Attention: this is an official announcement about changes to my immediate plans.
Announcement. Girls and boys, I was lucky enough to get into Yale University’s Yale World Fellows program at Yale University. It wasn’t easy — the competition was something like 1,000 people for 15 spots. So I’ll be spending the second half of 2010 in New Haven, in the state of Connecticut, New England.
- “But what about our beloved Effective Managers?” you will ask. Will the stick with a sharp nail on the end really fall from your hands straight into the dusty Moscow grass? It will not.
Over this time, many of you have started sharpening such sticks yourselves, and I hope you will continue our cheerful experiments.
In fact, I’m going there precisely to improve my qualifications in the art of stick-poking. I want to seriously expand our toolkit and learn/understand how to use things like foreign anti-corruption laws, U.S./EU anti-money-laundering legislation, stock exchange rules, and so on against Effective Managers. We need to know how to hit EM where they won’t be protected by the greedy crooks in the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Russian courts.
So our work will only expand. After all, I spent a whole year stuck among the bears, snows, and manatees of Kirov Region. And I survived. Internet access in New Haven is definitely better than in Kirov. At meetings, I won’t have to prove that Wi-Fi is not a devilish CIA invention designed to steal top-secret information about declines in cattle numbers.
The Moscow office will continue operating. The time difference creates some inconvenience. But ~~I’m sure that such a trifle as having to get up at three in the morning to read my brilliant post won’t stop anyone~~ we’ll manage.
To head off the inevitable question about money: this costs me absolutely nothing. Yale covers everything from airfare to housing, and even gives some money for ~~a life of luxury with sports cars and weekends in Vegas~~ current expenses.
Now I’ll move on to the Oscar-style acceptance speech. I haven’t received an Oscar yet, but I already have plenty of thank-yous to give. These are the people who made it all happen. Thank you all very much. (In order of appearance on screen)
Maria Gaidar m_gaidar, who told me about the program and said I’d be a fool if I didn’t try to apply.
Sergei Guriev, rector of the New Economic School, who, standing there in a chiton with a staff in hand, gave me all sorts of guidance. But beyond the guidance, he also nominated me for the program and supplied recommendations.
Oleg Tsyvinski, a Yale economics professor and the holder of a whole bunch of other titles besides. In between playing polo in Argentina and writing something brilliant, he gave me a recommendation and a pile of useful advice (never try to offer a Yale professor two hundred dollars to pass a course).
Yevgenia Albats, editor-in-chief of The New Times magazine and a former Yale professor, also gave me a recommendation and will no doubt give me plenty more advice about life in New Haven.
Garry Kasparov, garry_kasparov, leader of the UCF (United Civil Front, a Russian opposition movement), who took a minute off from dismantling the regime to give me a recommendation too!
Maxim Trudolyubov, trudolyubov, editor of the "Comments" section at the newspaper Vedomosti and a 2009 Yale World Fellow, who gave me a ton of tips and advice (yes, yes, never try to offer two hundred dollars to pass a course at Yale) and used his lobbying powers as a program alumnus on my behalf.
Alexei Sitnikov, lesha_sitnikov, vice rector of the New Economic School. In a kind, fatherly voice, he advised me on what I should write and what I shouldn’t; what the meticulous representatives of the Ivy League would appreciate, and what they would not (sure, it’s cool, but you probably shouldn’t write in your essay that in 2003, while fishing, you caught a caaaarp this big).
Andrei Kibishev, senior lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages at Vyatka State University, who wearily but firmly cured me of the habit of saying will after if. Our lessons went something like this.
So that’s that. Soon we’ll be taking on EM across all time zones and jurisdictions.