Marx Against Them
Coming to America is tough. Coming to America from the U.S.S.R. is tougher. Then try starting a business...
Entrepreneurs are evil.
That was the sort of thing you learned behind the Iron Curtain
in the midst of the Cold War. That was the message drummed into the
minds of Mikhail Kvitchko and Mikhail Markov as they grew up in the
1960s and 1970s.
But it wasn't drummed into them enough. Now known as Mik
Kvitchko, 43, and Michael Markov, 41, these two former Russian
computer programmers are American capitalists in New York City,
co-founders of Markov Processes International Corp., a technology
consulting company for the financial services industry that has
projected 1999 sales of a little more than $1 million, double what
they made last year.
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Not so long ago, if they were back in their homeland and had
made a million dollars, they might have been shot. As Markov notes,
"Millions of farmers were moved to Siberia in the 1920s and
'30s for being more productive than their neighbors. My
great-grandfather was one of them." (Later, Markov's
great-grandfather was shot by the Nazis during World War II.)
Geoff Williams is a features reporter for The Cincinnati
Post and a frequent contributor to Entrepreneur. He has
written for many other magazines, including LIFE and
Entertainment Weekly.
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