Vladimir Potanin, Sergei Guriev and Elizaveta Osetinskaya argue about whether the history of Russian business could have been different.

How and why is Russian business changing? Judging by the events that occurred while 100 issues of Russian Forbes were being published (see page 92), the changes are mainly quantitative. Fortunes, transaction amounts and sales volumes rise and fall. But qualitatively the events are the same - Russian business still depends more on the authorities and global conditions than on its own activities. The owner of Interros, Vladimir Potanin (4th on the Forbes list of richest, worth $14.5 billion), the rector of the Russian Economic School, Sergei Guriev, and the chief Forbes editor Elizaveta Osetinskaya.

Elizaveta Osetinskaya (E. O.) . The hundredth issue of Forbes magazine is published in Russia. Let's remember 2004, when the first issue was published. Consensus in society, Putin won the elections, and many then supported him. Oil is on the rise. Now everything is different: we are in a new crisis. What is your account number?

Vladimir Potanin (V.P.). How to count. My first crisis began in the 1990s, when I resigned from the Ministry of Foreign Trade, left my home, and started doing business in the midst of the crisis, which is now called the “collapse of the Soviet Union.” Then there was 1998 with all the ensuing circumstances, then 2008, now it is unclear whether 2008 is continuing or a new one is beginning. This will become clear in 10 years.

"We don't know the future"

E.O. Has the streak of calm ended forever?

V.P. People rethought their attitude towards business and the economy during the Great Depression and the crisis of the 1970s. Now we are going through just such a period.

For years, investors have loved stable numbers, especially if they're growing. This was reflected in capitalization. What are we seeing now? Since 2000, Microsoft has been improving its financial performance. If you look at the revenue distribution of its products, it has been very stable over the past 15 years. Is it innovative? Undoubtedly! Are the products cutting edge? Otherwise! She has a stable financial flow, she is super stable in times of crisis, and she has the widest client base. And it has fallen in price by 2.5 times during this time. At its peak, Microsoft was worth $600 billion; now it is worth $240 billion.

And Apple? Until 2000, few people remembered about it. Jobs - the founder of the company! — kicked out. It was only in the late 1990s that he returned with new ideas. And what happened to Apple? Since 2002, you can see how the share of computers has been sharply declining, the share of iPods has reached a peak, and after some time the iPhone appeared and took up almost half of Apple’s revenue. Computers almost disappeared, the iPad appeared... The speed with which they introduced these products is impressive. Every three to four years! These three i's brought Steve Jobs the fame of the greatest businessman and $600 billion in capitalization.

It turns out that markets and investors value revolutionary innovations most. Consumers evaluate only super success. The winner takes it all. On the other hand, “the life of the cavalry guard is short-lived.” Once you stop surprising the world, everything falls down.

E.O. Is innovation ruling the world?

V.P. Not only. Another factor that requires rethinking is the constant increase in brand value. Now their importance is colossal. This is probably due to the globalization of the economy and the optimization of marketing costs: global brands cover space faster and conquer markets. But the degree of this globalization... Brands are growing with terrible force! And not only companies are being taken over, but also, in a sense, brands are being taken over or pushed out.

Sergey Guriev (S.G.). I don’t agree with one thing: the speed of communications is so high that brands can be deployed very quickly. Remember Skype and YouTube, which conquered the world. And another important change in the last 20 years is the source of innovation. Previously, innovation was created in the defense sector. Nowadays, the demand for innovation comes from consumers who want to talk on the phone and watch videos. In addition, there is a huge demand for innovation in healthcare - people want to live long. I'm willing to bet my money on this trend. People will live longer, the average consumer will be older. They need more medicine and technology to feel not old.

V.P. I would also note that during the crisis, the dependence of the entire world economy on credit resources has decreased. Regulators are seeking to limit financing tools. And an interesting consequence: the fundamental value of real assets has increased. In the last ten years there was a reception: they created a company. We write a business plan and package it, three years of reporting - and for an IPO. And now everyone has refocused on real financial flows. In private equity, we rely on companies that generate revenue. I haven't done this since early privatization. “Family-small business” psychology is returning to the market.

