Hammer and silicon the soviet diaspora in the US innovation economy

Hammer & Silicon: The Soviet Diaspora in the US Innovation EconomyImmigration, Innovation, Institutions, Imprinting, and Identity This deeply personal book tells the untold story of the

Hammer & Silicon: The Soviet Diaspora in the US Innovation Economy

Immigration, Innovation, Institutions, Imprinting, and Identity

This deeply personal book tells the untold story of the significantcontributions of technical professionals from the former Soviet Union tothe US innovation economy, particularly in the sectors of software, socialmedia, biotechnology, and medicine Drawing upon in-depth interviews, itchannels the voices and stories of more than 150 professionals whoemigrated from 11 of the 15 former Soviet republics between the 1970sand 2015, and who currently work in the innovation hubs of Silicon Valleyand Boston-Cambridge Using the social science theories of institutions,imprinting, and identity, the authors analyze the political, social,economic, and educational forces that have characterized Sovietimmigration over the past 40 years, showing how the particularities ofthe Soviet context may have benefited or challenged interviewees’ workand social lives The resulting mosaic of perspectives provides valuableinsight into the impact of immigration on US economic development,specifically in high technology and innovation

Sheila M Puffer is University Distinguished Professor and Professor ofInternational Business and Strategy at the D’Amore-McKim School ofBusiness, Northeastern University, Boston, USA She served as ProgramDirector of the Gorbachev Foundation of North America, and is anAssociate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies atHarvard University Business and management in the former USSR are amajor focus of her 160 publications, including Behind the Factory Walls:Decision Making in Soviet and US Enterprises

Daniel J McCarthy is University Distinguished Professor and the Alan S.McKim and Richard A D’Amore Distinguished Professor of GlobalManagement and Innovation at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business,Northeastern University, Boston, USA He is also an Associate at the Davis

Strategy, as well as Business and Management in Russia, The RussianCapitalist Experiment, and Corporate Governance in Russia.

Daniel M Satinsky is an attorney, business consultant, and independentscholar, and an Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and EurasianStudies at Harvard University He served as Board President of the US-Russia Chamber of Commerce of New England, Inc., from 2001 to 2016

He is editor of the Buyer’s Guide to the Russian IT Outsourcing Industryand author of Industrial Giants, Entrepreneurs, and RegionalGovernment: The Changing Business Environment in Yaroslavl’ Oblast,

1990–1999, amongst other publications

Hammer & Silicon:

The Soviet Diaspora in the US Innovation

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Names: Puffer, Sheila M., author | McCarthy, Daniel J., author |

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Title: Hammer and silicon : the Soviet diaspora in the US innovation,

economy : immigration, innovation, institutions, imprinting, and

identity / Sheila M Puffer, Northeastern University, Boston,

Daniel J McCarthy, Northeastern University, Boston, Daniel M Satinsky, Foresight Science & Technology, Inc.

Description: New York : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

ISBN 9781316641262 (paperback)

and immigration | BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Entrepreneurship Classification: LCC HC110.T4 P84 2018 | DDC 338/.0640973–dc23

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Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,

To the 157 interviewees and their families who made the bold journey to the United States, and to the legions of others like them from all corners of the world – With admiration from the authors

To my family – Douglas and Annika, Carol and Dorian, all of whose parents include immigrants – SMP

To my family for their enduring love and support – DJM

To my wife, Dinah, for her patience, encouragement, and support through the years – DMS

1 Theoretical Foundations: Institutions, Imprinting,

2 Soviet Political, Economic, and Social Institutions:

3 Soviet Educational Institutions: Capability

4 Migration from the Former Soviet Union to the United

Part II The Immigrants’ Experiences, Integration,

5 Entrepreneurial Spirit, Creativity, and Innovativeness:

6 Research, Development, and Applications in Academic

7 Cultural Adaptation: Challenges and Sources of Support 238

8 Workplace Adaptation: Developing Soft Skills 277

9 Identity: A Constellation of Influences 323

Part III Conclusion 371

10 The Impact of Institutions, Imprinting, and Identity

on the Immigration and Innovation Process 373

Hammer & Silicon is a model of social science research, but its subjectmatter would also make for a great novel The book juxtaposes twoplaces that are literally“worlds apart:” the Soviet communist regimeduring its decline, collapse, and subsequent disintegration (theHammer) and the dynamic regions of entrepreneurship andinnovation that emerged at roughly the same time in the US (theSilicon) The protagonists of this unlikely collision– and the focus ofthis fascinating book– are the highly educated scientists and engineerswho left the Soviet Union and settled in Silicon Valley and the Boston-Cambridge areas in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.The book’s authors, all established scholars of Russian studies,interviewed 157 members of the Soviet diaspora The interviewresults provide a rich tapestry of individual trajectories that differ due

to ethnic, cultural, and family circumstances, but neverthelessaccumulate to illuminate strong cross-cutting themes at the core ofthe book We learn that the earliest Soviet immigrants to the USbeginning in the 1970s were refugees escaping virulent anti-Semitism,

or, in later years, the economic dislocations following the collapse ofthe Soviet Union Only more recently have Russian-speakingimmigrants come to the US seeking additional education and/oreconomic opportunity This latter wave has more in common withthe Asian immigrants who typically come to the US for highereducation, and then stay on to work in fast-growing technologyregions

Some of the most engaging parts of the book are the first-handaccounts, mostly in the words of immigrants themselves, of theexperience of being raised in the former Soviet Union (with itsauthoritarian and bureaucratic institutions, pervasive dissemblingand cynicism, distrust of business, and highly personalized trust) andadapting to the US and to technology centers (where entrepreneurship

is a social good and work is organized around teams, collaboration,

them from all corners of the world – With admiration from the authors

To my family – Douglas and Annika, Carol and Dorian, all of whose parents include immigrants – SMP

To my family for their enduring love and support – DJM

To my wife, Dinah, for her patience, encouragement, and support through the years – DMS

infrastructure takes decades, but the alternative for any country is tofall further behind in the global economy.

