A short interview-style trailer featuring an entrepreneur who began founding and buying businesses after the fall of the Soviet Union, reportedly building/buying over 30 businesses. He describes operating under state ownership, pressure from the KGB, and eventually leaving for Canada where he launched a globally top-ranked accelerator/incubator. The clip contrasts post-Soviet entrepreneurial origins with Western investor attitudes and highlights risk/opportunity trade-offs in investing.
Questions this video answers
November 28, 2025
Over 30 businesses
My guest today is a successful entrepreneur starting off his career after the fall of the Soviet Union, building and buying over 30 businesses before coming to Canada and launching the number one globally ranked accelerator incubator in the world.
Every single venture, every shoemaker company, every sewing factory, everything belong to government. That means that bureaucrats separated people who think that if we build this socialist type of economy that will live better. They're mistaken because I lived in this.
The story sounds kind of like the origin stories of Russian oligarch, except you went the other way.
It was the time in Russia when KGB wanted to take over everything. So. And you cannot say no. So. So once I spend the entire day in the KGB building, everything you, you have stays in this company and you cannot escape. But it's actually a slavery and nothing else. I said, I need more time. And then we just left to come. And that was the moment I thought, yes, I'm doing something right. And my mom said, I. She said, I don't believe how these serious people with money trust in you. Like, you know, investors always live between two types of fear. One is fear to lose money, and the other one is fear to lose opportunity.
What would you say is one of the mistakes entrepreneurs make when they're starting out?
At the very beginning of my very first lecture, I normally tell them.
