Last night at the Crunchies, Yuri Milner of Digital Sky Technologies won the VC of the Year award (Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures was a close runner-up). Milner has almost single-handedly created a new class of mezzanine venture capital, allowing companies like Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga to postpone IPOs while still getting a ton of liquidity and huge valuations.
Before he could leave the stage after accepting his award last night, Michael tried to ambush interview him. Milner deadpanned his way through the every question, and the result was pretty entertaining (see video above). Arrington asked why his investment philosophy is working out so well, noting that Milner invests at what many people at the time think are absurd valuations.
“Because of absurd valuations,” replied Milner.
Arrington: “Has that ever not worked out for you?”
Milner quipped: “We’ve only made three investments: Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga.”
Arrington: “What happened with Twitter?” (a deal DST wasn’t able to get in on).
Milner: “Nothing happened.”
Yuri started investing in Internet companies in 1999. In 2005, he founded Digital Sky Technologies, Limited (now Mail.ru Group) to focus on Internet investments in the Russian speaking world. Under his leadership, Mail.ru Group performed approximately 75 transactions and built what is now the leading Russian language website in terms of users. Mail.ru Group is also the seventh most popular website globally in terms of page views or minutes spent online according to Comscore. Yuri is now the non-executive...
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