Hammer & Silicon doesn’t dwell on this, but the book providesample evidence that the Russian-speaking Argonauts have becomepart of an international technical community that circulates amongdynamic regions in the US, Asia, and Europe Soviet diaspora membershave seeded technology activity in Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania,Romania, Armenia, Estonia, and others, providing employment,technical know-how, advice, funding, and other opportunities fortheir home-country counterparts In short, the mobility of highlyeducated workers–which depends on keeping national borders open–provides benefits to regions around the world Even places that seem asunlikely as the former Soviet Union

AnnaLee Saxenian

Dean and Professor, School of Information

Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning

University of California, Berkeley

We begin our acknowledgments by recognizing that we owe a hugedebt to the eminent scholars whose work has informed our own overthe past several decades Among them are the legendary SovietologistsJoseph Berliner, Abram Bergson, and Marshall Goldman, who wereregular attendees at the Economics Luncheon Seminar organized atHarvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studieswhere we three authors continue to be Center Associates We havelearned a great deal from them as well as from the dozens of scholarswho presented their work there over the past three decades We alsoowe a tremendous debt to Loren Graham of MIT and Irina Dezhina ofSkolkovo Institute of Science and Technology for their work on Sovietscience and the 1990s brain drain from that country.

As with any successful book project, beyond the authors and, in thiscase, even beyond the interviewees, there were numerous contributorswho in various ways played key roles in the successful completion ofthis book We acknowledge here the many individuals, groups, andinstitutions that played important roles for which we authors areextremely grateful while recognizing that the responsibility for thebook’s content remains with us

Wefirst thank the team of transcribers of the 157 interviews, themajor transcribers being Northeastern University research assistantsRyan Donohue and Jacklyn Gronau, as well as professional transcriberDaina Krumins Other Northeastern students who providedtranscription services were Veronique Falkovich, Lily Gacicia, RuthLeifer, Alina Samarova, and Rachael Volpert Ryan Donohue alsoprovided the majority of research assistance involved with analyzingtranscripts, while other Northeastern students, Jacklyn Gronau andRohit Kogta, provided additional assistance D’Amore-McKim School

of Business staff members who provided administrative support wereJenny (Evgeniia) Bagnyuk, Magda Drici, Michael Marafitte, Grace

Oliveira, and Oxana Tkachenko Other sources of support important

to completing this book are D’Amore-McKim colleagues former DeanHugh Courtney, Senior Associate Dean Emery Trahan, and GroupCoordinators Christopher Robertson of the International Businessand Strategy Group and Marc Meyer of the Entrepreneurship andInnovation Group Colleagues at Stanford University GraduateSchool of Business were also instrumental in sponsoring SheilaPuffer’s sabbatical there from January to September 2015, includingSenior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Madhav Rajan, andespecially Professor Charles O’Reilly We also acknowledgeUniversity of California, Berkeley, Dean AnnaLee Saxenian for herencouragement to us in adding to the literature on immigranttechnical professionals in the United States

In addition to the many interviewees who provided referrals to otherinterviewees, we would like to especially thank Anna Dvornikova, MariaEliseeva, and Evgeny Zaytsev, who provided referrals to numerousinterviewees, as well as Kate Carleton, Walter Chick, Ivan Correia,Douglas Fraser, Ingrid Larsson, Peter Larsson, Bob Nelson, LindseySudbury, Martina Werner, and Maury Wood We also thank otherswho provided background insights based on their association withtechnical professionals both in the United States and in the former USSR.They are Dmitry Dakhnovsky, Ekaterina Evstrateyva, Tatiana Fedorova,Richard Golob, Alexander Ivanov, Julia Ivy, Anna Lamin, PeterLoukianoff, Tatiana Lysenko, Mykola Lysetskiy, Katia EpshteynOstrovsky, Olga Rodstein, Maxim Russkikh, Paul Santinelli, AmirSharif, Joel Schwartz, and Vera Shokina We are also indebted to thosewho provided ideas and insights for the book title and cover design: RalphDinneen, Annika Fraser, Douglas Fraser, Liane Middleton, MarlenePuffer, and Maury Wood, and we gratefully acknowledge Carol Fraserand Dorian Scheidt for creating the map of interviewees’ birthplaces

We would also like to acknowledge that our work was facilitated byattending and networking at events and conferences sponsored byvarious organizations and associations, including the AmericanBusiness Association of Russian-Speaking Professionals (AmBAR),the Global Technology Symposium, the Davis Center for Russian andEurasian Studies at Harvard University, New England Russian-Speaking Entrepreneurs (NERSE), Silicon Valley Open Doors, theUS–Russia Business Council, and the US–Russia Chamber ofCommerce of New England

We extend our deepest and most heartfelt thanks to the 157 peoplewho devoted their valuable time to be interviewed, usually for one to twohours and sometimes longer We owe a great debt to them for theirwillingness to trust us, to answer our specific questions, and to sharetheir stories candidly and willingly Additionally, we thank them forhaving done so in English rather than in their native languages We hopethe interview experience was valuable for our interviewees, perhapsgiving them an opportunity to reflect on their lives and gain insightsand perspectives about themselves As interviewee Alexei Masterov said:

“I feel like I’m learning something about myself in the process of thisconversation because I never spoke about it this way, especially inEnglish So it’s interesting.” We also hope that the interviewees gaininsights not only from reflecting on their own experiences, but also fromthe shared experiences of all 157 interviewees included in this book, andthat they can appreciate the commonalities and differences among theircompatriots who shared having been born in the former Soviet Unionbefore becoming contributors to the US innovation economy

