Last night, all of Twitter, all social media—in fact, the entire internet—was flooded with news from Apple’s presentation.
Here’s the new phone. And here’s the new watch—it’s waterproof. And these are the new headphones. And the screen is more colorful, and the black casing is even blacker.
Whether you like iPhones or not is secondary. The main thing is that here it is—a new product. Millions of people want it, and it’s made by a private corporation.
Looking at all this, I thought: we poured hundreds of billions of rubles from the state budget into this—billions of U.S. dollars’ worth—hoping to get products that might not be quite as first-rate, but at least genuinely high-tech.
Where are they?
They created all these idiotic state corporations and “development” institutions: Skolkovo, RUSNANO, Rostec. Everywhere, huge bureaucracies and huge salaries. Everyone made promises.
Here’s Chemezov from Rostec showing Putin “new developments”:
Here’s Putin giving Xi Jinping a “Russian iPhone”:
Here they are showing Medvedev a “Russian iPhone.” 2010.
This is 2011. “A new kind of electronics, fundamentally different from what exists today.” Chubais promises super-textbooks.
And so on, and so on.
From the Yo-mobile to Skolkovo, from nanotechnology to super YotaPhones.
It all turned out to be a sham: every word, every device, every promise.
The most truthful video about these “Russian iPhones and tablets” would be this one—not a very decent one.
And again, let me repeat: hundreds of billions were invested.
I came up with this post yesterday, and it was supposed to end something like this: billions were invested, and there’s nothing to show for it.
But today an article came out in Forbes, and I have to correct myself: there is something.
Anatoly Chubais does have something: a house. Worth $40 million.
Steve Jobs—the founder of Apple—didn’t have a house like that. This is where he lived until his death:
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s house looks like this:
But they do have iPhones and Facebook.
All we are left with is pride in the luxurious estate of nanotechnologist A.B. Chubais. It is the only kind of product that Putin’s “breakthrough” technologies produce without fail.