is that this guy was a blue check mark with a
column in the Washington Post. He was a journalist, one of them.

If a human rights activist had been killed in the same way the story would
have blown over already. It is not news to anyone that Saudi Arabia is the
personal fief of the Saud family, who are brutish medieval thugs. Everyone
knows perfectly well that they cut off people’s hands and crucify people and
if there’s a government on the Arabian peninsula that doesn’t use torture
according to Amnesty or Human Rights Watch I’ll be very much surprised.

The denial was not meant to be credible, it was meant to be nakedly obvious
that he was killed in the consulate and they were meant to get away with it s
it free as a warning to any other dissidents.

And the next time they will. It’s the combination of being a guy who goes to
inside Beltway cocktail parties, the Turkish government having the consulate
bugged and the Saudis’ gross incompetence that did it. The absence of any one
would have had them getting off Scot free.

~~~
danso
So presumably you're going to provide us a list with human rights activists
who have been killed in the same way? That said, I don't see what you're
arguing here. Is there any doubt that the murders of well-known people get
more attention than murders of less-known people? And when a well-known
someone is brazenly murdered in connection to the reason he was well-known,
that the fame effect is amplified? What's your point?

~~~
mc32
Not an activist, but the head of the Interpol was kidnapped (and currently
whereabouts unknown) by his own country. Not a random person, but head of the
Interpol.

Don't see the same outcry. Also the Maltese journalist (Caruana) uncovering
European dark money who was bombed --not much press.

~~~
danso
There's not been the same outcry but there has definitely been coverage of the
fact that Meng Hongwei had been detained by the Chinese government [0], just
as there was when Fan Bingbing, "China's most famous actress", disappeared
before recently announcing she had been investigated for tax evasion [1].
Should there be more outcry about the Chinese government detaining its
citizens without transparency? Sure, but I think it's obvious why Khashoggi's
case has received more attention. Not just that he died and his body is
currently missing, but for the ongoing coverup. Also, both have at least been
officially accused of crimes by their government, whereas Khashoggi AFAIK had
not been at the time of his death.

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/world/asia/china-
interpol...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/world/asia/china-interpol-men-
hongwei.html)

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/world/asia/china-fan-
bing...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/world/asia/china-fan-
bingbing.html)

edit: Memories and perceptions vary, of course, but Caruana's murder from what
I remember got a massive amount of attention in the media. The top Google
result for "Caruana murder" are currently from the BBC, NPR, The Guardian, and
the NYT. In addition, the "Forbidden Stories" collaboration was launched to
continue her work:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/world/europe/journalist-m...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/world/europe/journalist-
murder-malta-eu.html)

> _After her death, 45 journalists from 18 news organizations agreed to work
> together to pursue leads from her work on corruption and international
> money-laundering networks, as well as look into the circumstances
> surrounding her death. Forbidden Stories, an investigative nonprofit in
> Paris devoted to completing the work of jailed and murdered journalists,
> coordinated the collaboration, in which The New York Times took part._

She was killed 1 year ago but her death still gets recent coverage, like this
article from 2 days ago from the Committee to Protect Journalists:

[https://cpj.org/blog/2018/10/efforts-to-find-mastermind-
in-m...](https://cpj.org/blog/2018/10/efforts-to-find-mastermind-in-murder-of-
malta-jour.php)

------
projectramo
The big question for me is: why now?

You can have your own list of equivalent or worse actions by several allies.

So what triggered the recent reaction?

The Washington Post suggests that it’s because it humanized the action. A lone
journalist — a writer whom we may have read — attacked in a brutal fashion.

But what no one mentions is that his uncle was a famous billionaire and his
cousin was Dodi al Fayed.

Surely he has powerful family members who are outraged and connected.

The only problem with this theory is that the same might have been said of Bin
Talal and nobody blinked at his arrest.

~~~
blueyes
Stalin is supposed to have said: "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death
of millions is a statistic."

