The Siberia Job | Based on a True Story | Stephen Kotkin and John Kleinheinz | Hoover Institution

Talks from the Hoover Institution

The Hoover Institution hosts The Siberia Job | A Book Event on Wednesday, June 7, 2022 at 5:00 pm PT in Hauck Auditorium.

Stephen Kotkin in conversation with John Kleinheinz to discuss the new book, The Siberia Job. Introduction by Condoleezza Rice.

PARTICIPANT BIOS

Stephen Kotkin is a Hoover senior fellow and a Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University. In addition to conducting research in the Hoover Library and Archives for three decades, he is also founder of Princeton’s Global History Initiative. Kotkin’s research and publications encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present, and he has also participated in numerous National Intelligence Council events over the years.

John Kleinheinz is the CEO of Kleinheinz Capital Partners, Inc., the investment advisor for the Global Undervalued Securities Fund, a global-macro themed hedge fund which at its peak managed $4 billion. He returned outside capital to investors in 2013 after a successful 20-year career. John continues to manage the Fund, which is active in a variety of areas including Japan, US energy/technology markets and private equity. He is also a lead investor in efforts to develop high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston.

Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and a Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A Texas businessman travels to the furthest reaches of post-Soviet Russia in search of the country’s new wealth ― and finds new dangers as well. Based on true events.

After the demise of the Soviet Union, the newly-established Russian government privatized its industry by issuing vouchers to all of its citizens, allowing them the chance to be shareholders in the country’s burgeoning businesses. The slips are distributed among the population and auctions are arranged where they can be exchanged for actual shares. For the country’s rural populations living in abject poverty, the vouchers appear to be little more than pieces of paper, totally separated from the far-off concept of potential future fortunes.

But for Texas businessman John Mills and his Czech companion, Petr Kovac, the seemingly-valueless chits suggest a lucrative potential, worth much more than what the current owners are willing to sell them for. They travel to the furthest, coldest reaches of the country to acquire vouchers for the country’s national oil company, Gazneft, roving from town to town with suitcases full of cash. But they quickly learn that the plan has complications ― for example, the fact that the auctions at which these vouchers are traded for actual shares have been planned at the most remote, inaccessible locations possible to deter outsiders from buying in. And when the Russian mafia and the oligarchs in charge of Gazneft catch wind of their successes, the stakes become suddenly more deadly.

A thrilling adventure inspired by true events, The Siberia Job charts a course through one of the most impactful periods in recent Russian history, whose reverberations continue to be felt in the present day.