William Browder on Russia's Curious Lose-Lose Tendencies

William Browder ran the largest investment fund in Russia until Vladimir Putin effectively drove him out of the country. Ironically, Browder's grandfather had run against FDR as the Communist Party candidate. As a teenager, Browder rebelled against his family’s history by embracing capitalism. The symmetry appealed to him: just as his grandfather became a communist in capitalist America, Browder would become a capitalist in communist Russia.

By the early 2000s, he was managing the biggest investment firm in Russia, achieving years of extraordinary returns. But he describes Russian culture as deeply rooted in a peculiar form of lose-lose thinking. He cites a popular Russian folktale that illustrates this mindset: A man discovers a genie who grants him one wish, with the caveat that whatever he wishes for himself, his neighbor will receive double. Immediately the man says, “Poke out one of my eyes.”