“Jumping from a well-fortified ship to a sinking raft, was a little bit of what it felt like,” is how described the decision last year to jump from a solid energy project-management job to VC . He says he's glad he took the leap.
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VCs early in their careers are facing a new reality in the weaker market. Making deals & notching markups isn't as easy now. So what's a junior VC to do to be valuable to their firms & build their career? wsj.com/articles/as-de via
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Nuclear fusion is the holy grail in energy generation, but is it a business? I spoke with the CEO of Israeli fusion startup NT-Tao, which announced a $22M Series A, on the subject. (Love this job and a chance to delve into the science) venturecapital.cmail20.com/t/d-e-zihmjk-j
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Power Finance is selling to Marqeta, rather than growing as a standalone. Any regrets? I asked investor . No. It's a good deal for all, he said: “You can always be richer and you can always be prettier and you can always be taller” via venturecapital.cmail20.com/t/d-e-zidijdd-
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"This is Bakhmut, Russia’s main immediate military target and one of the most dangerous places on earth...Life has gone underground...The warren of rooms was filled with the smells of body odor and borscht" reports from the besieged city.
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With interest rates above 4%, Circle, which manages the USDC stablecoin, could bring in more than $1.4 billion this year, according to Wall Street Journal calculations, writes from Davos.
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"Unicorns are becoming unicorns again—that is to say, rare." 's zany summary of the state of VC today. venturecapital.cmail19.com/t/d-e-zilttly-
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Scoop: Cloud-software VC Tomasz Tunguz, who recently left Redpoint, is raising $200M for his new firm Theory Ventures, in what will be a test of a slower fundraising market.
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The Kremlin is going the extra mile to stamp out any sign of dissent. The result is that the political landscape has shifted decisively to the right. Right-wing critics, meanwhile, are tolerated & increasingly co-opted. w/
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Sure, secondary sales became more popular in the recent tech boom. But at this scale? SBF's Alameda paid $550M to buy shares from founders of a crypto mining startup. The miner did well, while bitcoin prices were high and coal-fueled electricity in Kazakhstan cheap. That changed.
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Where did all the FTX money go? More than $500 million ended up buying out shares from the founders of a crypto miner with big operations in Kazakhstan...
wsj.com/articles/insid via @eliotwb @ychernova
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In my 1st conversation back on the VC-beat , I spoke w/ , the new partner at Patron, about gaming, web3, & tech layoffs. Crypto remains important, she said, but can't ignore that few consumers are entering crypto now venturecapital.createsend1.com/t/d-e-zthhddk-
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Great report by the team on how Putin is shielded from the truth in Ukraine. Mr. Putin wakes daily to a written briefing on the war, with information carefully calibrated to emphasize successes & play down setbacks. Putin’s closest allies are even more hard-line than he is
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Russian troops were losing Lyman when a call came in for the commanding officer on the front line. It was Putin, ordering them not to retreat. Our story on Putin at war and the power structure designed to deliver him the information he wants to hear. wsj.com/articles/putin
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Russian diplomats in Uganda “promised to speed up deliveries of attack helicopters if Uganda began to run Russian government-funded news on Ugandan state television ... Uganda accepted.” By and
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This one took me quite some time to finish, so enjoy: How the family company of a former Russian agriculture minister has become one of the biggest farm operators in Ukraine after the invasion
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. reports from Kherson. Residents are coping with the worst damage that the southern city has suffered since the war began. 19 people were killed & 39 injured after Russian forces left Nov 11. Russia's Lavrov compared Kherson to Stalingrad.
1/ An honor to join . A few percentage points of GDP in lost revenues are unlikely to change Putin's calculus. Sanctions are not like flipping a switch to magically stop the war, but over the medium term, they undermine Russia's ability to wedge the war.
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The G-7, the European Union and Australia have agreed to cap prices of Russian oil at $60 or less per barrel in an effort to blunt the funding of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
For more on this, @NickSchifrin spoke with @elinaribakova. to.pbs.org/3VCqwAi
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Russian officials are struggling to raise production and renew dwindling munitions for the war in Ukraine as they face a labor shortage wsj.com/articles/putin via
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For this story, I spoke w a maker of school backpacks in Omsk, who fulfilled an order for the Russian army. "We gave a very low price," he said, adding he's a patriot. Overall, Russia is struggling to raise war production wsj.com/articles/putin w/
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My cameo on WSJ Tech News Briefing discussing the Russian brain drain.