Khashoggi's murder had emotional force, while the war in Yemen did not,
because the media was able to focus on one person's story and make us
empathize. Also, as far as the US media were concerned, they were able to
identify with him as a US resident and a reporter. Not surprisingly, news
organizations heavily cover attacks on their brethren.

~~~
scoggs
Great points. Another thing I think may have contributed is the odd way (odd
to me at least) that information trickled out. Things were released in a way
where the story wasn't able to be buried. New details emerged seemingly daily
and they emerged in a way that helped paint a detailed picture of not only the
crime but the cover up.

People aren't buying it and it also helps lift the curtain on politics and
people get to see the dark machinery behind the clean cut curtain politics
likes to have.

Politics definitely helps manipulate tons of markets but in the world we are
in right now and the way I imagine most people feel about the way the
governments represent them around the world people seem to be sick of not only
that but the way the government's power has a stranglehold on media. People
like to say people are stupid but I don't think they are stupid enough to have
the wool pulled over their eyes all the time.

------
tw1010
What's the best way to know what quotient of your investment money comes from
"good" (e.g. enviourmentally friendly) sources vs "bad" (e.g. oil) sources?
The enviourmental industry tend to be really good about going deep with where
energy is coming from (looking many layers deeper, not allowing certain
certificates if e.g. solar panels are constructed in an enviourmentally
unfriendly way). Is there something similar in the tech investment world? Is
there some index or something you can look up (some independent investigator)
to ensure that you're minimizing taking money from actors who has gotten it in
a questionable way (or who will use their returns to e.g. invest in coal
plants)?

Don't tell me it's an impossible task. Again, the energy industry tends to be
pretty good at this. There are ways to know that the energy you're buying is
clean not just on the surface level (but many layers down the pipeline of
influences).

~~~
TheCoelacanth
"Environmentally friendly" vs. "environmentally unfriendly" is surely not easy
to measure, but it's going to be a cakewalk compared to measuring "good" and
"bad".

~~~
tw1010
I'm not expecting anything rigorous, of course. A first approximation is fine.
There are some smart hardworking academics out there, surely they've thought
about this question in some book somewhere. This what humanities excels at.

------
docker_up
This isn't the first time journalists have been killed by governments, and
won't be the last time.

A journalist was assassinated by the Taiwanese government right here in
Silicon Valley, on US soil, ~30 years ago, and no one seems to care anymore.
No one would think twice about doing business with the Taiwanese government
these days, I think, tragically, this will blow over after a while.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Liu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Liu)

~~~
danso
The lengthy Wikipedia bio you link to suggests that Liu was far from
forgotten. Numerous Kuomintang officials were sent to prison, including a life
sentence for the head of intelligence. It also appears to have played a factor
in the Chiang family not pursuing the presidency. What other consequences do
you think Taiwan should be facing 30 years after the fact?

------
joeblau
I'm extremely curious watching the progress of the Vision Fund. Softbank
already announced a second 100B fund of which Saudi Arabia is contributing
45B, but we've been in an extremely bearish market. What's going to happen
during the next economic recession. Will there be so much money going into
private companies that they'll be able to ride out the next economic pull
back?

~~~
joeblau
Sorry, I said bearish and I meant bullish.

------
perseusprime11
This explains why none of the big wigs in the Industry like Marc Andreesen,
Reed Hastings, Vinod Khosla, Reid Hoffman, and others pretty much kept quiet.
On other days, their Twitter feed will be filled with Trump hate. Looks like
there is a price for American values.

------
throwaway2048
Money is not, even now, the only factor that matters when it comes to power
and politics.

The Hilary campaign in sum (as far as anyone can tell) outspent the Trump
campaign by 2:1.

~~~
unstuckdev
She also got millions more votes. That election turned on a few tens of
thousands of votes in a couple of states due to the way the electoral college
works. Money paid for the targeted ads responsible and built the company that
made it possible.

~~~
xienze
If only she knew that running up the score in California wasn’t as important
as securing wins in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan...

~~~
tzs
She did almost no campaigning in California after the primaries. Mostly all
she did in California after that was fund raising.

------
curiousgal
This might sound insensitive but I don't get what the big deal is. Even if the
Saudis had the journalist killed, how is that different than all the other
(more) horrible things other governments have been engaging in?

~~~
flyinglizard
It _is_ a big deal - committing violence against your own citizens in
diplomatic havens on foreign soil is as dark as it gets.

However, there are good things going on in Saudi Arabia right now and the West
would be futile to derail this. The Saudis need to answer for their actions,
but not at the price of stopping the modernization they are undergoing.