We would, of course, be remiss without thanking the CambridgeUniversity Press team that shepherded our manuscript to successfulcompletion, including Valerie Appleby, Commissioning Editor forBusiness and Management, Assistant Commissioning Editor StephenAcerra, Editorial Assistants Kristina Deusch and Toby Ginsberg,Marketing Executive Ellena Moriarty, Project Manager SunanthaRamamoorthy, and Content Manager Bronte Rawlings, as well asothers who reviewed and approved our book proposal and worked

on various aspects of the production and marketing phases to ensurethe quality of our product and its dissemination to institutions andindividuals

A major project of this type and proportions obviously requiressubstantialfinancial resources to support the numerous activities andindividuals in the many phases of its development and completion.The Alan S McKim and Richard A D’Amore DistinguishedProfessorship of Global Management and Innovation provided majorfunding for the book Other sources of funds from NortheasternUniversity’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business included theInternational Business and Strategy Group research fund, the Dean’sFaculty Travel Fund, and the Center for Emerging Markets

We acknowledge and thank them all for their generous help inaccomplishing various aspects of this book

About the Authors

Sheila M Puffer is University Distinguished Professor and Professor

of International Business and Strategy at the D’Amore-McKimSchool of Business, Northeastern University, Boston She is also

an Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

at Harvard University In 2015, she was a visiting research sor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University whereshe interviewed Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and other profes-sionals from the former Soviet Union about their contributions tothe US innovation economy Dr Puffer has more than 160 publica-tions, including eighty refereed articles and eleven books She hasbeen recognized as the leading scholar internationally in businessand management in Russia, the former Soviet Union, and EasternEurope according to a 2005 Journal of International BusinessStudies article She also ranks as the most published author (tiedwith coauthor D McCarthy) in the Journal of World Business from

profes-1993 to 2003 She has been ranked in the top 5 percent of authorsworldwide who published in the leading international businessjournals from 1996 to 2005, according to a Michigan StateUniversity study She isfluent in French and Russian She earned

a diploma from the executive management program at thePlekhanov Institute of the National Economy in Moscow, and sheholds a BA (Slavic Studies) and an MBA from the University ofOttawa, Canada, and a PhD in business administration from theUniversity of California, Berkeley

Daniel J McCarthy is University Distinguished Professor and theAlan S McKim and Richard A D’Amore Distinguished Professor

of Global Management and Innovation at the D’Amore-McKimSchool of Business, Northeastern University, Boston, and is also

an Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

at Harvard University He is cofounder, codirector, and chair ofthe strategy advisory council of Northeastern’s Center forEntrepreneurship Education Additionally, he is cofounder of

the Northeastern University Venture Mentoring Network and

a member of the steering committee, as well as a board memberfor IDEA, the Northeastern University Venture Accelerator

Dr McCarthy has more than 110 publications, including foureditions of Business Policy and Strategy, as well as Business andManagement in Russia, The Russian Capitalist Experiment, andCorporate Governance in Russia He served as the lead director

of Clean Harbors, Inc., a multibillion dollar NYSE-listed pany, and has consulted in North America and Europe for morethan forty companies Early in his career, he was cofounder andpresident of a public company, Computer EnvironmentsCorporation, and served as a director on its board and also onthe board of its sister public company, Time Share Corporation,

com-as well com-as on a number of private company and nonprofit boards

Dr McCarthy ranks as the most published author (tied withcoauthor S Puffer) in the Journal of World Business from 1993

to 2003, and he has been ranked in the top 5 percent of allauthors worldwide who published in the leading internationalbusiness journals from 1996 to 2005, according to a MichiganState University study He is also one of the top three scholarsinternationally in business and management in Russia andCentral and Eastern Europe, based on a Journal of InternationalBusiness Studies article analyzing publications in thirteen leadingjournals from 1986 to 2003 Professor McCarthy holds AB andMBA degrees from Dartmouth College and the Tuck School ofBusiness, and a DBA from Harvard University

Daniel M Satinsky is a business consultant and independent scholar.For more than twenty years, he has provided market entry andcommercialization services to Russian and US technology compa-nies In this capacity, he has traveled extensively throughout Russiaand the former Soviet Union He has also written and spoken ontopics related to business, innovation, and technology Selected pub-lications include Industrial Giants, Entrepreneurs and RegionalGovernment – The Changing Business Environment in theYaroslavl’ Oblast 1991–98; he is coauthor of a New YorkAcademy of Sciences study of worldwide innovation best practicesand their application to Russia, Yaroslavl Roadmap 10–15-20, andeditor of Buyer’s Guide to the Russian IT Outsourcing Industry Heserved as President of the Board of the US–Russia Chamber of

Commerce of New England for more thanfifteen years, and is anAssociate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies atHarvard University He holds a Master of Law and Diplomacydegree from the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at TuftsUniversity, a JD from Northeastern University Law School, and

a BA from James Madison College of Michigan State University

© 2018 www.tableau.com Used with permission Birthplaces added by theauthors.

Map 1 (cont.)

Map 2 (cont.)

“Immigrants We get the job done.”1

This quote from the hit Broadway show, Hamilton: The Musical,epitomizes one of the core American portrayals of immigrants as hard-working people who come to the United States seeking economic,social, and personal opportunities and who are willing to work hard

to achieve their goals In the musical, the characters depictingAlexander Hamilton and Marquis de Lafayette were referring to immi-grants at the time of the American Revolution nearly 250 years ago.Today, immigrants are currently the topic of intense controversy, withcompeting political narratives regarding their role in the US economy.One often neglected element in this controversy is the tremendouscontribution to the US technology sector that has come from immi-grants, particularly those who came after the Immigration Reform Act

of 1965 These contributions have been well recognized in industry, asevidenced by the recent establishment of two organizations founded byprominent leaders of US technology companies advocating for immi-gration policies that would continue attracting and retaining scientificand technical professionals from abroad One group, FWD.us, wasfounded by high-profile technology executives including MarkZuckerberg of Facebook, Bill Gates of Microsoft, and Marissa Mayer

of Yahoo Another is Partnership for a New American Economy whosefounders include former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and formerNew York City mayor Michael Bloomberg who heads the huge diver-

sified business communications company, Bloomberg L.P

This book, Hammer & Silicon: The Soviet Diaspora in the USInnovation Economy, presents the story of one specific group of immi-grants who were part of the global migration of talent attracted to theUnited States in the later decades of the twentieth century and early part

