Yuri Milner is an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist. He founded Digital Sky Technologies in 2001 with partner Gregory Finger, which has since been renamed DST Global. DST owns stakes in Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and Alibaba (the most significant stake outside of Asia), Mail.Ru Group, and other companies.
- About Yuri
Yuri Milner is of Jewish descent. He graduated from the Physics Department at the Moscow Institute of Technology (MIPT) in 1985 with a degree in theoretical particle physics. In 1993 he founded NetBridge, which later became Mail.Ru Group, a prominent social media company.
- Philanthropy
Milner started his philanthropy work after the earthquake in Sichuan, China, in 2008, which he visited personally to help the victims of the disaster. Milner has been engaged in various activities to enhance youth education and skills development, such as supporting the “I am a Teacher” project at Byju’s, an educational mobile app that teaches students English language skills. Milner is on the Global Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a trustee of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council. In 2001, he received an award from the British-based Financial Times as one of Europe’s “Top 25 Finance Players.”
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In May 2009, DST Global bought a controlling stake in Facebook for an undisclosed sum. In 2011, Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg co-founded the DST Global Foundation. Milner donated $100 million to support artificial intelligence research at the Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) in October 2011.