E.O. Shouldn’t the latter circumstance spur interest in a conservative commodity—oil?

V.P. Oil is of such great importance not because of market volumes. And because it is a universal regulator. Nuclear power plants take a long time to build. Plus, if Fukushima happens, it’s not clear what to do. Unconventional energy is great, but expensive. The pipeline is a huge investment and will inevitably attract government funding. And he poured oil into the tanker and drove off...

S.G. People often say “invest in gold,” but they forget that gold is not a fundamental value. This is a speculative commodity. And oil is a real commodity. Oil production accounts for 6% of global GDP. But at the current rate of technology development, it is likely that in 10 years, fuel for cars will be made from shale gas. And then there will be no high demand for oil.

V.P. Yes, in this case the need for it, of course, will fall, reserves will be overestimated: what is left for not 50, but 500 years... And hello! This excitement will easily end...

S.G. We must remember that energy balance is an endogenous thing. It is possible that this scenario will continue: oil prices will drop, this will be the only fuel for gasoline, and there will be even more cars in China. Nowadays there are few cars in China. If every Chinese person has as many cars as Brazilians, there will not be enough oil.

V.P. When people say: because of this, oil prices will fall, they can immediately be answered - because of this, they can rise. Three years ago, no one had heard of shale gas; no one knew what it was. And now he has ensured the balancing of the US energy balance. We don't know the future.

S.G. And America produces more gas than Russia.

V.P. And they are going to transport this gas to Europe in 2015. And immediately Russian dominance in the European gas market begins to look different...

“Russia is one of the vulnerable parts of the world”

E. O. Russia in an interesting external context. What were these eight years like for us?

V.P. I would say that the “Forbes history” of Russia is divided into two parts. What happened before 2008, and what happened after. The main idea before the crisis was a project to return Russia to the major league. For various reasons, we fell out of it in the 1990s. And in the 2000s they tried to return to it. During this time, inflation was reduced from over 20% to closer to 10%. Real incomes of the population have increased. Below the poverty line was a double-digit number, now it is considered to be single-digit. This is important: a country that wants to be in the top league should not allow people below the poverty line.

The reasons for success obviously lie in the favorable world market conditions and oil prices.

Perhaps one of the main conclusions of the crisis is that Russia is not just part of the world, but, no matter how offensive it may be to us, one of its most vulnerable parts. We grow fast and fall fast. And our country is passing the stress test with maximum stress.

S.G. Yes, Russia’s position in the world is important for the people. If we hold a referendum today and ask “Do you like Russia’s foreign policy?”, then the majority of the people will say: “It’s right that we oppose America.”

V.P. It’s just time to confront China. And, if possible, together with America.

S.G. Our elite has completely capitulated to China and believes that we cannot resist it. Generals and diplomats continue to oppose America. But for an ordinary person, it is not this that is important, but income and quality of life. This was part of the social contract before the crisis. And after that, these points disappeared.

V.P. And most importantly, some people have doubts about whether they can take the government’s assurances “we will do good for you” on faith. Yes, the crisis has shown that the state has become strong and is able to deal with crisis phenomena. This, of course, is a big plus in Putin’s career. And the very fact that the government is capable of doing this, it would seem, should have caused an increase in confidence. Businessmen were supported, many were pulled out of their complete ass. People's wages were not reduced. Unemployment, of course, increased, but compared to Spain this was simply cosmetic. Why hasn't trust grown?

E.O. But the exact opposite happened...

V.P. The realization has come that Putin, of course, did everything beautifully, but how dependent we are on the decisions made by the authorities! I wanted people to know more about it. For the authorities to share their plans and talk. But against the backdrop of success, the authorities took a step in the other direction.

Those who are able to analyze the situation see the price. If we compare gold and foreign exchange reserves in 2008 and a year later, in July 2009, they decreased by about 27%. More than a quarter of resources are spent simply maintaining the situation. What does this mean? That there is a resource, but it won’t last long.

E.O. Is it good or bad that the state did this? We avoided shocks, but missed the chance to carry out reforms...

