Russians vs google world domination
by Mark Franchetti for Sunday Times
This Russian mathematician was 24 years old when he first saw a personal computer, of which there were only a dozen in the Soviet Union. That was in 1984.
Today, twenty years later, Arkady Volozh is the executive director and one of the founders of the leading Russian Internet search engine Yandex, estimated at £ 2.5 billion. Often referred to as Google’s Russian response, Yandex was launched only eight years ago, but it is already visited by about 8 million people daily. Even more impressive is the fact that Yandex and Volozh are credited with Google's defiance, which impedes its global dominance.
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Russia is one of only four countries where the position of the American search engine is much worse than that of local players, along with China, where the government controls the Internet, South Korea and the Czech Republic. “Googling” may be the main way of searching the world Internet, but in Russia Yandex owns 55% of the market share compared to 21% of Google.
Google can't afford to ignore it painlessly. Thanks to the prosperity of its economy and the growth of the middle class, Russia is expected to become the largest European Internet market in the next 5 years, reaching 60 million users by 2013.
Thirteen years ago, when the Russian Internet was just emerging, the traffic volume was so small that it would fit on a regular flash drive. Today, by comparison, 33 million Russians use the Internet - as many as the British, and even more than the French.
The explosive growth of Yandex is logical. In 2000, when the company was valued at ÂŁ 7 million, its annual revenue was ÂŁ 200,000. In 2007, it reached ÂŁ 85 million, and analysts predict a doubling this year.
This fall, Yandex plans to enter the Nasdaq exchange. The group of Western investment funds, which invested about ÂŁ 2.5 million in 2000, expects to sell shares for ÂŁ 700 million.
“This is a very exciting time,” says Volozh, who is preparing, together with 1,200 employees, to move from a completely new office in the center of Moscow. “Russia has the potential to become the largest Internet market in Europe. This is a huge market with fantastic growth rates. Every day, more and more people in Russia are discovering the possibilities of the Internet. ”
“We have better technology and a better understanding of the market. I take competitors seriously and study the latest data every day to understand the situation, and I think we are still ahead of everyone. What was enough in other countries is not enough for Russia. ”
“Within two years since the opening of Google’s office, we have not lost a single specialist because of the transition to competitors, because Yandex is one of the best companies to work in Russia.
Penetration of broadband data transmission in Russia is now 10%, according to forecasts, it will triple over three years. This month, Google, trying to kick back, bought Begun (a contextual advertising company) for ÂŁ 70 million, expecting the market for contextual ads in Russia to grow from ÂŁ 100m this year to ÂŁ 500 million by two thousand and ten. .
Yandex, the second non-English-speaking search engine in the world after Chinese Baidu, intends to open an office in Silicon Valley, which will be headed by the former vice-president of Yahoo. This enterprise in New York promises to be the largest among Russian technology companies.
Volozh, who is now 44, defended a degree in applied mathematics. He worked in a state research institute when in 1987 the government legalized the so-called cooperatives (small private enterprises). And although it seemed that he was preparing a career as a typical Soviet employee, the young mathematician was unexpectedly instructed to plunge into business.
“Paradoxically, but I gained my first business experience thanks to the Communist Party,” Volozh says. “When the law on cooperatives was passed, the director of our institute approached us and said:“ Guys, you are mathematicians, you are in business! ”We started supplying computers and I was appointed technical director. I just turned 24. The salary was paid to us by the equipment, and I earned two computers in a year, which was a huge amount for those times - it was enough for me to buy my first apartment, a two-room apartment in Moscow. ”
By 1990, Volozh was already one of the founders of the company, which has become the largest supplier of computer technology in Russia. And although the majority of employees saw the company's future in the “iron” trade, Volozh firmly believed in the talent and knowledge of Russian specialists. With a group of five programmers huddled in a cramped apartment, he developed a system for finding patent information.
The experiment led to the creation of Yandex (short for yet another indexer), a search engine aimed at improving the search for Russian-language materials, which is a difficult task due to a complex grammar.
Initial skepticism soon led to dizzying success. Two years after the launch, Yandex surpassed Rambler, the most popular Russian search system at that time, and a year later became breakeven. He organized his own free wi-fi network with access points throughout Russia long before Google entered this game in America and, moving away from being just a search engine, was enriched with a series of additional services.
