This is getting downvoted, but it’s a big piece of the puzzle. 60% of the Vision Fund is Saudi and Emirati money [1]. Political risk is real. The line between “Saudi backed” and “venture backed” can be night and day for some companies.
Imagine how people would react today to a start-up like Facebook (circa 2009) taking the Russian VC money that they did (Digital Sky, Yuri Milner, Alisher Usmanov). It would be unfeasible for Facebook to do so, politically the firestorm would threaten to burn their company down, as Congress would go ballistic over the perceived implications.
Perhaps I'm underestimating the significance of this, but honestly, does anyone really care in a hyperconnected global world? To me, as long as the parties you are raising money from act as good shareholders, I don't really see a massive problem. There are too many conspiracy stories going around..
You are underestimating the significance of this. The economic security of the US rests to a significant extent on the fact that there's far more fundamental innovation going on here than anywhere else in the world. Whoever pays for it, ends up owning it, which is not a problem if the innovation in question is just some inconsequential bullshit like a business model. It becomes a problem when it's something that is a force multiplier: AI, hardware, big data, etc. You don't want to let the Middle Eastern hereditary theocratic dictatorships to play with any of this stuff, or own large chunks of the US innovation sector. You also don't want Communist China to play with it either, but I guess it's too late for that now.
Sure. Empires rarely survive past the 250 year mark. It’s remarkably consistent. The US will be 250 years old in 2026, though it hasn’t been an empire for the entire duration. Make of it what you will.
Of course! They invaded Crimea so we’ve imposed economic sanctions. Also seems to be evidence of them influencing the election. These things weren’t clear at the time.
Interesting you mention crimea and election influencing in the same post. There is a level of geo political games going on which are not in the best interests of civilians in any nation. We're long past the point of no return. The only hope is that through interconnectedness it becomes undesirable to wage war as to do so means attacking yourself. From that perspective we should encourage more investments from sources outside of our borders, especially those of our 'enemies' and we should be doing the same in foreign territories.
There's plenty of evidence that they conducted a massive, highly sophisticated propaganda/cyber warfare campaign. It's impossible to prove that it did or didn't tilt the election, but it clearly could have given the extremely thin margins in key states. I'd say that counts as influence.
Present some then. Thus far the best that I’ve seen is $100k in FB ads to peddle the divisive topics typically peddled by the democratic establishment.
This is not what I’d call hard evidence. This is testimony, by people whose careers depend on saying there was interference. Fact of the matter is, around this time last year the same outlets you link here (except cspan) we’re projecting that Trump had a 7% chance of winning the election. In the presence of “interference”, the odds would probably be different. It’s only when the anointed heir to the throne didn’t win that anyone started talking about “interference”.
No, I mean documented, actual evidence either presented as-is, or at least reviewed first hand by a neutral, trusted third party. Not some kooky WaPo bullshit.
What counts as a neutral, trusted third party. With respect to this issue, does the US intelligence community count? If so, then does the second link, a link to the report meet your standards of evidence?
If not, then I'm not sure what kind of third party you are imagining. What would be the intelligence community's reason to coordinate and issue false statements on this?
Can you elaborate how big the effective political risk is? I always thought LP commitments are pretty binding - are there many ways out of the fund for Saudi/Emirati money that aren't available to other very big fish?
> Can you elaborate how big the effective political risk is? I always thought LP commitments are pretty binding
The risk isn’t the Saudis pull out. It’s that their investment brings adverse attention from the President, the Congress, aspiring Senators and advocacy groups. A foreign state investor is scarier to most Americans than a foreign private entity.
[1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/21/technology/saudi-softbank-te...