V.P. But there is no consensus in society and the elite on what reforms are needed.

S.G. The word “consensus” is very important. You can look at Greece, or you can look at the Baltic countries. In the Baltic countries the government and the people are in the same boat, but in Greece they are not. And in Russia it seems to people that the government is trying to retain power at any cost.

It seems to me that as time goes on, people realize that the government says the right things but doesn't really care about them. People who watch TV still think there is an external enemy, and people who read the Internet see the extent of corruption among officials.

V.P. Feedback is important... I don’t feel that it is in demand. I see this in the work of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. Before Forbes appeared in 2004, everything was fine. And entrepreneurs made a very good contribution to judicial reform. There were many useful initiatives that were in the interests of the whole country. And then the stream of initiatives began to dry up. Maybe you, Forbes, got distracted - you started writing about yachts, started some ratings, and people were distracted from real work.

S.G. The authors of the reform of the 1990s thought this way: we will now create private property, and the owners will have a demand for market reforms. Everyone is laughing at them now: they created them, but there was no demand. But it turned out that they were right! Demand for market institutions on the part of owners appears some time (five years) after they restructure assets and after at least some macroeconomic stabilization has been achieved. And German Gref’s reforms in the early 2000s were a response to this demand.

Now let's look at the second half of the 2000s. Were there any reforms? No. Despite the fact that the authorities had every opportunity to carry them out, including unpopular ones. Instead, renationalization was carried out. Because when you completely dominate the economy, you don't need any reforms.

V.P. When a flat income scale was introduced, a very important signal was given to society and business: you can come out of the shadows. This is, in a sense, what the reformers of the 1990s dreamed of: if you give people the right message, if you convince them that it will be sustainable, they will begin to respond. And now some recent history. In 2011, insurance premiums were raised. New tax weights have been placed on business. What did this lead to? Everyone calculated differently, but they collected 300 billion less - I recently looked at such a certificate. This is a bad signal, which they took as “save yourself who can” and again ran “into the shadows.”

S.G. There is another example - the monetization of benefits. This was the last attempt at great reform. And the fact that it was carried out without feedback led to disaster. Convinced the authorities that feedback is very dangerous. If the Prime Minister and President ignore the feedback, they will take the entire elite out onto the streets.

“A real politician always fights for power”

E.O. You are known for your liberal views on economic policy. Your former partner Mikhail Prokhorov went into politics. You are clearly distancing yourself from her. Why?

V.P. Because I am a real statesman! I do not separate my long-term interests from the interests of the country as I understand them. I believe that the economy will be driven by private initiative, not the public sector. And that the logic of supporting business should prevail, and not observing whether they would earn too much, etc. My liberal views boil down to the fact that if you are strong and successful, then take on as much as possible so that the state didn’t care, and let the state take care of the disabled, injured, unsuccessful, etc.

S.G. But, Vladimir, Elizabeth asked you another question...

V.P. Let me give you one example. In 1992, during the US election campaign, when George Bush Sr. competed with Bill Clinton, there was a third candidate - Ross Perot. This is almost the only case when the third participant received a lot of votes (19% in New York - Forbes). I've seen a couple of videos of him debating candidates. It was open banter, clowning. The man, firstly, had fun himself, and secondly, in a very ironic way he highlighted the flaws in the campaigns of the two presidents. Pero did not fight for power. He came out to show himself and demonstrate the imperfection of the system.

E.O. So you think that Prokhorov didn’t take all this seriously?

V.P. The only goal of a politician can be to seize power. When Putin was just beginning his brilliant political career, he was a little more accessible for small talk and frank conversations. Naturally, those with whom he considered it possible to discuss such issues could ask him how things were with the authorities, whether he liked it or not. I have a strong feeling that he perceived it as a burden. For Putin, the word “power” is associated with the word “responsibility”, and not with the word “opportunity”.

I got this impression from personal conversations. Nikita Mikhalkov told me that at one time he asked Putin how he felt when he refrained from using force. Precisely in the direct, hard version. “I feel greatness,” Putin told him. I’m not trying to sing any special praises now...

E.O. No, you are now simply compensating for previous liberal speeches!

V.P. Understand it as you wish. Power should be perceived by a person as a serious burden. Some people think that Putin has achieved good results, others think that he has not. History will judge later. But the fact that he treated power in this way is obvious to me, and this inspires respect.

Politics is a struggle for power. When you receive power, you must understand why it is, what you want to do, etc. In an applied sense, you must be a fairly independent person. For example, I have many obligations both in business and in charitable activities. I do not feel ready to accept responsibility for the wider society. Not to mention the country. And that’s why I will never go into politics, into power.

E.O. Is Dmitry Medvedev a real politician? He ceded power to Putin without a fight.

S.G. Moreover, he recently said that there was never any struggle at all.

V.P. The relationship between Putin and Medvedev is generally a sensitive topic. Medvedev, in my opinion, has his own belief system. He doesn't hide them. He did not give up the fight for his views, and he defends them. He didn’t go anywhere, he remained prime minister. Another thing is that he implements these views in tandem with Putin or some kind of system of compromises between them as politicians.

S.G. In America, businessmen quite openly support opposition politicians. According to American law, donations to politicians are public information. Mikhail Prokhorov doesn't need your money to run his presidential campaign. But maybe there will be some kind of liberal party that will criticize the government and whose views will be closer to you than the views of the ruling party?

V.P. Perhaps. But now there is no such party. I’ll be honest: during this presidential election, I transferred money from my personal account to support candidate Putin. Do you know why? Because he was the most liberal of all the real candidates!

S.G. So he was the only real politician who ran for office.

V.P. No, there is Zyuganov. Yes, you will laugh, Zhirinovsky. I believe that the most effective defender of liberal values at the time of the election was Putin.

E.O. Would they give Navalny money?

I don’t know V.P. Navalny personally, I don’t understand what it is, what values he defends.

Unlike Kudrin. I watch what he does very closely. I consider him a new type of politician. He can’t yell and doesn’t have burning charisma. But he is a professional, he is well versed in economics. He is a patriot because he doesn’t want to go anywhere, he is not a brawler. He has many qualities that would allow him to become a politician who respects just such liberal, balanced, in my understanding, views.

In general, I think that the time for loudmouths is coming. We have real people who can do anything for real, are in some kind of corral. And if you ask me whether I’m afraid to give money to an opposition party if it is headed by Kudrin, the answer will be “yes”, I will definitely do it.

Since we are having an interview-discussion, can I now ask a question: do you yourself agree that of all the current politicians, Putin is the most liberal?

E.O. Of those who ran, Prokhorov is the more liberal.

V.P. Yes, I just think that Prokhorov is not a politician. I delicately drew a parallel with Ross Perot. You didn't hear her.

E.O. I heard her perfectly, but I don’t want to vote for either Putin or Zyuganov. It turns out that the political system does not provide me with a choice.

V.P. Well, I am a businessman, and I generally believe that our whole life is a business. We may not like, relatively speaking, how the family budget is structured, but we proceed from it. But we go where we can. This is the choice life provides, and this is where we must move. And to sit and say that you don’t like everything is the lot of losers, in my understanding.

E.O. It turns out an equally magical choice: either vote for what is proposed, or you are a loser...

V.P. There is no right-wing politician. Choose from those who are. Tell me: is it possible to resume administrative reform under Putin? Or is some other liberal reform possible?

E. O. Theoretically yes.

V.P. Here! Absolutely right. Because it does not contradict his views.

E.O. Putin may be a reformer. But we also know that he can be an anti-reformer. Putin is changeable. He can be what circumstances force him to be.

V.P. Yes, apparently, that’s why we cannot consider him a consistent liberal in the classical sense.

E.O. I am interested in your forecast. If in the next 100 issues of Forbes Putin does not make the reforms that you expect from him, what results will this lead to? How will the country change? What will happen?

