Growing up in the old Soviet Union, Dmitry Akhanov feared Americans. "Being
a kid in the early '80s, it would have been both a challenging and
frightening experience to talk to a U.S. person, because of the Cold War
and all the history," he said.
Today, Akhanov is Russia's point
man in Silicon Valley, a striking example of how investment, not
ideology, governs the relationship between the two historic rivals. As
president and CEO of Menlo Park's Rusnano USA, Akhanov oversees the U.S.
unit of a Russian government-owned nanotechnology fund that has
invested about $1.2 billion in the last three years in
American companies.
"When you do business with someone, you tend
to trust them, otherwise you will not be doing business with them,"
Akhanov said. In the post-Soviet era, younger generations have been
weaned on the Internet and social media. "You know people personally,"
he said. "You meet them, and you see them from a different viewpoint."
However, Russia's decision to annex Crimea and mass troops on Ukraine's eastern border is testing those relationships.
"We know how to work when we're in different parts of the world," said Ukrainian entrepreneur
Yaroslav Azhnyuk,
the 25-year-old CEO of a San Francisco startup called Petcube. "Even if
something horrible happens, we'll just move to Europe, or wherever, and
continue working from there."
Petcube, which is developing a
device that lets people watch their pets through a mobile phone app,
operates a development office in Kiev.
In some ways, the growing
economic ties between America and Russia could make a potential conflict
even messier. Silicon Valley depends a good deal on Russian money and
Ukrainian engineers to power its startups, while tech giants Cisco
Systems and Google have made major investments in the former
Soviet Union.
Russia is already pulling money out of Ukraine.
Russian investment in Ukrainian startups has nearly stopped because of
government propaganda, said
Vitaly Golomb, a Bay Area entrepreneur and investor.
One problem is the lack of leadership in Ukraine, a situation that may not be cleared up with elections at the end of May.
Some companies aren't waiting. Some businesses have already developed contingency plans to move staff to a neighboring country.
"I
have a few friends who run those companies, and they started doing
preventive things like opening an office in Moldova, which is like 70
miles away from Odessa, because they have deadlines and they have
budgets to meet," said
Denys Zhadanov,
marketing director for Readdle in Ukraine, which makes popular business
productivity apps like Scanner Pro for the iPhone and iPad.
Read more: Russia, U.S. tied by technology investments - SFGate