Hamilton: The Musical (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2015).

of the twenty-first century after US immigration reform This talentpool helped fuel US economic growth and world leadership in hightechnology Presented in this book are immigrants from the formerSoviet Union who tell their stories of their generally unrecognized role

in this era of US technology leadership

About the Title

The title of this book incorporates two of the most powerful symbols ofthe twentieth century, one associated with the Soviet Union and theother with the United States The hammer and sickle is well-known asthe symbol of the USSR, and the silicon chip is widely used as a symbol

of the high-technology industry in the United States The full title of thebook points to the emigration and brain drain before, and particularlyduring, the collapse of the Soviet Union and its impact on US scienceand technology This process is illustrated through interviews with aremarkable and talented group of individuals who came to the UnitedStates and who ended up becoming significant contributors to the UStechnology sector

The Soviet hammer of industry and sickle of agriculture were thesymbolic representation of the forced transformation that turned theRussian Empire of the nineteenth-century czars into a world power.That symbol was intended to represent the worker–peasant alliance ofsocial forces in an idealized depiction of the Soviet Union As such, thatsymbol represented the command or centrally planned economy of theSoviet state and was ubiquitous in the country’s flag, documents, uni-forms, and government buildings In the post–World War II world, theSoviet Union began to emerge as a technological rival to the UnitedStates, particularly with the launch of the Sputnik space satellite in

1957 It was a rival with enormous human capital in science, ing, and mathematics, one that was institutionalized in a network ofstate-financed universities, research institutes, laboratories, and specia-lized enterprises

engineer-A major US response to this technological threat was the silicon chip,which became the building block of a transformational technologicalera In the 1950s, the Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco peninsulawas the birthplace of the silicon chip, or silicon-based integrated cir-cuit, and was the home of the world’s first silicon chip producer,Fairchild Semiconductor The Soviet satellite launch was the impetus

for creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA) in 1958 and also for increasing government spending to accel-erate technology that depended on semiconductors As a result, a largenumber of silicon chip or semiconductor companies sprang up in theSan Francisco Bay Area, giving rise to the widely recognized designa-tion “Silicon Valley” to much of the San Francisco peninsula Thetechnology developed there paved the way for the rapid development

of the microprocessors that undergird the computer hardware, ware, communications, and social media sectors, and also for a muchbroader blossoming of US innovation in biotech, medical instruments,robotics, and artificial intelligence This technology explosion enabledthe United States to leapfrog over the Soviet Union and, in manyrespects, contributed to the USSR’s economic demise

soft-Genesis of the Book

The authors have devoted the past thirty years to research, publication,presentations, and consulting on a wide variety of business and man-agement issues in the Soviet Union and its successor countries In doing

so, it has been obvious to us that a significant number of technicalprofessionals from that part of the world are now working in the USinnovation economy, but this awareness is absent from most businessand technology research, as well as in the popular press Over the pastdecade, both immigration and innovation in general have becomeincreasingly high-profile topics in the media, society, and the corporateworld, as well as in academia Recent studies by the KauffmanFoundation show conclusively that immigrants are twice as likely tofound new businesses than are native-born Americans.2While this is ageneral measure of entrepreneurship, further work indicates the criticalrole of immigrants in the innovation process

One of the seminal works on immigration and innovation was TheNew Argonauts: Regional Advantage in a Global Economy byAnnaLee Saxenian, published in 2006 That book focused on thecritical role of immigrants from Taiwan, China, India, and Israel inSilicon Valley and their subsequent contributions back to their home

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (October 2016), 3 http://www.kauffman org/what-we-do/resources/kauffman-compilation-research-on-immigration-and -entrepreneurship.

countries As explained in this book, the movement of these immigrants

to Silicon Valley and the United States generally was not possible untilafter the US Immigration Reform Act of 1965 The Act’s legal frame-work allowed for immigrants of all nationalities to enter the UnitedStates, including the influx resulting from the decline and dissolution ofthe Soviet Union Missing from Professor Saxenian’s insightful analysisand that of others was any mention of the ex-Soviet immigrants that weknew to also be part of this immigration–technology nexus We know

of no research that has been published on the impact of the Sovietdiaspora on the US innovation economy This book is the story of thisexodus and its impact on the US technology sector in Silicon Valley andthe Boston-Cambridge area

We tell this story from both personal and professional points of view.Two authors who do not have direct family ties to Russia or the SovietUnion conceived this book Professors Sheila Puffer and DanielMcCarthy have no family genealogy that can be traced to that part ofthe world In writing the book, they were joined by Daniel Satinskywho has attenuated family ties to the Russian Empire through hisgrandparents on his father’s side, who emigrated to the United Statesfrom Ukraine in 1911 All three authors’ professional lives areentwined in the stories presented in this book

Sheila Puffer, herself an immigrant, serendipitously began learningRussian as an undergraduate at Laurentian University in her nativeCanada on the recommendation of a professor to study that challen-ging language That background led her to spend a year in the SovietUnion after completing her MBA, earning a diploma in managementfrom the Plekhanov Institute of the National Economy in Moscow.Nearly a decade later, it was her good fortune to have worked withProfessor Paul Lawrence of Harvard Business School in the late 1980s

as an author of the book, Behind the Factory Walls: Decision Making

in Soviet and US Enterprises,3 an opportunity that launched herresearch focus on the Soviet Union

Daniel McCarthy became interested in business and management inthe Soviet Union in the late 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev’s peres-troika and glasnost policies opened that country for research

Brakov, Sheila Puffer, Alexander Naumov, Elise Walton, and Vitaly Ozira, Behind the Factory Walls: Decision Making in Soviet and US Enterprises (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1990).

