After it came out that I’m supporting Trump this election, it was no surprise to be attacked by lefty journalists on multiple topics. The far-left Rolling Stone’s hit piece on me a few days ago based on our policy org Cicero’s success - we’re helping several states reduce corruption and death by fixing incentives and increasing accountability in the homelessness services area - is a badge of honor. But perhaps the most pathetic hit piece is a nativist Forbes reporter looking to paint our two Russian colleagues at 8VC as a “scandal”. America is an amazing country in part because it attracts the best and brightest, enabling us to achieve great things with talented people of all backgrounds. People like Albert Einstein, Jensen Huang, or Elon Musk. 8VC has ten partners including me and nearly 70 employees today, and we work closely with several hundred founders, who employ hundreds of thousands of leaders and innovators. We co-found companies and we invest. I work with colleagues of all backgrounds - men and women from Iowa, or from California; from Texas, and from Argentina; even close friends and allies from China and Iran, and from many other places, including Russia. We met my colleague Jack when he was a talented young man graduating from Stanford several years ago, known to people we respected as one of their brightest friends. My partner hired him and he became an analyst, and over the coming years rose through our firm quickly and is a star Principal, working as a leader at 8VC and earning the respect of our colleagues and of many founders and CEO’s. It turns out that his father is a successful agricultural leader in Russia; if you’re a businessman in Russia, and their leader says to meet, you go, regardless of your views. His father is now on "oligarch" sanction lists. I didn’t hire his father though, I hired him. And he’s a superstar. Jack has a US green card and is a resident allowed to be in the USA, as he should be - and he’s somebody I know and trust. Denis is a friend of Jack’s with whom he grew up - somebody he told us that he admired and respected as one of the brightest people in his life.  Denis went to secondary school in the UK, and attended places like Yale and Harvard.  When he was graduating with his master’s degree, a leading PE firm had been paying for it and he planned to go work there, but the cowards at that firm saw that Denis had a father who was now on sanction lists, and told Denis they could no longer hire him - for now to wait a year or so until things blow over, etc. So what did I do when I heard about this?  I've known my colleague Jack for years, and trust his judgment. I looked into it, spoke with mentors I respect on the topic, and met with Denis. Truly top talent is hard to find, and we were impressed. Denis hasn’t lived in Russia since he was 12.  Should we be holding him accountable for the invasion, and driving this amazing talent out of the USA? We work in a lot of sectors, including defense where I’ve founded more top US companies than anybody alive, not least Palantir, and we support great entrepreneurs. We have huge wins in bio-manufacturing, are the top venture firm in US logistics, and have done amazing work in healthcare and fintech - another company I founded and chair now has over a thousand firms reporting over seven trillion dollars over our system. These days we are doing leading work in AI and AI-services. Leaders I respect, including friends and mentors in the defense world, agreed with my decision. Let’s be honest: a lot of people make decisions based on fear today, especially money managers. A lesser man might put silly opinions and anxiety ahead of the truth and the substance of what’s right, and would have been afraid to hire Denis; lesser men in fact were. I detest Putin, and I’ve fought to help eliminate terrorists, save the US government billions, and make us more competent to deter our adversaries - at least as well as any American in the defense sector. But we also do important work in other areas, and I happen to disagree that it’s a good strategy for us to isolate the smart, wealthy Russian people themselves. Regardless, we have a strict compliance and legal framework and always make sure to respect and follow the law. We haven’t taken any money from their fathers or their fathers’ friends, and don’t need it - we know the relevant institutions and wealthy people everywhere in the world, and our funds are massively oversubscribed, as we hit home run after home run in multiple areas and keep the fund sizes smaller than our peers. But there’s no reason not to work with a talent like Denis on the AI Services theme and other areas as we are doing, and to help him soon launch a new venture with us as an EIR. This reporter wanted a response; he has it. I’m lucky to live in the greatest country in the world, and it will remain as such if we can keep working with the top talent of all backgrounds, including, yes, Chinese and Russians and Israelis et al, without demonizing people for imagined things they didn’t do. I’m not naive that there are bad guys in this world, and I’ll follow the law and the advice of US intelligence and defense leaders we respect, but beyond that I will continue to use my judgement. I won’t be responding to any media inquiries on this topic.