Hi, I’m Teddy Schleifer. Welcome back to The Stratosphere.

Good afternoon from the annual Upfront Summit in Los Angeles, the tech conference with the best atmospherics in America, and one of the few conferences worth going to anymore.

If you’ve already subscribed to Puck, thank you. Did you know that you can “gift” web articles that you’d like to share? Just hit the little gift box image near the top of the screen—subscribers can share up to five articles per month.

If you’re new here, I hope you’ll see the value in subscribing for full access to everything in today’s email: What I’m hearing about Yuri Milner’s Russian money, Sam Bankman-Fried’s new philanthropic war chest, and why Silicon Valley wealth managers are secretly grateful for Joe Manchin. 

SPONSORED BY FACEBOOK

But first, a few notes:

• Scott Wiener, the San Francisco state senator who is widely thought to be a leading candidate to replace Nancy Pelosi in Congress next year, alongside the likes of Christine Pelosi and maybe even Reed Jobs, was asked about his intentions last week by the always-entertaining politico, and now Mission cafe owner, Manny Yekuitel. Wiener was circumspect: “As long as she is in that role, it's to San Francisco's benefit, it's to the country's benefit. Who knows what the future holds?” he told Manny at his namesake coffee shop. “I’m in no rush to leave the Senate.”

• Georgia Democratic icon Stacey Abrams, a prodigious fundraiser with the technorati, is passing the hat in Silicon Valley next week, per two invitations I’ve seen...

Yuri Milner’s Eastern Promises

Economic sanctions targeting Russia, and oligarch Alisher Usmanov, are raising new questions about Milner’s past financial partners. So far, he’s staying quiet.

What is Yuri Milner thinking? That’s the question I posed last week to Milner’s spokesman, after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and then again on Monday, after Western governments responded with crippling sanctions. Milner, after all, is easily among Silicon Valley’s most prominent Russians, having made billions of dollars as the force behind DST Global, the venture firm that placed historic bets on Facebook and Twitter, among other Bay Area landmarks. But it was Milner’s embattled friends that put him on my mind: The Russian provenance of DST’s early capital was supplied in large part by Alisher Usmanov, a Russian oligarch who made his fortune in metal and mining before teaming up with Milner in 2008.

The partnership worked out pretty well, for both of them. But the last few days have made clear that shaking the past isn’t so easy...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT