“It was difficult to walk away from big money”: programmer Nikita Shamgunov gave up a $2 million job at Facebook to build a company worth $400 million

Nikita Shamgunov is one of the best Russian programmers. In 2001, together with the team, he took bronze at the World Sports Programming Championship, and 10 years later he created the MemSQL database accelerator, which is used by Uber, Samsung, Cisco and Sony. Yuri Milner and Max Levchin invested in MemSQL, and its cost is estimated at $400 million. Shamgunov, in an interview with Elizaveta Osetinskaya, told how it feels to give up $2 million and build a company from scratch, why there are fewer women in programming than men, and what he spoke to Bill Gates.

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“Kolya Durov won us”: how to start programming in Yekaterinburg in the 90s?

- As far as I understand, you were the bronze medalist of the World Programming Championship. In general, programming is what, a sport?

- There is sports programming, this is such a game. It is more popular in Russia than in the USA. And the reason is that in Russia there are fewer opportunities for realizing a very talented person in computer science or mathematics. Here [in the US] you can build robots, you can do artificial intelligence. You can go to Silicon Valley in the summer to work for Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Strike, Uber. You can work in a laboratory at your university or start your own startup.

And all these things can also be done in Russia. But you need to be much more persistent in order to achieve different results. And there is a line behind you. For example, you study at MIT, you are talented, which means that you have a huge amount of choice. And making this choice is very easy. As soon as you made it, you need to sign it here, and that's it, go. In Russia it is more difficult.

- That is, instead of being realized in the profession, the guys go and realize themselves in this as in sports?

“I was working and studying at the same time. He worked in the UralRelcom company, which is no longer there, it was bought. And I did [develop] early websites.

- year 2001?

- 1999 even. I was still in my 2nd or 3rd year at the time. And in Yekaterinburg, he could do this or bookkeeping at SKB Kontur [SKB Kontur develops software. Was established in 1988. - The Bell. But it was much more interesting for me to study programming competitions. You not only constantly solve complex problems, train your brains, the ability to write a small program for a while, but if you do it successfully, then you go to St. Petersburg for competitions. And if you perform well in St. Petersburg, they take you ...

- For the World Cup?

- To the World Cup, to Canada. It is very funny. Although you are still a student.

- And what do they give the bronze medalist?

- Diploma and medal. But, in fact, in almost everything we do, the road is much more interesting than where you came.

Why didn't you win the gold medal?

- It's a sport. Someone takes the first place, someone - the second, someone - the third.

- And you, I understand correctly, Kolya Durov won?

- We were won by Kolya Durov [Nikolai Durov - one of the creators of VKontakte, brother of Pavel Durov. After leaving the company, he developed Telegram. - The Bell. He took first place then. And Andrey Stankevich, who is still at ITMO now, came in third [Andrey Stankevich is now an associate professor at the Faculty of Information Technology and Programming at ITMO. Sports programming coach. - The Bell.

- For me, Ekaterinburg of the 90s is generally associated with other things.

- With the mafia?

- "Uralmash", bandits, the struggle for industrial enterprises, privatization. It is amazing that at the same time you did not leave for another city, you stayed to do programming there. Why?

— I think it's very individual. Firstly, in our city there is a lyceum of the SUNTS UrFU. And a large number of my classmates have built very serious careers. Lenya Volkov went into politics. A man who studied a year older, Viktor Shaburov, sold his company [Looksery. — The Bell] in Snapchat, and now Snapchat [uses] these lenses. I wondered why this is happening. And I think that in the 90s, when we all went there, it was a unique place where there was a lot of freedom. The Russian economy was in some terrible state, it was recovering from the crisis of 1991. But the economic situation put pressure on professors and teachers who worked in research institutes. Due to this, they had to earn extra money. And when this company was created, they built the SUNC in Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Moscow.

Well, it's such a famous subculture.

- Yes. There were two hours of mathematics and two hours of physics each day. But the most interesting thing is that professors who were engaged in serious science came there and began to teach children. And we had a concentration of people who were very obsessed with science, knowledge, research. And this breath of freedom and enthusiasm (despite the fact that everything around was getting worse and worse with the economy) allowed children and teachers to concentrate and focus on dreams, opportunities, science. And it was an amazing atmosphere.

What was your dream then, do you remember?

— I wanted to become a mathematician and a scientist. Because dad is a mathematician and a scientist. But, on the other hand, it was there that I discovered computers and programming.

Why didn’t you go from this school to enter the famous Baumanka, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, also such forges of great programmers and successful people from Russia.

I think it was the influence of the parents. They wanted to keep me closer to home. And at that moment I still did not have enough maturity to say that I would go to Moscow. And now, looking back, I think it's not so important.

- Why then did you move to St. Petersburg?

- All this time I participated in the Olympiads. And Vladimir Germanovich Parfyonov built the best school for winning Olympiads, ITMO constantly won first places [ITMO students became winners of the International Student Olympiad in programming seven times. - The Bell. When he did this, the term "sports programming" didn't even exist yet. And now, if you look at who wins, it's either the St. Petersburg State Institute, or Moscow, or ITMO.

High School Paradise: How Does Microsoft Work?

At what point and why did you realize that you wanted to do business? You say: "I wanted to be a mathematician, a scientist, I was a sports programmer." But business is a completely different thing.

— After sports programming, I became a professional programmer. At first he worked in the Transas team. And then when I finished graduate school, I moved to Microsoft, I moved to Redmond and became a professional programmer.

Did you deliberately want to move? Or did it just happen opportunistically?

My boss moved to Microsoft. And as soon as it happened, I said to him: “How do I move to Microsoft?” I've always been interested in databases, ever since my undergraduate part-time days. And then my former boss said: well, easily, we will now recommend you here at SQL Server. And I flew to the interview, passed it, which was not easy - I practically did not speak English ...

- How did you get through it?

— The codes are international. You sit and write code on the board.

- Do they give you a task?

Yes, they give you a task. And when I passed this interview, they sent me a job offer. The compensation there was 20 times more than I was earning in St. Petersburg at that moment [Microsoft offered Nikita Shamgunov more than $100,000 a year. His salary in Russia then was $9.6 thousand per year. - The Bell. And so when I started working at Microsoft, for the first few years, I was absolutely amazed by these technologies. And every day I had a huge amount of fun and wrote code, releasing products to the market.

- For ordinary people, it sounds, of course, very strange. I had fun when I wrote code.

— Yes.

- What can this be compared to for a person who does not know how to write code?

- This is a creative activity. Writing code is very interesting, because when you write code, the computer immediately tells you whether this code works correctly or incorrectly. You have such engineering pride that this code works, there are no errors in it. And pride in the fact that customers use your product, and they are happy with what this product does. It's also such an intellectual challenge. Every time you do something that has never been done before you. You are creating something new. It is very easy to get addicted to this intellectual way of life. You come to work, solve interesting problems all day. You get it. They praise you for it and give you a lot of money.

- Listen, I think that there 90% of the audience and residents of Europe and America use these products, but few people realize what kind of company this is inside.

- I watched this company from the inside as a programmer. And my day was practically unstructured. There were some meetings that I needed to attend. But my work was judged by how well I write code and how well that code works. That is, [it was necessary] to write code quickly and correctly. And when you become a more serious programmer, you also need to think about why you are writing all this, and not just perform the task that your boss gives you.

Is it a 9 to 6 job or can you come in at 12 and leave at 12?

— The office is open around the clock. I came at 10 o'clock and left at 7 o'clock. When I was interested, I worked on weekends. When I was very interested, I did not stop working at all. But, on the other hand, there were a large number of different interests: skiing, playing football, I was engaged in table tennis. And, in general, I worked for the interest.

— You know, you are describing an unimagined paradise for a senior student of a mathematical school and a physical and mathematical class.

- Microsoft cleared this a long time ago, but Google also understood everything, and very quickly they built their offices so that people like me, when I was 22-23 years old, could not leave the office at all, everything is there . Coffee, beer, delicious food. No need to wear a shirt, you can walk in a T-shirt and slippers.

Why are there more men who code than women who code? We had an equal number of girls and boys at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University. But now, at our age, for example, most of the leaders of successful people who are employed in the profession are men. And here something is wrong.

Why is this happening? Often, from early childhood, we, parents (I have two children), talk differently about our children-boys and our children-girls. The most banal example is if we say to a girl: a princess, and our boy is an engineer.

“But it’s hard to work as a princess, you must admit.

- Yes, it is difficult to work as a princess.

“And what's more, everyone can't work as princesses.

Everyone can't work as princesses. The girl went dancing, and we say: how great, how beautifully she dances. And we tell boys how great he is at problem solving or how great he is at swimming or lifting weights or competing. And such things accumulate from year to year. In many cases, I manage to behave consciously. Here at our company, HR takes care of that.

— So you have a written policy?

We have a written policy. And we try very hard to have approximately the same number of men and women in the company. But, nevertheless, our team - this is called the executive team - consists of all men.

- Here you go! I just wanted to say how good everything is.

“But I think we will improve this situation over time.

— But it happens because you make such decisions? Or because you have not seen competent women?

- Saw. And I saw a lot. But there are fewer of them.

Why leave Microsoft for Facebook?

— Tell us, please, how did Facebook snatch you from Microsoft?

- Oh, it's very simple. So money is only one component. If you are in our business, then the money will be. But when I joined Facebook, I was already obsessed with entrepreneurship. At that moment, I realized that I did not want to be an engineer all my life, despite the fact that I really like to write code. And I remember, I discussed the situation with my friends, told them that Facebook was hunting me. And my friend said to me: one of the things you can do is go to Facebook and meet your partner there. In Silicon Valley, the people are toothy, the culture is different there. There's a lot more entrepreneurial spirit in the air.

- Wait a second, but Microsoft was not in the Valley?

- Microsoft in Seattle.

What's wrong with Seattle?

— Seattle is home to two of the largest companies in the world — Microsoft and Amazon. But, nevertheless, most professionals work for large companies. That is, a huge number of my friends work just on Facebook, Amazon, Google.

- That is, hired workers vs entrepreneurs?

— Entrepreneurship is an ecosystem. This is not only what an entrepreneur needs, but also venture capitalists, angels. And we need a large number of people who are ready to work in startups. And this is exactly the situation here. But what is interesting about Silicon Valley? This whole ecosystem is very clear. And a large number of people with whom you can go for a cup of coffee, and everything will be explained to you calmly.

What did they want from you?

- Programmer. It was necessary to write infrastructure. I wrote the infrastructure in Facebook.

- What it is? Let's say how would you explain to your older child in a couple of years what infrastructure is at Facebook?

- It's very simple. Everything that we do and use has some kind of foundation: what we build our products from, what this camera consists of, what this office consists of. And the infrastructure is those components that you can't see, but the product doesn't work without them. If we go down to the most fundamental level: when we press a button on the phone, what happens at that moment? The phone creates a signal, and it says: okay, do me what you want from the phone. And the infrastructure picks up this task and says: hey, phone, I did everything, everything is fine, it's time for you to upload the next picture or the next video, upload this cartoon.

- I read about you that at first you got into some kind of hacker camp on Facebook.

— Bootcamp.

- What it is?

- Bootcamp is when you communicate with various teams inside Facebook for the first few weeks, and you are also in a certain audience with people like you, with those people who have just arrived. You have similar problems, similar tasks. And you find your friends, and that's where I met my future partner, at Bootcamp.

How to give up $2 million and create a company from scratch?

— Tell me, why did you decide not to be a creative unit anymore, but to build companies?

It happened at Microsoft. But at that moment I had absolutely no idea how to do it. I didn't even have any idea.

Is it about transforming myself as a person or is it about me wanting to do something that will work without me?

- Most likely, to make something that a large number of people will use, build your product. The amount of risk, time, and effort it takes to build something that stands firmly on its own feet far outweighs the amount of money you can earn by joining a company like Facebook at the right time. On the other hand, if you win, then you have financial independence.

“More like you have mental independence. Nobody tells you what to do.

- You have a board of directors. He also tells you a little bit [what needs to be done]. But, on the other hand, you won't earn all the money. And also the amount of creative effort, creativity that goes beyond writing the right code, about how you can exist in an independent world, it is much greater. You suddenly go from life in two-dimensional space to three-dimensional or four-dimensional.

- Tell me, please, and you say: I found my partner at Bootcamp, on Facebook. His name is Eric Frenkel.

- Yes, we met when we went to Facebook. I came from Southeast Asia because I was on vacation between Microsoft and Facebook. Returned. I drowned my glasses, I only had sports glasses in which I played football. So they are, you know...

- Fashionable.

— Fashionable with an elastic band. All my T-shirts are gone. I still have such a transparent T-shirt and slippers. You know, this is how I go to Facebook.

- Pretty exotic.

- Yes. And I meet Eric. And somehow we got along. The next day I came in normal clothes, because I had washed everything. A week later I bought myself normal glasses. I began to look like a normal person, and not like some exotic schmuck from Europe. We [Eric] started talking, and we began to think: but if we had a company, what would it be? And then we applied. And Eric has a lot of energy.

- As we remember, this is an important quality in order to do something.

- It is important. And we applied to Y Combinator [Y Combinator is the world's largest business incubator for startups. — The Bell], and we were accepted.

- Wait wait. First you applied, energy wasted in the wrong direction. At first they didn't accept you.

We weren't accepted at first. But Eric found some investors. And we changed our idea.

- What's the idea?

- The idea is to build MemSQL - a database.

“I had a lot of questions about this. Imagine that your five-year-old child is sitting in front of you. Try to explain to me and everyone else what this thing does.

- In the world we live in, there is a category of products called "database". What it is? Any application that you see on your phone shows you some data. Where does it get this data? From the database. This is a product that is built specifically to save data and display it to you on your phone or on the Internet. There is more and more data in our world. And if you look at any other components in the infrastructure, like signaling, storage systems, applications, they have all changed in that time. And databases haven't changed much for one reason. Because the technology is complex. It takes time.

- I don’t understand something, Facebook wasn’t offended that you came there with Eric, started working, and went to Y Combinator yourself?

- We first entered Y Combinator and began working on the product in the evenings. But then we left. And it was difficult because you're walking away from a lot of money. But, on the other hand, the stars have aligned, and you understand that there may not be such an opportunity in the future.

— And how did you reason? I read in other media that you had $2 million worth of shares. Now you need to give up $2 million, you need to make a decision, take yourself off the hook. There lunches are free. How do you negotiate with yourself?

“Firstly, people began to join us. Microsoft people were ready to join us. And not like they tell you: if you leave, I will leave Microsoft. They began to take an interest and spend time to learn similar technologies. And at this moment there is such leadership.

— Courage.

- Not courage. They show not only what the world will be like in the future, but they show everyone else that they are ready to sacrifice some other things in order to move towards this world. And that was one of the first moments, lessons on how leadership works. I remember I was talking with my friend, he also worked here in some startup, his name is Diego.

And what did Diego say?

- Diego said: "You need to leave Facebook."

- Yes, but you need to refuse $ 2 million, not him.

“That is also true. But then he told me that if you want to be a leader, you need to leave Facebook. And I have my own situation. But, on the other hand, I came home, thought, looked at the caliber of people who are ready to join us. And Y Combinator, who by that time had already given us some money, showed a desire to solve this problem for the enthusiasm with which the team looked at this idea.

What did Eric say?

Eric agreed with me that we should leave.

Well, it was still your decision to a greater extent?

- I left first. We agreed with him that we would leave. He spent another five days to make up his mind, but he also left.

- How long did it take you to decide?

Every day we made progress towards our goal. I wrote some code on Facebook. Then we had a new year, some holidays, on which, of course, I worked. And gradually the enthusiasm for my new product grew, while for Facebook it subsided. And then I talked to Eric and said: "that's it, we're leaving." And we left.

How long have you been writing code like this?

- Not very long. A few months. And then they moved to San Francisco. We hired the first people, they came to us from Seattle.

How to get Yuri Milner's money?

- When did Yuri Milner come to you? Or did you come to him?

“Early enough. And he didn't come to us, he came to Y Combinator first. This season, Yuri Milner gave each startup in the accelerator, in my opinion, $170,000. And since we stood out from the rest of the startups, he gave us twice as much or an additional 200,000.

— And how did you stand out against the background of startups?

We were different. There were a large number of startups that wrote mobile applications or websites.

Something more poppy?

- Yes, I don’t know if it’s pop or not, what’s the difference. It is important whether there is a market and how fast this startup is growing. And we wrote the infrastructure. There were very few infrastructure startups in Y Combinator. And throughout history, in fact, there were few of them.

- So you need those who themselves have a huge amount of data?

- Yes, right. If you look at the list of our clients, these are huge banks like Morgan Stanley, these are telecommunications companies like Comcast or Verizon.

- At what point did you have customers in general who began to buy?

“We got them pretty early. The first was Lady Gaga. There was a startup that became friends with Lady Gaga and said that we would build an individual social network for you, which was called “Little Monsters”. Little monsters are Lady Gaga fans. After 9 months, in my opinion, we already had the first contract. We were paid $50,000 for it. We lost this contract because the technologies were not ready. But we held out for several months. And we understood what was what.

- When did you get real users, and not these monsters?

- In another year. We have signed a contract with Zynga. The technology didn't work then. But after another 4 months, we at Zynga deployed this technology.

- And when did you start earning money?

“That’s when they started making money. Lady Gaga gave us $50,000.

Why did the creator of MemSQL step away from running the company?

“Tell me, please, what happened to Eric?” Why did Eric leave?

- It was a triangle of relationships - Eric, me and the board of directors. And at some point we had three different opinions on where to move our company. And then personal priorities. Eric wanted to start a family.

“You, too, I understand, succeeded.

- Yes. I wanted to bring a lot more efficiency to the whole organization. And the board of directors wanted us to make more money.

— What three different tasks.

- Three different tasks. And as a result, I became the CEO. And Eric started a family. And we started making a lot more money.

“It’s a little strange for people your age to say that a person chose a family instead of being the CEO of a growing, active company. Maybe he didn't make it?

From the point of view of the board of directors, he did not cope. If the CEO is growing the company at high speed, he says every year: "I will execute this plan." And then at the end of the year you look to see if that plan will work or not. And the most important quality of entrepreneurs and members of the executive team, as well as the board of directors, is to do what you promised. It helps a lot when you are a programmer, when you are a manager. But the stakes are only going up. And if you didn’t do it once, then they look at you so a little. Didn't do that two, you need to explain very clearly why. Didn't complete three, that's it, time is up.

- Of course, I talked to people I know from the investment business, I consult with everyone. They tell me, look, this company has raised $108 million. According to this Y Combinator list, the famous Y Combinator 100 companies, you are in 40th place between 39th and 41st. And by the cost of the 39th and 41st, you can understand that you are worth about $400 million. For ordinary people, this is good. And for venture capitalists, this is not enough, because venture capitalists want a return of 1000 for the 100 they invested. What to do?

- We will continue to work. Yes, with each stage of financing you discuss with investors, and they think, build a model. At first, because who knows what will happen there, two people and a dog, what they will do.

- Was there a dog?

- There was a dog. But then, when the company develops further, this fog of war gradually dissipates, and you can see what happens next. And the farther into the forest, the thicker the partisans. And some guerrillas who come and invest, they build a model. This model has such a unit economics, and they look at how fast you conquer the market, how fast competitors conquer the market. The market is changing like this, what will happen in the future. How fast are you growing. Will you continue to grow. My goal is for the company to be higher. After all, I have a certain percentage of this company. The more the company is worth, the better off I am financially.

— This is a painful question for founders. How much is left after all rounds?

- Enough left. About 10%.

- It's a lot.

Well, that's enough for now.

How does Facebook work from the inside?

"I'm going to ask one thing that's completely unrelated to you directly." But you still worked at Facebook for quite some time. Everyone knows this company, people are just interested to know how it works inside. What is the corporate culture there? And what kind of people work there?

- On Facebook at the time when I was there, it seemed that every person was really very strong. And it was cool.

- Was it really the elite of programming?

- Yes. And secondly, Facebook has invested heavily in tools. I mean, engineers, they are only as productive as the tools they work with. And Facebook has built a lot of tools for programmers. Which was also very important. Because professionals like to work with good tools.

— What are the tools in this sense?

“Here's a camera and operator for you. And for a programmer, this is a programming language, an environment, how you run tests, how you ensure that the quality is good, how well you can receive a signal, your product works well in the market or poorly. Do users like what you have done. And all these things have been very well built in Facebook.

— Don’t you think that in the end Facebook fell into some kind of technological trap, where its ideological and technological basis became, in fact, a weak point in the ethical and social sense.

- Certainly. Much is written about this. And, for example, I don't have Facebook on my phone, I don't use Facebook.

— Messenger too?

“Messenger stayed because sometimes people text me on Messenger.

Why don't you have Facebook on your phone?

— I don't have Facebook on my phone, I don't have a notification on my phone. And the reason is because I think people are happier if they don't get interrupted all the time. Everyone is fighting for the time you spend in front of the screen. And their weapons are companies of such data scientists who sit at home and think about how to make our products so that people spend more time on their product. And the main tool is notification. I generally monitor the amount of time I spend in front of a phone screen.

What will you do when the kids grow up? Well now, at three and a half [years], I think the phone is your best friend.

- No. Dasha, her daughter's name is Dasha, she doesn't spend time on the phone. If she spends time on the phone, she only listens, does not look at anything.

- But at some point she wants, what do you say: “no, Dasha, put it down”?

- At some point I will say: "no, put it down."

- You will have a generation gap. Sooner or later she will become a teenager and will not listen to her dad. And he will say that dad is not a bastard.

“Daddy isn’t a bastard. Well, we still have to live until then.

“You want to delay her encounter time?”

- Yes, I think in 20 years we will look at the situation with phones, which we had with cigarettes. I noticed that when I disabled the app, my life improved. I'm more productive, more focused, I'm having a better time in our meetings. Because there is no phone in front of me that shoots constantly.

What is the greatness of Russian programmers?

- It's about something else. Tell me, please, the greatness of Russian programmers, their special talent, given the victories at the Olympiads, is this true or a myth?

— There are a large number of talented Russian programmers.

- How did you manage to achieve this, what is the phenomenon here?

— It seems to me that, starting from the Soviet Union, there was a great emphasis on mathematics, physics and then later on computer science. This is the focus of our universities on computer science, which began in the 80s and 90s, has only developed since that time. Olympiads make a contribution, but even before computer Olympiads, there were Olympiads in physics, mathematics, biology, and the Russian language. And the culture of our Russian society is such that they encouraged people to participate in these olympiads.

- You support, as far as I understand, this school, from which you yourself came out, financial. You have some kind of bonus. [Nikita Shamgunov established an award for teachers of the STSC. The winners receive $1000 each. - The Bell. What exactly do you support, the emergence of young programmers?

- I just think that this school has greatly influenced my perception of the world and the limited success that I have reached. And I want to somehow encourage people, especially teachers who work every day and develop these children.

So you support teachers?

— Yes.

- As for the young programmers themselves. Do you want them to stay in Russia, so they don't leave, or does it not matter to you?

“I want them to be happy. And they had a good and happy life. I don't want to influence their big decision to leave or stay.

One way or another, you indirectly influence by your example.

- Maybe. But, if you look at the statistics, my particular life is only one point in the statistical sea.

— People, when they make a decision, are inspired by something. They don't look at statistics, they look people in the eye and read stories.

- Yes, I know.

- Do you think that, roughly speaking, the successful fate of a Russian programmer is possible in Russia?

- Yes, sure. Absolutely. It is possible in Russia, America, Germany, Australia, India or China. Talented people always succeed somehow. And in any environment there are always opportunities. Now China is on the rise. Often there is a wall around the country, as, for example, in China. But in principle, there is also a wall around Russia. And this wall is the Russian language. You can build a company that works very well for the Russian language and Russian culture, but this company may not be as strong in the global market.

“I see a lot of corruption”: about friendship with Leonid Volkov and ties with Russia

- You are friends with Leonid Volkov. More about programming. How do you feel about his political views?

“I love him very much as a friend. We meet with him periodically. And he tells me political stories. And this is very interesting, this world, in which I do not understand very well, and for a long time I have not been to Russia. But, nevertheless, what is happening is very interesting. And I always want to learn and understand how people make decisions, how tectonic shifts are taking place in the country, to understand the way of thinking and logic of people like Navalny and Volkov, as well as the logic of people who are Putin and the team. And sometimes some serious events happen, it is interesting to understand [why], let's take Crimea. That is, some decisions and some strategy led to this decision and to its implementation.

- Is your sympathy on the side of Leonid and Alexei Navalny or on the other side?

— For me, they are all neutral enough. I don't like corruption. I believe corruption affects economic development. And as a person, I believe in economic development. I believe that the faster the economy develops, the better for the country and for the population. I see quite a lot of corruption now. Just talking with friends in Russia. I like Lena. But I have never seen or communicated with Navalny.

- Do you associate yourself with America as a resident or with Russia?

— Now more with America. Because the family is here, the company is here, it is English-speaking, the family is half Russian-speaking, half English-speaking. And I spend most of my time here. But, of course, I'm Russian. That is, I was born there, grew up and came to America at the age of 26.

— Will your children speak Russian?

— Yes.

— Are there many Russians working in the company?

- Three or four.

- What about everything?

- 150.

- The myth about Russian programmers has been refuted by MemSQL.

- As I said, a huge number of talented people in Russia, in almost any world. The question is in your specific situation with your specific 150 people, how effectively can you get, hire talented people. And you don't care where they come from.

— Leonid told me that you have a very good sense of trends. That you are good at guessing, anticipating the future. You would make a good VC [venture investor. — The Bell] if you sold your business. Accordingly, I have two questions. Question one: are you going to be a VC, a venture capitalist?

- Yes. I'm very interested in trying two things. The first is to learn to manage at the next level. So now there are 50 people in the company. How it all changes when there are 1500 in a company. Or how it changes when there are 10 thousand in a company. Instincts, how you work, how you spend your day, what you do, what you spend your time on, is completely different at this moment. And secondly, it would be very interesting for me to be a VC, because you communicate with entrepreneurs all the time. I have a lot of respect for entrepreneurs. Especially the same category of entrepreneurs that I spoke about at the very beginning. Who have a lot of energy, who look at the world with curiosity, who have such big open eyes. They are interested in achieving something and constantly building something. There are few such people, but it is very interesting to work with them. And when you communicate with them, they often change your worldview. On the other hand, VC is very responsible. You manage money that some big organizations have entrusted to you, and you need to bet on something, and it will be something.

— Can you name three technological trends that we will all face in 5-10 years?

Some of them are very easy to say. Cars will drive themselves. And a large amount of artificial intelligence will be in almost every product. There is still quite a lot of it on the phone.

Blitz: meeting with Bill Gates and the main failure

— Blitz. Basically there are standard questions. But there are also special ones for you. Russia or America?

- America.

— Facebook or Microsoft?

— Microsoft.

- Why?

- This is a completely personal question. Products that Microsoft builds, who are these products for? These are products for both businesses and engineers. And for me, as an engineer, Microsoft makes more interesting products.

For me, Microsoft is just Office.

- And for me, Microsoft is such a constructor that I use as an engineer, my eyes light up.

- The main success in your life?

— My family and children.

What about the main failure?

— My previous family.

- A person who is supernormal for you?

— I have such a mentor, his name is Mohit Aron. And he first worked at Google on the file system. Then he created one company in which he was the technical director. Then he created another company, which is now unicorn - Cohesity. And I rely on him a lot and communicate with him.

— How did you meet him?

We were introduced by a mutual friend, Lad Gil, who is also an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He has an interesting book called The Book of Growth. And from the point of view of such entrepreneurs, who are on a completely different level, I really like Bill Gates.

- With what?

First of all, he is very, very smart. Secondly, he is such a big nerd in life. Until now, he is completely immersed in technology and still looks at the world with such a slightly naive, open eyes. And thirdly, he built the largest company in the world, and he is an entrepreneur who is completely incomparable to anyone. Fourth, he didn't go over to the dark side.

- What is it?

- Some kind of mega-consumerism. He doesn't buy islands in Hawaii. Not like Larry Ellison, for example. And fifthly, he invests very heavily the money that he has earned in things that the world needs. For example, the elimination of poliomyelitis and other diseases. He's working with Africa on poverty, on malaria. And now he's working on energy, global warming.

— Did you communicate with him?

“I met him once in the toilet.

- What did you say to him?

— I asked him the following. I said Bill Gates...

Did you tell him: Bill?

“I think I said Bill. I asked: there was a presentation just now where you were very optimistic about progress on malaria, about progress on polio, optimistic about progress against poverty and are now working on obesity and diabetes. And Bill Gates in this presentation said: obesity and diabetes, if we solve this problem, then a large number of people will be in a better situation than they are now. And the only thing you weren't very optimistic about was global warming. And my question to you is this: if we, for example, eliminate malaria, then we will improve the life of a certain percentage of the population, but if global warming really happens, then - there is an expression in English - we will fall off the cliff. That is, there is some kind of line, if we cross this line, then we will all be very bad. So why are you wasting your energy on these things and not global warming?

Is there a place on Earth where you would like to visit?

- There are many such places. As I said, when you build your startup, you don’t have much time for everything. You have enough time for your family and for a startup. The year before last we traveled to Europe, we really like it there. I want to visit Antarctica, Iceland. In general, I want to visit the world championships in various sports. I like sport very much.

- Which?

- I played table tennis. Now I do a lot of fitness. I love tennis, I love basketball. Basketball, thank God, is here. The best team in the US is here in Oakland.

— Warriors?

— Warriors .

- Last question. If you happen to meet Zuckerberg somewhere else, what would you ask him or what would you say to him?

— This is a difficult question. Because Zuckerberg continues to develop Facebook as a corporation. Unlike Bill Gates, whose range of interests is much wider. Also, I think I will ask: will he become the President of the United States? But, it seems to me, after the recent events, it will be quite difficult for him to get there. I will probably ask him: if not Facebook, what would you be interested in, what would you be interested in spending a huge amount of time and energy on. To which he will most likely answer that at the moment it is Facebook.

That's what he'll say if I ask him.

— Yes.

- But I'm a journalist, and he has no right to say such things in public. I think he would have said something else to you.

“Perhaps he will answer something. It would be interesting to know about it.

Elizabeth Osetinskaya