On Wikipedia, Victor Orlovsky is represented as an entrepreneur who specialized in developing start-ups in the USA and Israel. But his career is not limited to venture business. Before moving to California in 2015, he became a successful IT manager at a major bank and also participated in the creation of a unique technological platform for the digitalization of retail, corporate, and investment businesses.
There are many interesting points within Victor’s biography that did not just happen by accident but rather were a logical consequence of his constant work on himself and willingness to take the risk of integrating and investing in breakthrough technologies.
Victor Orlovsky — Education and the Start of a Career in IT
Victor was born in 1974 in sunny Tashkent. In 1996, he successfully graduated from Tashkent University of Informational Technology with a degree in “Automatic Telecommunications”, and in 2001, he graduated from Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics, and Informatics with a degree in “Finances and Credit”.
While he was still a student, Victor Orlovsky began working in the technological department at ABN AMRO Bank in Tashkent. However, work didn’t prevent him from successfully graduating from university and becoming the manager of the IT department of a bank at literally the same time.
In the early 2000s, a very important milestone in the biography of Victor Soloviev happened – he moved to Amsterdam and then got a job in the office at ABN AMRO Bank in Moscow, where for the next 17 years he successfully developed as a manager of the IT department in largest banks. During this time, he created an IT platform for the biggest bank from scratch, which gave him the ability to build a new digital ecosystem on a national scale and make a never-before-seen world-class breakthrough in digital banking.
The Path to His Own Projects
In 2015, Victor Orlovsky moved to California. According to him, this event was a natural continuation; despite his successful career in banking, he understood that he could fulfill his potential only through his own business. Plus, he always considered the world of digital technologies and innovations to be his element. This is how the idea of creating a venture business that invests in the development of promising IT start-ups came about.
Victor says that all the benefits of civilization, from increased life expectancy to the ability to study the depths of human consciousness and space, are possible due to technological progress. At the same time, he learned from his own experience how hard it is to integrate breakthrough innovations into corporate business, which has always been particularly conservative and bureaucratic.
However, Victor Orlovsky also mentions that the idea of creating his own start-up is not as interesting to him, as he is not willing to devote all his time to only one project. He is deeply convinced that the venture business is an asymmetry of knowledge and information, in which access to the best deals is restricted and requires serious insights. Venture business is basically legal insight trading. And exactly for this reason, Victor doesn’t seek a ready-made solution but rather creates one together with talented people – start-up founders.
Victor Orlovsky is also developing as a speaker – he launched his own course on venture capital together with a Stanford University professor, Ilya Strebulaev, for those who are interested in the topic of venture investments – investors and entrepreneurs (www.neic.club). He writes articles about investments in start-ups and digital technologies as well as being a co-author of a bestseller (according to the Wall Street Journal), “From Rhino to Unicorn: How Fortune 500 Companies Can Evolve for the Digital Era”. In 2020, the book received a “Book of 2020 in Russia” award by PWC and became a handbook for many businessmen ready to integrate innovation into their companies.
Today, Victor Orlovsky is an entrepreneur, investor, and world-renowned digital technology expert. It would seem that he has already achieved most of what many others are scared to even dream about. But he himself is sure that all his real accomplishments are yet to come. The most comfortable place for living and working is Silicon Valley, as here he feels free of stereotypes and is able to communicate with like-minded, open people who are willing to not just create new technologies, but also adapt them for the present reality.