V.P. Finally, the terminological game “liberal - statist” is over! Victory over the crisis came at great cost to Putin. The public sector has expanded. Was this the plan? I don’t think so, because many of my colleagues, and me too, could have twisted their arms during the crisis in such a way that it would not have seemed enough. Some people don’t even need to bother, everyone already came running to the government with the topic of redemption [of pledged assets].

I never discussed this with Putin, but it seems to me that at that moment he had a different thought: “You know what, you decided to get off easy!” What about responsibility? You started it, so now you rule! Do you want government loans? Please! But work it out! That is, it seemed to me that he thinks in terms of work.

The authorities have the idea that there are important sectors of the economy that need to be controlled. This is where my ideological differences, for example, begin. I don't believe that having a relationship with property is a way to control a situation. The state has more powerful administrative levers: tax policy, licenses, technical regulation, etc.

If the state protects the interests of all citizens, then it must be an owner at a minimum, otherwise it will have interests that are different from the interests of all people. Property begins to be managed by officials who find it difficult to resist temptations. Starting with the corrupt element and ending with the fact that people hold on to their seats.

S.G. The fact that Putin thinks so is due to the fact that he knows that private property is more effective than state property. Indeed, he deleted a number of industries from the clause of the decree on privatization precisely because he believes that these industries need to be controlled...

E.O. ...through property.

V.P. In this sense, this is his way of managing.

E.O. His vision of the world!

V.P. He understands the degree of corruption of officials no worse than we do. This, in my opinion, is where the theme comes from, that the requirement of trust begins to prevail over professionalism. It is better to have not the best professional, but an honest one. This is reflected in the effectiveness of management. But the nature of these views is clear.

E. O. Sergey, what does society expect from Putin, in your opinion?

S.G. Victory over corruption. Young people and the affluent middle class are demanding efforts to combat corruption. If this victory does not happen, then Putin will not be president in 6 years. There just isn’t enough money, there isn’t enough money in the country to cover all this inefficiency and corruption. And if we manage to defeat corruption, everything will blossom, like in a fairy tale about a Korean or Japanese miracle. If Putin does not defeat corruption, then Udaltsov and Navalny will unite and fight against Putin.

V.P. It’s just that, it seems to me, the sequence of events is different. That is, we do not first eliminate corruption within the framework of the “Elimination of Corruption” project. It’s like a community cleanup: everything is weeded and there is no more corruption. Everything happens the other way around. We first begin to do some positive things, against the background of which mutual trust begins to increase among different social groups, and this becomes a support for overcoming corruption.

“The auction was an example of the extraordinary power of lobbying.”

E.O. Shortly before the release of the first issue of Forbes, you closed the exhausting conflict with Friedman over the Sidanco oil company. Then you had a difficult “divorce” with Mikhail Prokhorov. And now you are fighting with Deripaska in Norilsk Nickel. Why do businessmen of the first wave continue the intensive redistribution of assets and by what methods is this done?

V.P. With Friedman we did not have a war of defeat. Because we both understood that we would have to somehow agree. The conflict was actually very short. It arose in 1998, and in 2000 ended with a very decent deal.

One of the side effects of the current situation is that businessmen expect that they will be able to attract the government to their side. Previously, the prevailing opinion was that business was creative work. Therefore, war is a minus, and an agreement is a plus. Therefore, the sooner you agree, the better.

I had an interesting discussion about the courts with a government man who previously worked in business and then in senior positions in the government apparatus. Since the mid-2000s, courts began to make decisions in favor of government organizations, believing that this was correct. What, he said, was better in the 1990s? The courts were corrupt and decided in favor of whoever paid the most. I said that when businessmen did this, they understood that they were doing it wrong, and the judges understood it all too. Therefore, someone just had to come and say: this won’t happen anymore! So Putin came and said that there would be different rules, and gave a couple of comrades a kick in the ass.

And now try to punish the judge who made a decision in favor of the state organization, violating all the rules of law and so on. He will be surprised. How so? I didn't take the money! I am for the benefit of the state! And it is much more difficult to correct his mistakes, because he sincerely believes in what he does well. My interlocutor seemed to think seriously about this.

S.G. But there is a London court or a Stockholm court...

