Russian Tech Industry Faces 'Brain Drain' As Workers Flee (nytimes.com) 47
mspohr shares a report from the New York Times: In early March, days after Russia invaded Ukraine and began cracking down on dissent at home, Konstantin Siniushin, a venture capitalist in Riga, Latvia, helped charter two planes out of Russia to help people flee. Both planes departed from Moscow, carrying tech workers from the Russian capital as well as St. Petersburg, Perm, Ekaterinburg and other cities. Together, the planes moved about 300 software developers, entrepreneurs and other technology specialists out of the country, including 30 Russian workers from start-ups backed by Mr. Siniushin. The planes flew south past the Black Sea to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, where thousands of other Russian tech workers fled in the weeks after the invasion. Thousands more flew to Georgia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and other countries that accept Russian citizens without visas.
By March 22, a Russian tech industry trade group estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 tech workers had left the country and that an additional 70,000 to 100,000 would soon follow. They are part of a much larger exodus of workers from Russia, but their departure could have an even more lasting impact on the country's economy. The long-run impact may be more significant than the short-run impact," said Barry Ickes, head of the economics department at Pennsylvania State University, who specializes in the Russian economy. "Eventually, Russia has to diversify its economy away from oil and gas, and it has to accelerate productivity growth. Tech was a natural way of doing that." Before all this started, Russia had such a strong technology base," [Artem Taganov, founder and chief executive of a Russian start-up called HintEd] said. "Now, we have a brain drain that will continue for the next five to 10 years."
By March 22, a Russian tech industry trade group estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 tech workers had left the country and that an additional 70,000 to 100,000 would soon follow. They are part of a much larger exodus of workers from Russia, but their departure could have an even more lasting impact on the country's economy. The long-run impact may be more significant than the short-run impact," said Barry Ickes, head of the economics department at Pennsylvania State University, who specializes in the Russian economy. "Eventually, Russia has to diversify its economy away from oil and gas, and it has to accelerate productivity growth. Tech was a natural way of doing that." Before all this started, Russia had such a strong technology base," [Artem Taganov, founder and chief executive of a Russian start-up called HintEd] said. "Now, we have a brain drain that will continue for the next five to 10 years."
This is THE problem with russia (Score:5, Interesting)
The brain drain has happened before, first with the soviets and again now. But the real problem is without educated people, the population will remain mostly uneducated as a whole. Because of this the leadership of Russia will remain authoritarian/totalitarian because the people aren't smart enough to elect good leaders. The ones that are smart enough to want good leaders either leave or get thrown in jail or killed. It's a revolving door that's been turning for hundreds of years with no signs of stopping.
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Good leaders in Russia tend to fall off roofs or shoot themselves in the back far too often.
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Russia is in demographic decline, with 1.5 births per woman. Russia also has a surplus of women and not enough men.
If we allow skilled and educated Russians to emigrate to the West, we can permanently weaken Russia economically, demographically, and militarily. Then we will have fewer problems in the future.
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Re:This is THE problem with russia (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, eventually, yes. But a decaying power can be very dangerous, and in some ways the exodus of the intelligentsia might actually stabilize the regime. Imagine North Korea with 1600 legacy but functional ICBMs in its arsenal.
Not that I have any better ideas. As far as I can see our best bet is to do everything we can to encourage Russia's conventional military power continued atrophy and hope for a lucky political break at some point.
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a decaying power can be very dangerous
Yes, the Thucydides Trap [wikipedia.org].
the exodus of the intelligentsia might actually stabilize the regime.
Perhaps. A stable but weak Russia is not a bad outcome.
Top-heavy demography will also stabilize Russia.
Re:This is THE problem with russia (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine North Korea with 1600 legacy but functional ICBMs in its arsenal.
Indeed, but we don't actually know how big their arsenal is anymore. It's become somewhat clear recently that their military is not well maintained, and they couldn't even manage functional tyres on their logistical support vehicles, even vaguely in-date rations and so on.
Maintaining a nuclear stockpile is expensive. And it looks like they haven't been spending the money, and with the economic contraction from the heavy sanctions, that's going to get substantially harder, especially as they're also hemorrhaging money in their conventional military.
And MAD only works if you have the A part. Up until about 50 days ago, people assumed that Russia had a pretty badass military. Now it looks like it's just pretty bad.
Obviously people are going to be rather cautious of a lunatic dictator with the potential to deal massive damage, but it looks like Putin may have inadvertently lost his biggest strategic advantage.
Re:This is THE problem with russia (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is THE problem with russia (Score:4, Insightful)
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Last I checked, tech workers in Europe and America sign away the rights to anything of value they produce to their employers. They may be better paid than their Russian cou
Re:This is THE problem with russia (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, anything you produce on the employer's dime is the employer's. That's been pretty much true since, well, forever. I mean, if you hire a carpenter to build you a bookshelf, the carpenter doesn't own the bookshelf in the end, you do. The carpenter built it on your dime, it's yours, and that's how it works. I mean,imagine how crazy the world would be if your car was owned by the people that made it - the guy who screwed the bolt in owned the car you paid for. Or even though you paid for the chicken that went into your meal, it was still owned by the farmer that raised it.