opportunities, and Daniel and Sheila began doing research together Helater formed a connection at his Harvard alma mater to faculty memberswho had been involved in the famous Harvard Soviet Interview Project

of the 1950s, including Abram Bergson and Joseph Berliner.4

Daniel Satinsky made hisfirst trip to the Soviet Union on a study andtravel trip for lawyers in 1984 and began serious involvement with jointventure businesses in the region after completing a mid-career master’sdegree at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in

1991 In the two decades that followed, he traveled to the former SovietUnion more than 100 times, visiting many different locations in thatenormous and varied country

Together, the three authors have accumulated decades of experienceengaged in study, publishing, business, and general interaction withpeople of the former Soviet Union In doing so, they personally wit-nessed the dramatic historic events that took place there at the end ofthe twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries and that spanthe major time period in this book

Talent Flow from the USSR

In 2014, the authors conceived of a book to focus on the topic of thehuman impact on the US technology sector of the decline and collapse ofthe Soviet Union The distinctive foundation of this book is the 157 in-depth interviews we conducted in the leading innovation hubs of SiliconValley and the Boston-Cambridge area from January 2015 throughMarch 2016 We developed a semistructured interview protocol oftopics for interviews of an hour or more with each person, with mostinterviews running about an hour and a half and some as long as threehours With a goal of 150 interviews, the authors interviewed seventy-nine entrepreneurs and other technical professionals in Silicon Valleyand conducted an additional seventy-eight interviews with a comparablegroup in the Boston-Cambridge area The 157 interviewees came to theUnited States over roughly the past forty years from eleven of thefifteenrepublics of the former Soviet Union Of those, forty-three, or 27 per-cent, were women These individuals arrived in the United States in what

we have designated as three waves from the 1970s through 2015

hpsss/about.html

In analyzing the information collected through the interviews, we haveutilized established social science conceptual tools Specifically, we applyinstitutional theory, imprinting theory, and identity theory to explore thecomplexities underlying the significant role played by the Soviet diaspora

in the technology sectors of the US economy The book probes how Sovietinstitutions and institutional voids, as well as imprinting from Soviet timesand its aftermath, were instrumental in shaping the identities of ourinterviewees We have also placed this process in the historical context

of the times and the consequent impact on who emigrated, why theyemigrated, and how they ended up in the United States Based on thisanalysis, the book explores the rich interview narratives regarding theimmigration experience and work-related experiences such as entrepre-neurial activities, mentoring, and teamwork, as well as how intervieweesovercame obstacles and sought opportunities to utilize their technologicaland scientific expertise Some interviewees were sponsored by US employ-ers while others held refugee, student, investor, or exceptional talent visas

We have utilized the term“immigrant” and the related terms tion” and “emigration” rather loosely since not all interviewees held thestatus of immigrant, with some not choosing to do so and others unable to

“immigra-do so at the time of the interview Like French General Lafayette, tioned at the outset of this Introduction, these individuals did not have UScitizenship, yet they contributed significantly to the country Others werelike Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the US treasury, whoemigrated from the British West Indies and became a citizen

men-In presenting the various chapters, we have excerpted sections of theinterviews that highlight interesting and important aspects of indivi-duals’ experiences in the former Soviet Union and in the United States,

as well as during their immigration experience Many intervieweeshave quotes in multiple chapters While we would have liked to featureeach person on every topic, we had to make difficult decisions aboutwhich portions of the interviews to include We also emphasize that theinterviewees constitute a convenience sample rather than a statisticallybased sample of the population

Commonality of Interviewees

The individuals included in this book represent many different alities, religions, and cultural backgrounds, as well as different historiesand circumstances, reflecting the vast expanse of the Soviet Union In

nation-addition, there has been growing differentiation of the independentcountries’ paths of development after the dissolution of the SovietUnion This is particularly acute in the differences between Ukraineand the Russian Federation even before the 2013 Maidan protests andchange of government in Ukraine Amid this complexity, we have alsoobserved strong elements of commonality that come from the inter-viewees’ shared Soviet history, culture, and educational system, as well

as the Russian language

We acknowledge a bias in our presentation of an emphasis on theRussian Federation that reflects the numbers and the power concen-trated there as the center of the former Soviet government and itscontinuing dominating influence as the largest, by geography andpopulation, of the independent countries formed after the dissolution

of the USSR in 1991 However, our interviewees come from out the former Soviet Union, and we have included overviews ofrelevant developments in other countries, primarily in Ukraine,Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan as the main centers ofpost-Soviet emigration The Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania, andEstonia have a separate historical trajectory and less connection toSoviet culture and institutions and thus are not covered with the samelevel of detail

through-For those who came to the United States in this time period, theinfluence of the Soviet past remains very strong, although producingdiffering effects and reactions In order to describe the commonalities

of this group while respecting the individual differences of ity, culture, and individual personality, we have focused on thecommon elements that were forged through the overlay of theSoviet system This overlay consists of common institutional experi-ences of the highly centralized and standardized Soviet Union, acommon educational system, and common cultural reference pointsthat come from the centralized Soviet political and administrativesystems The other element that binds them together is the Russianlanguage as the state language and lingua franca of the diversenationalities and religions that were contained within the SovietUnion Regardless of their attitudes toward the Soviet system from

national-a politicnational-al point of view, these individunational-als shnational-are national-a common bnational-ack-ground that influenced both their opportunities in the US technologysector and their adaptation to the country’s innovative and entrepre-neurial business culture

