Yuri Milner Quotes

The polling of Internet users shows that friends recommendations are the most reliable driver behind purchasing decisions. Right now that market is largely untapped. Facebook and other social networks can allow that to happen.

It is hard to think of practical applications of the black hole. Because practical applications are so remote, many people assume we should not be interested. But this quest to understand the world is what defines us as human beings.

Science is one of a handful of things that defines us as a very special species. It is amazing how far we have been able to get and how accurate our predictions are. I think understanding how the universe was born is very important. It really gives us a perspective on many things.

It’s not about revenues: the fundamental economics in digital business is scale and margins. The top line has become the bottom line.

I am not an oligarch. I am a servant and I try to align my interests and those of my investors.

Big Internet companies on average are capable of generating revenue of $1 million per employee, and that compares to 10 to 20 percent of that which is normally generated by traditional offline businesses of comparable size.

There is coming an era for people with a mathematical state of mind

Fundamental physics is like an art more or less. It's completely non-practical, and you can't use it for anything. But it's about the universe and how the world came into being. It's very remote from your daily life and mine, and yet it defines us as human beings.

It’s not how much something’s worth today, it’s what it’s worth in five or 10 years.

The problem is that modern fundamental physics is so far from you and me. The mathematics has become so much more complicated that you need at least 10 years to understand it. Fundamental physics has advanced so far from the understanding of most people that there is really a big disconnect.

I don’t think there’s any company that has reached $1 billion in revenue as fast as Xiaomi. In every conceivable benchmark, it’s almost unprecedented in terms of its speed of growth.

Facebook can be an accumulation of different intelligences.

Facebook is a platform inside a platform.

I have this ratio that if you divide age of entrepreneur by market cap of company. For Facebook it's one. Every year of his life Zuckerberg has been making $1 billion for investors.

You have to travel globally today to know what's going on and maintain an edge.

Facebook can be an accumulation of different intelligences. Ask a question, translated into many languages and somebody, somewhere in the world, will have an answer.

There is huge demand for artificial intelligence technologies.

I'm trying to learn from various corners of the world.

I'm just focused on exploring new opportunities.

The largest newspaper in the United States is only reaching 1 percent of population. We are kind of assuming that 'Wall Street Journal,' 'USA Today,' and other newspapers are very important. Yes, they're extremely important, but only to 1 percent of the population on a daily basis.

Social is a better way to interact with digital world. It is better than search. Implications for... everything. Total change.

The company that creates one global social graph will be very important going forward. It will be Facebook, with maybe 2-3 local social networks able to sustain competition long term.

Google never knew how successful key words would be.

Facebook now is mostly about people you know. In the future it could be about people you know less but are more important.

There is a significant momentum behind the social Internet. A wide range of public investors were very enthusiastic about that.

I think top scientists need to be compensated at a different scale in society. Somebody with experience will tell you that true scientists are not motivated by money - they are motivated by the quest itself. That is true. But I think an additional recognition will not hurt.

I must analyze, from what I do now, what will be the impact two or three or five years in the future. What is the statement I want to make?

You can transmit a thousand times more information.

Russia is one of the places where significant presence of social networks are driven by domestic players right now.

Facebook is at the forefront. It's the company that can fundamentally change the way information is being exchanged and processed. It can be the basis for artificial intelligence to develop over time.

Facebook didn't know how successful Zynga would be.

I have invested in four social networks. More than any other. But that's in Russia and Poland.

The hardware and the software used in the Breakthrough project will be compatible with other telescopes around the world, so they too can search for intelligent life.