“Our mail service,” says Volozh, “is protected by a unique anti-spam technology created by our own developers; we have our own blog search, an electronic payment system developed by us, a social network for businessmen, as well as a real-time traffic monitoring system, a service that Volozh proudly demonstrated on his mobile phone.
“Our technology is better suited for the Russian market,” he says. “We have brilliant mathematicians and programmers. We have a high professional level in the field of analyzing large amounts of data and we have developed a powerful technology that is advanced in Russia. We are constantly creating new software products to stay on top. ”
The management style in Yandex is also not typical for Russia - for the first time in the country, 120 key employees received stock options. Employees stroll around the office in T-shirts, organize their own work schedules themselves, eat at the free buffet, and can play billiards and table tennis right at work.
In a country where rich people are accustomed to advertise their wealth, live in luxury mansions, travel on personal jets and walk in the company of bodyguards, Volozh, a man who, according to analysts, will soon become a dollar billionaire, is an unusual tycoon. He has neither a yacht nor a plane, he drives a Volvo and insists that money has not changed his life.
Even more noteworthy for Russia, where business and politics are often connected and where connections may be more important than new developments, Volozh does not attempt to make friends in the higher echelons of power.
It should be noted that Yandex is estimated at ÂŁ 2.5 billion and is now one of the most famous brands in Russia.
Interest in the company is growing. Alisher Usmanov, the metallurgical billionaire, co-owner of the Arsenal football club, is now actively investing in runet. It was recently announced that he plans to buy a quarter of Yandex. At the moment, Volozh is not going to make any deals.
“I am very proud of the fact that we were able to create something so successful literally from nothing, besides a loud brand, this is a good signal for all of Russia that we have really talented people here,” he says.
“People abroad do not understand that many positive events are happening in Russia now. Yandex is one of them. This is the best IT company in the country. In the future, we are waiting for - even greater growth, in Russia and abroad. There are huge opportunities for us in the countries of near and far abroad. "
From The Sunday Times
This Russian mathematician was 24 years old when he first saw a personal computer, of which there were only a dozen in the Soviet Union. That was in 1984.
Today, twenty years later, Arkady Volozh is the executive director and one of the founders of the leading Russian Internet search engine Yandex, estimated at £ 2.5 billion. Often referred to as Google’s Russian response, Yandex was launched only eight years ago, but it is already visited by about 8 million people daily. Even more impressive is the fact that Yandex and Volozh are credited with Google's defiance, which impedes its global dominance.
')
Russia is one of only four countries where the position of the American search engine is much worse than that of local players, along with China, where the government controls the Internet, South Korea and the Czech Republic. “Googling” may be the main way of searching the world Internet, but in Russia Yandex owns 55% of the market share compared to 21% of Google.
Google can't afford to ignore it painlessly. Thanks to the prosperity of its economy and the growth of the middle class, Russia is expected to become the largest European Internet market in the next 5 years, reaching 60 million users by 2013.
Thirteen years ago, when the Russian Internet was just emerging, the traffic volume was so small that it would fit on a regular flash drive. Today, by comparison, 33 million Russians use the Internet - as many as the British, and even more than the French.
The explosive growth of Yandex is logical. In 2000, when the company was valued at ÂŁ 7 million, its annual revenue was ÂŁ 200,000. In 2007, it reached ÂŁ 85 million, and analysts predict a doubling this year.
This fall, Yandex plans to enter the Nasdaq exchange. The group of Western investment funds, which invested about ÂŁ 2.5 million in 2000, expects to sell shares for ÂŁ 700 million.
“This is a very exciting time,” says Volozh, who is preparing, together with 1,200 employees, to move from a completely new office in the center of Moscow. “Russia has the potential to become the largest Internet market in Europe. This is a huge market with fantastic growth rates. Every day, more and more people in Russia are discovering the possibilities of the Internet. ”
“We have better technology and a better understanding of the market. I take competitors seriously and study the latest data every day to understand the situation, and I think we are still ahead of everyone. What was enough in other countries is not enough for Russia. ”
“Within two years since the opening of Google’s office, we have not lost a single specialist because of the transition to competitors, because Yandex is one of the best companies to work in Russia.
Penetration of broadband data transmission in Russia is now 10%, according to forecasts, it will triple over three years. This month, Google, trying to kick back, bought Begun (a contextual advertising company) for ÂŁ 70 million, expecting the market for contextual ads in Russia to grow from ÂŁ 100m this year to ÂŁ 500 million by two thousand and ten. .
Yandex, the second non-English-speaking search engine in the world after Chinese Baidu, intends to open an office in Silicon Valley, which will be headed by the former vice-president of Yahoo. This enterprise in New York promises to be the largest among Russian technology companies.
Volozh, who is now 44, defended a degree in applied mathematics. He worked in a state research institute when in 1987 the government legalized the so-called cooperatives (small private enterprises). And although it seemed that he was preparing a career as a typical Soviet employee, the young mathematician was unexpectedly instructed to plunge into business.
“Paradoxically, but I gained my first business experience thanks to the Communist Party,” Volozh says. “When the law on cooperatives was passed, the director of our institute approached us and said:“ Guys, you are mathematicians, you are in business! ”We started supplying computers and I was appointed technical director. I just turned 24. The salary was paid to us by the equipment, and I earned two computers in a year, which was a huge amount for those times - it was enough for me to buy my first apartment, a two-room apartment in Moscow. ”
By 1990, Volozh was already one of the founders of the company, which has become the largest supplier of computer technology in Russia. And although the majority of employees saw the company's future in the “iron” trade, Volozh firmly believed in the talent and knowledge of Russian specialists. With a group of five programmers huddled in a cramped apartment, he developed a system for finding patent information.
The experiment led to the creation of Yandex (short for yet another indexer), a search engine aimed at improving the search for Russian-language materials, which is a difficult task due to a complex grammar.
Initial skepticism soon led to dizzying success. Two years after the launch, Yandex surpassed Rambler, the most popular Russian search system at that time, and a year later became breakeven. He organized his own free wi-fi network with access points throughout Russia long before Google entered this game in America and, moving away from being just a search engine, was enriched with a series of additional services.
“Our mail service,” says Volozh, “is protected by a unique anti-spam technology created by our own developers; we have our own blog search, an electronic payment system developed by us, a social network for businessmen, as well as a real-time traffic monitoring system, a service that Volozh proudly demonstrated on his mobile phone.
“Our technology is better suited for the Russian market,” he says. “We have brilliant mathematicians and programmers. We have a high professional level in the field of analyzing large amounts of data and we have developed a powerful technology that is advanced in Russia. We are constantly creating new software products to stay on top. ”
The management style in Yandex is also not typical for Russia - for the first time in the country, 120 key employees received stock options. Employees stroll around the office in T-shirts, organize their own work schedules themselves, eat at the free buffet, and can play billiards and table tennis right at work.
In a country where rich people are accustomed to advertise their wealth, live in luxury mansions, travel on personal jets and walk in the company of bodyguards, Volozh, a man who, according to analysts, will soon become a dollar billionaire, is an unusual tycoon. He has neither a yacht nor a plane, he drives a Volvo and insists that money has not changed his life.
Even more noteworthy for Russia, where business and politics are often connected and where connections may be more important than new developments, Volozh does not attempt to make friends in the higher echelons of power.
It should be noted that Yandex is estimated at ÂŁ 2.5 billion and is now one of the most famous brands in Russia.
Interest in the company is growing. Alisher Usmanov, the metallurgical billionaire, co-owner of the Arsenal football club, is now actively investing in runet. It was recently announced that he plans to buy a quarter of Yandex. At the moment, Volozh is not going to make any deals.
“I am very proud of the fact that we were able to create something so successful literally from nothing, besides a loud brand, this is a good signal for all of Russia that we have really talented people here,” he says.
“People abroad do not understand that many positive events are happening in Russia now. Yandex is one of them. This is the best IT company in the country. In the future, we are waiting for - even greater growth, in Russia and abroad. There are huge opportunities for us in the countries of near and far abroad. "
From The Sunday Times
Thanks to AlborTholus for the tip and to everyone who took part in the translation. =)
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/38493/
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