You work on software outside of company time, in Europe that's yours and your employer has no rights to it unless you use their equipment, but you still control it. And in the US, that often is down to the details of your employment contract, but many places disallow employers to own stuff developed on private time. At best, they may have the ability to license whatever it is.
At the same time, you're free to do whatever the hell you want. If you wrote on your own time something your employer finds useful but refuses to pay you for it, you're free to not continue working on it on your own time.
If you think things are terrible in Europe and North America, maybe you want to talk to the conscripted soldiers fighting there, where they were basically forced from doing what they were doing to fighting with poor equipment and basically no supplies.
They're fleeing because in Russia you have no options. Maybe you work for an employer who steals your work, but you're free to leave and join another company. They're fleeing to having the freedom to make their own decisions.
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It's been true as long as we've had employment, but that hasn't been the dominant mode of production "forever".
I'm not talking about who owns a product, but rather who benefits from the labour involved in its production. (But to the extent that ownership is relevant, you ought to know that auto worke
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If me owning my work means I have to live in an totalitarian state run by the mafia I'm out. If you get to own the work you produce, but the police can throw you into jail, I'm also out.
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What did you mean?
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Re:This is THE problem with russia (Score:5, Interesting)
The brain drain has happened before, first with the soviets and again now. But the real problem is without educated people, the population will remain mostly uneducated as a whole. Because of this the leadership of Russia will remain authoritarian/totalitarian because the people aren't smart enough to elect good leaders. The ones that are smart enough to want good leaders either leave or get thrown in jail or killed. It's a revolving door that's been turning for hundreds of years with no signs of stopping.
The problem isn't educated people, they've always had plenty of those, the problem is with institutions.
Look what happened in the US after Trump got elected. Major newpapers, educational institutions, companies, non-profit groups, courts, etc, etc, all resisted his attempts to consolidate power. Even with the controversy in the election, members of his own party, despite parroting his rhetoric, still fulfilled their institutional obligations and counted the votes fairly.
Those institutions are certainly eroding in the US, but they still held up.
Russia doesn't have those same powerful, long-standing institutions, even the church was weakened by repression during the USSR. Putin's only real resistance came from the oligarchs and all that took was a few show trials.
There's a path to Russia becoming free and democratic, but I'm not sure when they're going to get on it.
Re:This is THE problem with russia (Score:4, Interesting)
Given the Russian Orthodox Church's enthusiastic support for the authoritarian regimes that preceded and followed the Soviet Union, I'm not altogether sure that the repression was a bad thing. The Church has no interest in improving the political or economic condition of the Russian people; it cares only about maintaining its own power and authority.
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The brain drain is nonstop. A super shitload of Russians ran like fuck when Putin got installed as President for life, they knew it was going to become a lot harder to escape later. Now it's later.
The Russian army is about to find out (Score:5, Interesting)
That also means the sanctions are going to go on for months. So yeah, anyone who can is going to get out of Dodge. Not just tech workers but doctors and nurses and engineers. The entire Russian economy is about to go full North Korea.
As an added bonus this load of fire under Germany and France's ass to finally get off Russian gas and oil. Meaning lots more solar and wind and even some nuke. It also means Russia is going to end up selling their gas at a steep discount to India and China. Meanwhile the price of gas globally will drop as Europe gets off the stuff.
All this so Vlad could have a midlife crisis. This is why you don't put one man in charge of your whole country. Everybody goes off the deep end sooner or later.
Re:The Russian army is about to find out (Score:5, Funny)
Putin is secretly doing all this to save the world from global warming.
Re:The Russian army is about to find out (Score:5, Informative)
All this so Vlad could have a midlife crisis. This is why you don't put one man in charge of your whole country. Everybody goes off the deep end sooner or later.
Even better, Ukraine has hit the flagship of the Black Sea fleet [bbc.com] with missiles, setting it ablaze and possibly, if conditions are right, sinking it.
Needless to say, Putin is claiming it was an explosion of armaments due to a fire [twitter.com]. Or, put another way, it was due to the incompetence of Russian sailors, not the skill of the Ukrainian military, which is why the ship may sink.
That sounds so much better. ;)
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It's certainly done a great deal to completely wreck Russia's military prestige. And with Finland and Sweden now seriously looking at NATO membership, all Putin's efforts to break the Western Alliance have in fact done the precise opposite.
And holy shit but do Western weapons kick serious ass or what?
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And holy shit but do Western weapons kick serious ass or what?
Neptune is a Ukrainian-made missile. Home grown. I remember seeing news of its development within the last few years. They were to roll it out for production this spring, but obviously didn't get the chance. They only have a few systems so have, apparently, used one of them.
Re:The Russian army is about to find out (Score:4, Insightful)
all Putin's efforts to break the Western Alliance have in fact done the precise opposite.
Putin, fundamentally doesn't understand democracy. He only understands strength through force, i.e. imposing his will. To him, western leaders are weak because they are unable to impose their will. and that countries arguing over politics, changing leaders and so on are weak countries because the leaders lack the strength to control the populace.