V.P. There is neither a London court nor a Stockholm court. There is Russian reality, Russian bureaucracy and Russian lobbying resources. And the hope that one can rely on them overrides all rational considerations for many. The fashion for property has passed. In the 1990s, even inveterate criminals tried to launder their money; they built churches as best they could. Now, if you are a businessman and earn a lot, then this may already be perceived poorly by public opinion, because there is no understanding that there is an honest business. It turns out that property is not immutable. There is property that is obtained honestly, and there is property that is obtained dishonestly. Right or wrong. But property is like sturgeon, it can either be fresh or not. Either rights are protected or they are not.

E.O. You are the person who came up with the scheme of loans-for-shares auctions. Do you think that decision was correct?

V.P. I a priori recognize the injustice of all privatization. It could not be fair, because from the system, when everything was someone else’s, assets moved to the fact that someone grabbed something for themselves and earned something. And this was all unfair in any case.

But the greatest injustice began not at the time of voucher privatization, not at the time of loans-for-shares auctions, but when the Law on Cooperation allowed cooperators to turn non-cash money into cash. Because everyone who worked at state-owned enterprises had millions in their accounts, but received 150–200 rubles a month. And the person who opened a cooperative and said that he knits brooms could, by supplying them to the factory, receive this money and withdraw cash.

S.G. I’ll ask you a question about Berezovsky and Abramovich. They recently told a lot of details in a London court about the privatization of Sibneft. I don’t remember who held this auction, but the story about the privatization of Sibneft looks like the auction was a fraud.

The V.P. Auction was not a scam, but it was a shining example of the extraordinary power of lobbying. Like all privatizations, it was unfair. But what did the loans-for-shares auctions do? They created a class of large owners in Russia. That is, this broke a hole in the defense of the “red directors” of the factories. This was not a struggle between the oligarchs and the people or the government. It was a struggle between a new business and “red directors.” Everyone simply forgot how these people managed YUKOS, Norilsk Nickel, and Sibneft. People did not receive salaries for months, businesses did not pay taxes. It was terrible and needed to be privatized.

Do you know what I'll tell you? What kind of country it was, what kind of rules it had, that’s how it was privatized. I would love to play football at Wembley with some decent team and a good referee. But no, we played with the “red directors” without rules, without referees and on a muddy and bumpy field.

E.O. Don’t you think that a new stage is underway? That you and your colleagues are now being ousted by those who are called Putin’s friends, Medvedev’s favorites, they are actively using government funds...

V.P. Another consequence of the processes we described. There are a lot of states, its influence is enormous, the need for support from officials and other institutions is great, and crossing barriers is extremely difficult. Therefore, now has come the era of people who are not only entrepreneurial, but also good lobbyists. In the 1990s, the luckiest and sometimes the most shameless won. Now those who lobby their interests better are also winning. If we say that we have a bad investment climate and want to improve it, then the importance of lobbying should decrease. It is necessary to reduce the functions of the state, they need to be removed. This is the same path as in the case of fighting corruption.

Combat experience

How Vladimir Potanin gets out of corporate conflicts.

Mikhail Prokhorov at stake: $30 billion

Time: 2007–2009

Subject of the dispute: the property of the Interros holding, which they built together for 16 years

state of conflict: after two years of proceedings, the “divorce” was completed

Result: draw

Oleg Deripaska is at stake: stakes worth at least $7.5 billion each

Time: 2008 to present

Subject of dispute: control over Norilsk Nickel, state of conflict: Potanin has a larger stake, management supports him, against Deripaska - conflict in Rusal and debts Result: Potanin wins on points

Mikhail Fridman

at stake: $1.1 billion

Time: 1998–2000

Subject of dispute: Sidanco oil company

state of conflict: Potanin sold TNK for $1.1 billion

Result: loss

Vladimir Lisin at stake: $200 million

Time: 2000–2001

Subject of dispute: NLMK state of conflict: Potanin sold a stake in NLMK to Lisin, and he sold Norilsk Nickel securities on the market

Result: draw

“Which country has been privatized...”