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Listen 
: After Russia stepped up its military mobilization for its war in Ukraine, more of its tech workers began to leave. That is making an already difficult situation worse for Russian startups and tech firms. @ychernova joins @zoegthomas with more. wsj.com/podcasts/tech-
: After Russia stepped up its military mobilization for its war in Ukraine, more of its tech workers began to leave. That is making an already difficult situation worse for Russian startups and tech firms. @ychernova joins @zoegthomas with more. wsj.com/podcasts/tech-1
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VCs expect to enforce greater corporate governance in the crypto market post FTX collapse, but there's cultural resistance to it. "Many crypto entrepreneurs look at governance with disdain," says wsj.com/articles/ftx-c w/
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The Russian brain-drain continues. About a fifth of software developers likely left the country this year, research shows. Tech sales dropped, too.“There are clients who changed their minds because they are afraid, afraid of what tomorrow will bring"
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👀Amazing— Bankman-Fried committed $200M to Sequoia Capital funds while Sequoia put $214M into FTX.
An ✨incredible✨ level of entanglement in such a short time, even by the most extreme Silicon Valley standards. By
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Russia could strike U.S. commercial satellites in Ukraine war--a senior official in Moscow’s foreign ministry said if American satellites are used to aid Kyiv, then they “may be a legitimate target.” with &
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Russian state media-space ramped up the talk of Ukrainian "satanism," coupled with the dirty-bomb allegations. “It helps sustain this imaginary world, in which they are liberators," said wsj.com/articles/russi w/
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Russia’s top military commander in Ukraine gave a rare pessimistic take of his invading forces’ position, suggesting their hold on the southern city of Kherson was weakening.
Some 20 million Ukrainians have relatives in Russia, the war has driven a wedge between them. tells the story of the rift between two brothers, both Orthodox priests, one in Kharkiv, another near Moscow, who are living in parallel realities.
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Ukrainian combat medics on the frontline in Donetsk region a few days ago.
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“After entering the local municipal building on Lyman’s main square, the soldiers dragged out Russian flags and last week’s referendum posters that proclaim ‘Russia and Donbas, Forever.’ They piled them on the ground and set them on fire.” reports from the front
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We were the first journalists to visit liberated Lyman, where locals rejoice and loot Russian stores, corpses of ambushed Russian troops lay on the roads, and Ukrainian troops make a bonfire of Russian referendum posters. Photos by @ManuBrabo wsj.com/articles/as-ru
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“The Ukrainians will keep the situation hot,” says. “An insurgency is an important part of what comes next.” Our look at the puppet governments in charge of the 'annexed' regions and the threats they face
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While Putin signs the so-called annexation treaties for Ukrainian territories, the Russian army is getting pushed back in Ukraine
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To summarize, several Russian telegram channels are warning that the battle in Lyman is at a critical point and that Ukraine is advancing from the north and southeast. Possible that the pocket collapses tonight or tomorrow, which would overshadow the annexation announcement.
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In one of the craziest batshit speeches Putin has ever made, he now claims the "collective west is afraid of our philosophy and that's why they try to assassinate our philosophers".
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Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to sign four treaties to absorb swaths of Ukrainian territory into the Russian Federation, signaling a sharp escalation in the war as Kyiv vowed to retake occupied areas wsj.com/articles/russi via
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Our story on the impact of the new troop mobilization on Russia's economy. Business owners and investors inside the country reacted with dread to the news. The CEO of a food-production plant was asked by local authorities to send a list of employees eligible for military service.
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"It’s as if everyone put on an invisibility cloak and quieted down.”
Putin's troop mobilization, plunging energy prices and a new round of Western sanctions threaten to bear down on Russia’s already embattled economy wsj.com/articles/russi w/ @ychernova @josephttwallace
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From underground meetings to protests, I reported from Moscow on a beleaguered opposition movement and its window of opportunity. “This is a question of moral principle. What will my kids think of me if they find out I didn’t try to at least do something?”
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I spoke with more conscripts in the past couple of days, after we published this, and am increasingly hearing justifications for what they are resigned to do - even those who were against the war. ie There must be a reason.
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We spoke to Russians fleeing mobilization and protesters who were handed notices after being detained during antiwar rallies last night. “The war stepped out of the television and reached the big cities. It’s a big change.”
wsj.com/articles/russi
Russians hoping to flee Putin’s mobilization are facing a cold shoulder from the country’s EU neighbors. “Neighboring countries should be glad that men fit for military service, as well as taxpayers, are leaving Russia," said Anton, who just got to Finland
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Epic, vivid opus by about the citizen soldiers who turned the tide to win the battle for Kyiv. “We are like a hive of bees. One bee is nothing, but a thousand can defeat a big force.”
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I watched a bit of Russian TV this week for this story. TV host Vladimir Solovyov asked Donbas battlefield commander Khodakovsky about HIMARS. K. replied: "On the one hand, they are causing us damage, on the other hand, they are demonstrating to us our inability to repulse them"
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Battlefield setbacks are just one challenge facing Russia’s leadership as it tries to secure its territorial gains in Ukraine and fend off criticism at home wsj.com/articles/russi with @DanMichaelsWSJ
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Battlefield setbacks are just one challenge facing Russia’s leadership as it tries to secure its territorial gains in Ukraine and fend off criticism at home wsj.com/articles/russi with
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