Changing geographical and statistical methods during this periodcomplicate the task of presenting an accurate numerical picture for allthree waves Prior to 2000, US immigration statistics counted all immi-grants from the Soviet Union as having that country of origin despitethe fact that the Soviet Union dissolved in 1989 Thus, it is very difficult

to construct an accurate picture for the 1990s After 2000, statisticshave been recorded on the basis of the fifteen new countries thatemerged For our purposes, only the total numbers of immigrants forthe three waves are presented in order to give an idea of magnitude, ifnot a precise statistic We have used indicative numbers where possible

to give this overall picture

We use the terms“Soviet Union” and “USSR” interchangeably, as well

as the terms the“former Soviet Union” and the “former USSR.” We alsouse the terms“Russian Revolution” and “Bolshevik Revolution” inter-changeably to refer to the 1917 revolution that overthrew the czars Inpresenting names of cities and regions, we use the Russian spelling and thename of that city or region contemporaneous with the speaker Werecognize that the names used for cities can have strong political under-tones A number of cities in the former Russian Empire had their nameschanged by the Soviets to honor Bolshevik or revolutionaryfigures Forinstance, St Petersburg became Leningrad and Nizhny Novgorod becameGorky Most such names were restored to their prerevolutionary statusafter the dissolution of the USSR Our interviewees sometimes use the oldname and sometimes the Soviet name We have left the name as it was atthe time they were referring to it, but use the contemporary name whenspeaking about the present We are also aware of the sensitivity of spellingcity and other place names in national languages other than Russian Wehave chosen to use the transliteration of the Russian spelling since it is themost recognizable to Western readers To give readers an appreciation forthe wide variety of locations in which our interviewees were born, wehave created a map5 of the former Soviet Union indicating their birth-places, and also include an enlarged view of the highly populated westernregion Interviewees’ birthplaces spanned the entire length and breadth ofthat vast country: from Murmansk, Russia, the world’s largest citynorth of the Arctic circle; to Meghri, Armenia, in the south near the

5

Map developed by Carol Fraser and Dorian Scheidt using Tableau Maps, ©

2018 www.tableau.com Used with permission Birthplaces added by the authors.

border with Iran; and from Kaliningrad, the far western territory rated from the rest of Russia by Belarus; to the remote settlement ofEgvekinot, the most easterly outpost of Russia located on the BeringSea And while recognizing that Siberia is part of Russia, we specifySiberia when appropriate in recognition of that vast geographical terri-tory and its distinct culture within Russia The 157 interviewees wereborn in eleven of thefifteen Soviet republics: Russia (106); Ukraine (23);Belarus (6); Armenia (5); Uzbekistan (4); Moldova and Georgia (3 each);Kazakhstan, Estonia, and Latvia (2 each); and Azerbaijan (1) No inter-viewees were born in Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, orTurkmenistan As for cities, 44 percent of interviewees were born inMoscow (52) or St Petersburg (18) The Ukrainian cities of Kharkov(7) and Kiev (5) were next, followed by Novosibirsk, Tashkent, andYerevan with four each The remaining cities had three or fewer inter-viewees born in that location.

sepa-We also note that we have highlighted in bold the names of viewees when introducing their quotes for ease of locating them in thetext When they are referred to in contexts where they are not quoted,

inter-we have kept their names in regular typeface In each chapter, the type

of descriptive information included about the interviewees, such as age

at the time of coming to the United States and current position title,varies according to its usefulness in putting their comments in context

Technology Sector Impact

This book is not meant to be a systematic, statistical study of ogy companies started by immigrants from the former Soviet Union nor

technol-of other companies to which they have made major contributions.However, we will illustrate their contributions anecdotally throughinterview excerpts Immigrants from the former Soviet Union histori-cally have had a significant impact on company formation in the UnitedStates, with a 2011 study by the Partnership for a New Economyreporting that they or their children founded twenty-eight Fortune

500 companies, including Google, Oracle, United Technologies,Occidental Petroleum, Qwest Communications, Omnicom Group,Avnet, Viacom, Home Depot, CBS, and Polo Ralph Lauren.6 Other

technical and scientific contributions of major importance to the vation economy include those of Soviet immigrants AlexanderPoniatoff, the 1940s founder of the audiotape manufacturing firmAmpex, and Yakov Rekhter, the 1980s codesigner of BGP, the corerouting protocol of the Internet.

inno-Our interviewees’ contributions range from professional positions iniconic companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft; tofounding industry leaders like IPG Photonics and PTC; to initiatingnumerous startups and conducting groundbreaking research for theproducts of the future As a result of their strong educational back-grounds in mathematics and basic science, the majority of them areclustered in biotech, pharma, and medical products, as well as soft-ware, IT, communications, and the Internet Also notable is the sig-

nificant number who became serial entrepreneurs, angel investors, andventure capitalists engaged in fueling next-generation innovation

Themes of the Book: The Five I ’s

The themes of the book are centered onfive i’s: immigration, tion, institutions, imprinting, and identity We discuss each one below

The First Wave, from 1972 to 1986, was primarily Soviet Jews.During this period, the number of Soviet Jews allowed to emigratefluctuated depending on the state of relations between the USSR and

(no location, June 2011) http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/2011/partnership_ for_a_new_american_economy_fortune_500.pdf

the West When the Soviet Union was seeking closer trade relations in theearly to mid-1970s, more Jews were allowed to emigrate At the time ofthe USSR’s involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan and Westernnations’ boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, the numbers wererestricted again When President Gorbachev began to decrease tensionwith the West in the mid-1980s, the number of Jews allowed to emigratewent up again In that period, comparatively few immigrants came to theUnited States, and almost all of those who came were Jewish Somejoined the tech sector, as we shall see in the interview excerpts.