~~~
Kaveren
Why are you so eager to buy into the modernization narrative? Killing an
innocent journalist is not very modernizing, and I can't pretend to believe
even for a second that MBS didn't know about this.

It's clearly only for PR so they can make more money and continue to commit
atrocities. There won't be real progress.

When I hear "anti-corruption purge" I think "get rid of my political enemies".

~~~
flyinglizard
I'm sure MBS knew about this.

Many people will find it offensive, but the Middle East has its own rules.
Saudi Arabia is nothing like a Western state in terms of its power structure
and population. Things that we find barbaric are contributing to long term
stability. In this area, when you lose control over the population you get
things like the Syrian civil war.

But that's not at odds with modernization. Singapore is a very modern nation,
as is China in parts and you could count some Gulf states on some aspects.
Modernization does not have to include democracy and human rights in the way
they are perceived in the West.

Whatever happens, it's a long process and has inertia.

Put hard limits on MBS and his ilk, but be wary of turning SA into a pariah
state over this. They are turning their back to Whabbism and radical Islam, it
won't be good for anyone if things are rolled back.

~~~
Kaveren
You're looking at Saudi Arabia from the point of view of a strategic ally.
They're a threat, and what they do is not something we need to support.

I'm not usually the person to bring up past comments, but I do think your
opinion on what I extrapolate to be cancelling the arms deal:

"> and when countries can’t rely on Western political, technological and
military support, it is very likely they will attempt to pursue WMDs to make
up for it (as done by all three)"

It's a commonly brought up argument, but North Korea never pursued WMDs
because of fear of a Western threat, or to defend themselves from anyone. They
did it because they want to use it as leverage to get the US to pull out of
South Korea (which is also why they want the peace treaty declared so badly).
This is working quite well so far.

Again, I only bring that comment up because I think it's relevant here, and
the North Korea statement as a counter-example. I'm more concerned by what
Saudi Arabia is going to do with those arms we sell them.

It's possible that a moderate Western democracy could eventually work if you
didn't kill members of a free press, which would be the first step.

------
guelo
United States used to at least credibly pretend that it cared about human
rights. It is squandering its superpower soft power that it used to use to
influence the world towards democratic ideals. I blame the Democratic party
neoliberals for buying into the free market religious myth that capitalism
will magically fix dictatorships.

~~~
Findeton
What time are you talking about? In the 40s they had concentration camps
inside the US for japanese people. In the 50s they experimented on some
towns/US citizens with different diseases, and in the 70s and 80s they created
coups all over South and Central America against democratic governments.

~~~
cabalamat
Yes, and in all those time periods they had a far better record than their
main adversaries.

C'mon people, is it really that hard to get that the West (1) has a flawed
human rights record, and at the same time (2) has a better record than the
main other countries?

~~~
coldtea
The main other countries being? Even USSR didn't have 2/3rds of the world's
population enslaved and their countries occupied. Western colonial powers did.
This is just Africa for example [1], add Asia (including at times China and
Japan, and Latin America, plus parts of Europe (e.g. Cyprus, a British
colony).

Heck, the 2 world wars weren't started by those "other countries" either.
European countries started it too.

[1] [https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--
SDNKBhk...](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--
SDNKBhke--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/1250557424428648110.jpg)

~~~
i_am_nomad
“2/3rds of the world's population enslaved and their countries occupied”

At this point, even Howard Zinn would be placing a hand on your shoulder and
warning, “Bring it down a notch, kid.”

------
liftbigweights
And the news industry, hollywood and politics... Isn't the US awash in saudi
money everywhere? Would anyone be shocked if next to israel, saudi arabia
owned the second largest stable of lobbyists and politicians in DC. I
wouldn't.

Also, what about the british, canadian, qatari, chinese and israeli money in
silicon valley, news, hollywood and politics?

The only reason tech companies, news companies, hollywood and politicians are
pushing the russian interference and influence narrative is because the
russians are too poor to buy influence and interfere in the US.

I'm glad some light is being shed on the saudis but for how long? Until they
can get the saudis to write some big checks to hush them up? And more
importantly, will the british, chinese and israeli money and influence get any
scrutiny?

Or is sinclair correct? "It is difficult to get a man to understand something,
when his salary depends on his not knowing the right answer."