The permanent bickering, sniping and turnover of politicians in democracies is to Putin a sign of imminent collapse because he'd be out and dead if that happened around him. He clearly doesn't understand that dissent is not weakness, and just because people are able to disagree doesn't mean they might not all, rather quickly agree on something that they all feel strongly about.
Likewise, with Zelensky doing a mediocre job at a 30% approval rating he considered to be weakness and as a result Ukraine was ripe for the taking, as opposed to a democracy (even if a somewhat corrupt one) working as normal.
It's not so much that he made a mistake, but he was driven to it by a fundamental flaw in his thinking.
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A few weeks ago Russian state television did a feature on a military landing ship that was unloading vehicles in an Ukranian port.
The next day it blew up.
Re:The Russian army is about to find out (Score:5, Insightful)
That also means the sanctions are going to go on for months.
The sanctions may last for decades.
All this so Vlad could have a midlife crisis.
Putin is 69. This Is an end-of-life crisis.
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When you have as much money as Putin has it's midlife. That bastard has at least 20 possibly 30 years left causing problems for us all.
Unless the rumours about Parkinson's are true [newsweek.com]. It's not particularly fatal on it's own, but once it becomes obvious it shakes his hold on power, and losing power is highly fatal for a dictator.
Parkinson's is eventually quite lethal (Score:3)
Unless the rumours about Parkinson's are true [newsweek.com]. It's not particularly fatal on it's own, but once it becomes obvious it shakes his hold on power, and losing power is highly fatal for a dictator.
Having watched someone quite close to me perish from that close relative of Parkinson's Lewy Body Disease I can tell you it can be quite fatal.
In the late stages of the disease you don't have enough functioning motor neurones to control your guts properly (constipation) so you're on laxatives pretty much permanently. Eventually it starts to affect your ability to swallow and aspiration pneumonia is pretty much the end stage for most Parkinson's patients. If happens because you inhale lil crumbs of your food
Re: The Russian army is about to find out (Score:2)
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The average lifespan of a Russian is 73 years, so won't be long...
Good news: For men, it is only 71 years.
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Without a (mock) revolution in Russian government there's no way they can retreat beyond Donbass, no leadership can survive that level of defeat. The sanctions are never going to end until regime change ... hell the increased sanctions might not end until they retreat from Crimea at this point.
That said, with air control over Ukraine I think he will route Ukraine eventually. With the distinct possibility of moving on to Transnistria and if senile enough Latvia/Estonia. This is the time to reinforce the Balt
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The problem with this (eventually taking Ukraine) is that Russia then has the much, much, *much* harder problem of *holding* the country. It takes many times more troops and material and *money* to hold the country than it does to seize it... and they haven't shown that they can seize it. And ethnic Russians in Ukraine seem to be turning against them, so there may be no friendly population center to help.
Hey, do you watch Beau of the 5th Column too? (Score:2)
Re: Hey, do you watch Beau of the 5th Column too? (Score:2)
Googled⦠and this was apparently posted last night and is soooo on point it is almost physically painful. https://youtu.be/xqf-vKXPLN4 [youtu.be]
Re:The Russian army is about to find out (Score:5, Interesting)
An issue for selling more Russian oil and gas to China and the east is that, as I understand it, there are no pipelines or other means to carry oil and gas from the fields in the west that supply Europe across the country to the east so they can sell it to China, and building a pipeline would take a decade and cost money Russia isn't going to have. Shipping the oil is also complicated by the sanctions regime.
Re:The Russian army is about to find out (Score:5, Interesting)
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There are already oil and gas pipelines from Russia to China, they don't need ships to deliver it.
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"There are already oil and gas pipelines from Russia to China"
Which are only a fraction of the size they need to be to carry the amounts you're talking about here.
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How would Russia get oil or gas from Russian oil fields to India or China? Russia doesn't have any warn-water ports outside of the Black Sea. As an international pariah state, Russian ships would be banned from using the Suez Canal and Turkey will likely block all Russian ships from leaving the Black Sea. I don't believe Russia has the means or the merchant fleet to transport oil from St. Petersburg (when it's not frozen) around Cape Horn to Asia, even if China were to pay top dollar for Russian oil. Without Europe, Russia has no market for oil or gas.
You really think the blockade will stand, with all that juicy oil there? Good luck with that.
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How would Russia get oil or gas from Russian oil fields to India or China?
There are already pipelines from Russia to China via Mongolia, with bigger ones already being built. China is already one of the largest importers of Russian oil in the world, and was already set to grow that role in the coming years, even before this war broke out. From China, it’s just a hop, skip, and a leap to India via Bangladesh or the like if they want to bypass the worst of the Himalayas.
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The Arctic is melting. Shipping routes across the Arctic are increasing in number. No idea if Russia could make such routes work.
From what I understand, Russia has a very extensive rail network, so it could be possible to get oil to China and India via rail.
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You mean EOL crisis, he's ~70 years old
The power of the money... (Score:1)