The Second Wave began in 1987, during the perestroika period, with

a dramatic expansion of permissions to emigrate, initially mainly forJews, ethnic Germans, and Armenians When the Soviet state collapsed

in December 1991, a torrent of people began to emigrate as a result ofthe economic and political turmoil and the establishment by the gov-ernments of the newly independent nations of the legal right to leavethat had not existed under the Soviet Union This is the major period ofthe brain drain that brought a broad range of the scientific intelligentsia

to the United States, not only Jews

The Third Wave began at the turn of the twenty-first century with theascension to power of Vladimir Putin and an upturn in world oil pricesthat allowed Russia, especially, to strengthen its economy In thatperiod, institutions were stabilized, accompanied by an emphasis onintegration of Russia into the world economy, including into theincreasingly important knowledge economy The result was a change

in the motivation for coming to the United States, one moving awayfrom necessity and more toward opportunity-seeking Ukraine, as asuccessor state and one of the main sources of emigration, is not anenergy exporter and therefore did not share in Russia’s bounty ofincreased oil prices Thus, a push to emigrate due to economic reasonscontinued from Ukraine as well as from other former republics.This book examines these three waves of immigration in terms of thepolitical and economic institutional contexts of each and the nuancesthat emerged from our interviews in terms of motivation, education,and culture in each wave The book provides an in-depth look at thepolitical, social, economic, and educational forces that coincided toallow and motivate these people to emigrate It also describes thewindow of opportunity to do so and the ability of individuals to trans-form their Soviet-acquired education, training, and capabilities intocontributions to the US innovation economy

We analyze the paradox of immigrants contributing to innovation inthe United States while coming from a country that had made privatebusiness illegal and, consequently, that had great difficulty designingsystems to commercialize the world-class scientific knowledge thatthese talented citizens possessed The key to understanding this para-dox lies in the nature of Soviet science and mathematics education thatemphasized problem-solving without providing a practical outlet forthese capabilities It is an established fact that the Soviet Union pro-duced some of the world’s leading scientists, especially in the field ofmathematics This was reflected in massive engineering projects like theelectrification of the country in the 1930s, construction of advancedweapons manufacturing facilities, initiation of the space program, anddevelopment of atomic energy industries Many of the people inter-viewed initially entered math and science programs to avoid the poli-tically charged social science disciplines Once transplanted into thenew societal and institutional circumstances of the United States, manywere transformed into innovators as well as contributors to develop-ment and other phases of commercialization by actively utilizing theiradvanced education in basic research and its resulting application

Institutions

Institutional theory provides an important part of the analytical work by which to examine Soviet immigration and subsequent con-tribution to innovation in the United States We examine the impact ofSoviet institutions that were intended to develop rules, laws, informalinfluences, and cultural norms for a complete socialist and seculartransformation of society after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution Inmany cases, formal Soviet institutional norms conflicted with deepfamilial and cultural traditions We discuss how the inability ofSoviet institutions to maintain their legitimacy during the later stages

frame-of the Soviet Union, particularly among the intelligentsia and evenmore particularly among Jews, was a critical influence promotingemigration in the First Wave In the Second Wave, the collapse ofSoviet educational and scientific institutions allowed for broader emi-gration and simultaneously pushed many dedicated scientific research-ers out of the country due to lack of salary and support compounded by

questions about their future The stabilization of new or reformedinstitutions, beginning around 2000, changed the equation again, lead-ing to an era of choice of domestic or foreign locations for those whowanted to pursue innovation and business.

We also look at how new institutional norms influenced the behavior

of these immigrants once they entered the United States In particular,

we examine how immersion in the institutional innovation ment provided a common experience with other technical profes-sionals, including entrepreneurs and researchers in the hotbeds oftechnology innovation in Silicon Valley and Boston-Cambridge.These institutions introduced a new set of values, rules, and culturalnorms that became layered on top of Soviet institutional influences orthat, in some cases, completely replaced those previous institutional

environ-influences

Imprinting

A second theoretical foundation of the book is imprinting, a known social science theory that has been applied to many disciplinesincluding migration studies, multilingualism and multiculturalism, andwork adjustment in business organizations Imprinting refers to theprocess that takes place during a formative period of life in whichindividuals learn and incorporate important features of their environ-ment into their conception of the world that tend to persist eventhrough subsequent changes in their environment Usually this takesplace during youth and early adulthood, but imprinting can also takeplace during a period of great change in an individual’s life, likeimmigration to a new country Imprinting is a means of examiningthe impact of societal institutions on individual personality and valuedevelopment

well-We use imprinting as a tool to analyze how the interviewees’ lifeexperiences and their reactions to Soviet institutional influences facili-tated or hindered their ability to contribute to the US innovationeconomy While exploring the impact of the communist political ideol-ogy and of the centrally planned economy, we also looked at the extent

of absorption or rejection of those values among our interviewees Wealso explore the extent to which these professionals have acceptedorganizational imprinting from the USfirms where they worked andfrom the US culture of innovation Of particular interest are the

different roles of scientists and researchers in the Soviet system and inthe United States, including the critical link between science and com-mercial activity that differentiates the US system.

The book also examines factors that have influenced how viewees have resolved potential conflicts between societal imprintingfrom the Soviet Union and the general societal imprinting in theUnited States, including organizational imprinting within compa-nies Ultimately, the way a person resolves the potential conflict ofdiverse imprinting influences shapes his or her current socialidentity

inter-Identity

Identity refers to how people view themselves or consider who they are.Research has found people to self-identify with multiple and overlap-ping identities depending on their past and current social circum-stances In the USSR, each person had an official identity both as acitizen of the Soviet Union and as a member of a specific nationalitythat was indicated in their internal passport and other official docu-ments This system arose out of the Bolsheviks’ political conceptionsabout how to sort out and organize the multinational, multiethnicRussian Empire that they supplanted

Formally, each person was designated as being a member of a certainnationality as part of a promised system of equal treatment of all andrecognition of semi–self-government in traditional homeland geo-graphic areas within the broader Soviet state system While these con-cepts and their implementation created many issues arising from thegap between theory and practice, the most critical for the purposes ofthis book concerns the treatment of Jews While this is a complex topicthat cannot be explored completely within the bounds of this work, theimportant fact is that Jews were considered to be a nationality, the same

as Armenians, Ukrainians, Russians, Tatars, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and thelike, within the Soviet system Despite a formal commitment to equalityfor all nationalities, the Soviet state was unable or unwilling to root outanti-Semitic bias This failure had a decisive impact on the First Wave

of immigrants and an important impact on the Second Wave

Beyond the issues of nationality and religion are critical identityissues having to do with professional, cultural, and social values thatare also revealed in the interviews As a general matter, the book

explores the interaction of the identities formed in the former SovietUnion with the newly encountered values, expectations, and workroutines of US society and its innovation economy This inquiry looks

at the extent to which interviewees cast aside, retained, or modifiedattitudes, values, and behaviors imprinted in Soviet or post-Sovietsociety They revealed to us many different new identities formedthrough the immigration experience, including notions of nationalityand religion, as well as scientific, business, and professional concepts

