, Columnist
Putin May Have Killed Russia's Brand
A Russian tech guru thinks the Malaysia Airlines tragedy has killed off Russia's brand. He has a point.
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Is the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 the end of Russia as a brand? That's what one of the most successful Russian professionals in the tech industry, Max Skibinsky, thinks. He has a point: Whoever is really responsible for the tragedy, it's the perception that matters.
A Moscow-trained physicist, Skibinsky is a serial entrepreneur associated with the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz LLC. Although he has spent the last two decades in the U.S., people in Silicon Valley still see him as a Russian -- an identity he worries may turn into a stigma. As he put it in a lengthy blog post: