On: Yuri Milner's Fundamental Physics Prize

[eps]

On one hand - Yay!

150k for struggling startups - Horay!

On the other hand he is a close business associate of Alisher Usmanov, who's commonly considered to be, basically, the mafia boss of modern Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisher_Usmanov

[meric → eps]

Usmanov owns 32% of Digital Sky Technologies which in turn has investments in Zynga, Groupon, Facebook, Airbnb and has strong ties to Goldman Sachs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Sky_Technologies, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisher_Usmanov)

If your allegations are true... I'm sorry, I can't finish this sentence.

[Tichy → meric]

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you...

[jboggan → eps]

And the Borgias helped the Renaissance flourish.

[r3m6 → eps]

The similarity is striking: Nobel donated his prizes to combat his bad conscious about the horrible "side effects" of his invention, the dynamite. I would not be surprised if Millner has a similar motivation. If so, he should be open about it up front (like Nobel was).

[gojomo → eps]

There is not support in the referenced Wikipedia article (or its talk page) for the strong allegation which directly precedes it.

[eps → gojomo]

You don't say.