Meet the tech entrepreneurs ditching Silicon Valley for Ukraine

A number of tech entrepreneurs have left the US for Ukraine, the place they’re supplying troops, serving to civilians evacuate and gathering materials for weblog posts. 

Antonio García Martínez, a author and former worker of Fb and Apple who lives in Nevada, crossed the border from Poland into Ukraine on Sunday. 

García Martínez spent 4 days within the western part of the nation together with town of Lviv, the place he tweeted observations comparable to “Wartime Lviv is cleaner and extra orderly than [San Francisco] on a great day” earlier than donating his physique armor and provides to the Ukrainian navy and retuning to Poland. 

“Western Ukraine is just not very harmful in any respect,” García Martínez instructed The Publish about 20 minutes after crossing the Polish border. “There are missile strikes sometimes… however the metropolis hasn’t been hit with something in any respect.” 

He mentioned he was in Ukraine to assemble materials for his Substack weblog and for a magazine article. He attended a funeral for a number of Ukrainian troopers and thought of touring additional east alongside along with his interpreter however determined to show again “given the state of affairs in Kyiv proper now.” 

Andrey Lisovich
“I couldn't sit idly by whereas horrific occasions have been going down in my house,” former Uber government Andrey Lisovich mentioned.
Instagram/@ukrdefensefund

“There’s an enormous media hit I have to do subsequent week so I have to be again within the US in comparatively brief order,” added García Martínez, who beforehand wrote a controversial memoir about working at Fb known as “Chaos Monkeys.” 

One other techie, former Uber government Andrey Lisovich, left California for his hometown of Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine after the conflict broke out. 

Dwight Crow
Tech entrepreneur Dwight Crow helped evacuate civilians close to Kyiv.
Twitter/@dwightcrow

Lisovich instructed TMZ he’s serving to coordinate provides for the Ukrainian navy together with garments, meals and footwear. 

“I couldn't sit idly by whereas horrific occasions have been going down in my house,” mentioned Lisovich, who labored because the CEO of Uber’s on-demand staffing division Uber Works till 2020. “I’m right here as a result of I’ve seen Zelensky’s willingness to struggle and his braveness is contagious.”

Zaporizhzhia is in southeastern Ukraine, near Russian positions to the cities of Kherson and Melitopol. It shares a reputation with a close-by nuclear energy plant that was shelled and captured by Russian forces earlier this month.

Lisovich, who didn't instantly reply to a request for remark, instructed TMZ he’s drafted a will on his laptop computer in case he’s killed. 

A 3rd tech entrepreneur, ex-Fb product supervisor Dwight Crow, was noticed final week within the besieged Kyiv suburb of Irpin, the place he was carrying a helmet and physique armor as he helped evacuate civilians. 

“Once I noticed the invasion, I actually purchased a airplane ticket and acquired right here as rapidly as I may,” Crow instructed CNN. “That is like the most important struggle for freedom in my lifetime.”

“It’s scary, you already know, once you hear the bombs going off, however on the identical time there’s individuals lots nearer to it than us they usually’re actually those who're actually in hurt’s means, we’re simply doing our half to get them out of right here,” mentioned Crow.

Crow, who didn't reply to a request for remark, presently works because the co-founder and chairman of the board of Whisper.ai, a Sequoia Capital-backed startup that develops synthetic intelligence-assisted listening to aids. 

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