To add a bit, the brain drain has been going on since at least the end of the Soviet Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-wave_Russian_emigration
replyThe Soviet Union arguably had some of world's finest engineering talent, but many of those most skilled left as soon as they could. Some of these, or their children, would go on to found startups.
> The Soviet Union arguably had some of world's finest engineering talent, but many of those [..]
reply.. were not Russians. USSR itself incorporated besides its native Russian talent 2 talent powerhouses of Ukraine and Armenia. Ukraine was the industrial powerhouse. Armenia was the USSR's silicon valley with hightest per capita of scientists in USSR. There is also Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to consider, all of them active in relative high tech engineering.
All of those also had some amount of brain drain around that time.
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