The billionaire Arkady Volozh, known as the architect of “Russia’s Google,” valued at $30 billion at its peak, has long had an apolitical public persona. “I don’t have friction with the state,” Volozh told WIRED in 2017. “Just like I don’t have friction with the weather. What happens if it’s raining? I need to build a service to avoid the rain.”
Still, Volozh couldn’t avoid the rain. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he was targeted by EU sanctions personally and forced to step down from Yandex, the internet giant he built with the late Ilya Segalovich. Today the tech billionaire is announcing his comeback as CEO of a new European
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