A Brief Look at the Chapters

The book consists of three parts Part I: Analytical Framework, whichincludes Chapters 1 through 4, sets the analytical framework for under-standing interviewees’ backgrounds, the immigration process, andtheir subsequent adaptation to the US technology sector Part II:Immigrants’ Experiences, Integration, and Contributions, consisting

of Chapters 5 through 9, draws even more extensively from our views to provide an in-depth look at the contributions the intervieweeshave made and continue to make to the US technology sector Part III:Conclusion, consisting of Chapter 10, presents a summary and ourconclusions

inter-Chapter 1 presents the theoretical foundations for the bookgrounded in institutional theory, imprinting theory, and identity the-ory These social science tools are essential for organizing and evaluat-ing the interview material and showing its relevance to the USinnovation economy

Chapter 2 applies institutional theory to the Soviet political, nomic, and social systems as the key overall institutional influences oninterviewees This chapter presents an overview of the fundamentalcomponents of the Soviet system and its institutions and explains howthey were catalysts for emigration through the inequities and otherissues of discontent experienced by many talented professionals andintellectuals We examine how interviewees evolved from being objectsacted upon by the Soviet system to becoming persons of action based ontheir own fundamental beliefs or values that were transmitted throughfamily, traditions, opportunity-seeking, or pure youthful rebellion.Chapter 3 presents an institutional analysis of the Soviet educationalsystem as one of the principal institutional influences forming thecapabilities and outlooks of our interviewees This chapter provides

an overview of the emphasis on mathematics, science, and engineeringfrom elementary grades through graduate education that aimed toadvance that country’s military and industrial objectives The expertiseand skills learned in this system were critical to our interviewees’ latercapability for making contributions to the US technology sector.Chapter 4 presents a historical synopsis of emigration from theSoviet Union after the early 1970s and the process of entry into theUnited States The chapter presents a political and legal overview ofboth the exit from the Soviet Union and later from its successor coun-tries to entry into the United States It also introduces the differentia-tion of the waves of immigrants to the United States into three separateperiods, each with its own significant characteristics Wave One tookplace between 1972 and 1986 and was primarily a period of Jewishemigration Wave Two, spanning 1987 through 1999, was a period ofincreased exit due to relaxed emigration controls, economic chaos, andthe ensuing brain drain Wave Three, from 2000 through 2015, was aperiod of economic stabilization, internationalization of technology,and emigration precipitated more by choice than necessity The frame-work of these three waves is critical to the analysis presented in thebook.

Chapter 5 discusses the activities of our immigrant innovators asstartup entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and Boston-Cambridge It pre-sents interview materials by immigration wave and by industry sector.The industry sectors are divided into three categories: (1) biotech,pharma, and medical products; (2) software, Internet, communica-tions, and IT; and (3) other industry sectors The chapter looks ataspects of high-tech startups that are common to entrepreneurs, aswell as the particular strengths or weaknesses of our immigrant entre-preneurs The experience of these immigrants illustrates the limits ofSoviet institutional imprinting, with its antagonism toward privatebusiness, on this group of immigrants

Chapter 6 presents another aspect of contribution to the US tion economy, in this case, by academic and industry scientists,researchers, and managers This chapter presents interview materialfrom each of the three wave periods and from the three sector cate-gories used in Chapter 5 to illustrate significant activities directlyimpacting technology innovation Again, this is a critical area of theinnovation economy to which our interviewees bring special talentsand experience Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 illustrate the profound

innova-institutional impact of the Soviet educational system on the ability ofthese immigrants to contribute in fundamental ways to US high tech-nology, and the interview excerpts are testimony to the personal tena-city and fortitude of these talented individuals.

Chapter 7 examines the impact of new institutions on the process ofimprinting and identity as the interviewees adapted to the US culturalenvironment The process of adaptation involved facing challenges andsecuring sources of support in that process The chapter reviews chal-lenges in adapting to a new language and culture, as well as challengeswith new living conditions in daily life Interviewees describe theirexperiences and the support they received from mentors, role models,and networks

Chapter 8 looks at issues in workplace adaptation The chapterbriefly presents experiences interviewees had in the workplace in theformer USSR, as well as challenges they faced in skill areas necessary tosucceed in the United States These skills include areas common toanyone in the high-tech workplace but have specific resonance amongpeople with different institutional contexts, imprinting, and identities.The chapter looks at teamwork, managerial and leadership styles,communication, and attitudes toward trust

Chapter 9 continues the application of institutional theory andimprinting on the formation of new aspects of identity given the dra-matically changed circumstances of our interviewees This complexand disruptive process could well facilitate their adaptation and con-tribution to the US innovation economy In describing their identities,many responded that“American” was their primary identity, whilemany others noted that they were“American-Russians,” as did othersfrom other former republics like Ukraine and Armenia Some intervie-wees described their identities by referring to their homelands first,such as“Russian-American,” as did some from other former republics

in referring to their homelands Another large group described theiridentities as being Russian, while others responded that they wereJewish In contrast to ethnicity, some identified with their professions

or interests, while a fairly large group emphasized the complexity oftheir ethnicities and experiences Finally, a rather large group dealtwith complexity by considering themselves to be global citizens, inter-nationalists, or cosmopolitans

Chapter 10 summarizes thefive i’s of our analytical framework Eachtopic is addressed separately and synthesized toward the end of the