A Converging View

Some Stock Picks: $LNKD, $NFLX, $XPO

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:05:14 -0400

I have always made stock picks based on companies that I think are going to outperform on expectations-I know this seems obvious, but basically companies that will surprise on product development and user growth/adoption. Its hard for me to fully grasp how hidden financial metrics move stocks beyond positive earnings. That being said, here are three companies I like looking at it from a Buffet-like long term perspective (I know some are trading of very high multiples):

LinkedIn ($LNKD): just noticed recently that a lot of very talented/smart people are going to work for Linkedin. Tells me two things: 1) they are paying well for talent 2) the company will continue to be run and managed well and only be more successful. Also, love how diversified their revenue is. Also, their addressable market includes anyone between 18-65 years old who has any professional aspirations. They have a huge blank canvas for mobile and international. Finally, have you noticed recently a huge uptick in Linkedin Invitation requests from people you would have never thought would be on Linkedin?

Netflix ($NFLX): More tablets, more phones, more connectivity=more Netflix. Also, with House of Cards and some of the other original content they are creating, they are no longer beholden to the big studio/media content creators. If anything, it increases their negotiating power because they dont need the big content creators any more. If the price is right for the content, they will pay for it, but if its not, they dont need it. This trend will ultimately drive down the price/cost of the license of the content from the large studios improving their margins.

XPO Logistics ($XPO): My buddy sold me on this one. Next generation logistics provider on freight transportation. Solid management team with a huge forward momentum working for them-people will rely more and more on shipping as e-commerce continues to grow. Delivery becomes more and more important every day.

Android Development Videos

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:22:18 -0400

Android Development Videos:

If you are looking to learn how to be an Android Developer, some great videos to get your started here. Also, live shows on a weekly basis.

Google Wallet/Offers Team is Hiring for Strategic Partnership Development

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:39:00 -0500

Click here to see job description. The Google Wallet/Offers team is hiring. If you are interested click the link. Note that the job is in NYC. Great role on an awesome team. Ideally someone with technology partnerships/business development/sales experience with a passion and understanding of e-commerce and payments. MBA/JD is preferred but people with several years relevant experience will also be considered.

Next New York Media Collective Event-Join Us!

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:03:40 -0500

We have our next New York Media Collective event on February 11th: http://nymc021113.eventbrite.com/.

Background on our group: We founded New York Media Collective (nymediacollective.com) in 2010 to be a networking group for digital media executives from established and emerging companies. NYMC hosts networking events each fall, winter, and spring in New York City. Our invitation only cocktail parties attract a broad range of senior-level professionals from the leading global media corporations to the most promising start-ups, as well as the advisors who guide them.

A good friend of mine is organizing an amazing standup comedy...

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:07:00 -0400

A good friend of mine is organizing an amazing standup comedy event (Comedy for a Cause) at the Broadway Comedy Club in midtown Manhattan featuring the famous Dan Nainan and eight other renowned comics from the New York area. The event will feature 100% clean comedy and will not contain any offensive material. The event will most likely get sold out so I encourage you to buy them online.

All proceeds from the ticket sales will go to Sahayta, a non-profit charity organization that provides financial support to unprivileged cancer patients in India. You can find out more about the organization here http://www.sahayta.org

Tickets:

Online: $12.50* link is http://bit.ly/SComedy

At the door: $15

RSVP:

For more details and to RSVP for the event please go to their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/events/348810645199951

More about Dan Nainan:

After leaving Intel to pursue comedy, Dan has toured as a feature act with comedians Robert Schimmel and Russell Peters. You may recognize Dan as the “guy in bubble wrap” from the Apple “Get a Mac” series of commercials.

Dan has appeared on network television including NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” as well as in feature films and on radio. A 100% clean comedian, he has performed for Hillary Clinton, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Howard Dean, Tony Blair’s wife Cherie, and for many other celebrities. Here is a link to Dan’s detailed bio: http://www.danielnainan.com

Use any credit card or debit card in Google Wallet

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 13:49:37 -0400

Use any credit card or debit card in Google Wallet:

Click Here to see how any credit card works in Google Wallet now!

Great Google Chrome Commercial….kind of cheesy but...

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:21:35 -0400

Great Google Chrome Commercial….kind of cheesy but everyone likes a little cheese….

New Yorkers! Google Wallet Gets you to the Beach!

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:17:00 -0400

New Yorkers! Google Wallet Gets you to the Beach!:

Fun Promotion from our team….

Press Release for AGBU Internship 25th Anniversary Event

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:41:00 -0400

http://www.agbu.org/pressoffice/article.asp?ID=910

Generations of alumni from AGBU’s prestigious New York Summer Internship Program (NYSIP) will reunite on Saturday, July 21, 2012, to celebrate the program’s 25th anniversary at a special gala evening. The much anticipated event will give former NYSIP participants the opportunity to both reconnect and acknowledge the various individuals, who, over the years, have shaped the program and given it a reputation for excellence.

To date, NYSIP has produced over 800 alumni who have risen to the top of their fields, owing to the solid foundation they laid and valuable contacts they cultivated through the program. While participants are now established in various industries in different cities, during their two months living together in New York they formed a lasting bond. The celebration’s venue, Battery Gardens, which sits on the New York Harbor with iconic views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, is the ideal site for alumni to reminisce about summers spent exploring the city, and to bring each other up to date on all that has happened since. As the occasion draws closer, NYSIP co-chair Sarkis Jebejian comments, “We are very excited to see familiar faces, and to hear about all the ways NYSIP students have used their summer experience as a vehicle to advance themselves. Every year, we are proud to bring together the best and brightest students from around the globe, who demonstrate exceptional academic performance and a true motivation to contribute to their local community. As always, it will be a pleasure to learn about their numerous accomplishments following NYSIP.” His enthusiasm is shared by the many who have already confirmed their attendance for the event.

Throughout the evening, NYSIP will pay tribute to those who have played a key role in developing the program. As Serge Kassardjian, the chair of the anniversary celebration committee, a NYSIP alumnus, and a NYSIP committee member, remarks, “we are thrilled to celebrate this milestone, which reflects the impact that the program has on so many people’s lives throughout the world. We also look forward to announcing a few exciting initiatives we have planned for the future, and to honoring the supervisors who have been vital to the growth of this program.” During the event, the spotlight will be put on numerous NYSIP supervisors who have devoted more than five summers to nurturing the professional aspirations of the students, and have demonstrated a deep commitment to preparing them for post-graduate endeavors.

The honorees have carried on a strong tradition that was first envisioned by NYSIP founders Vartkess† and Rita Balian, who sought to provide university students of Armenian descent with professional experience and to create a global network of young leaders. After the couple established the program in 1987, it quickly took off and has not lost momentum since. Today, NYSIP enjoys strong relationships with over two hundred host institutions, from Fortune 500 companies to public sector organizations, including Citigroup, the New York Times, the United Nations, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each organization offers participants a rewarding learning experience, and insight into the inner workings of their future professions, while helping them forge their career paths. The success of NYSIP was such that it prompted AGBU to establish similar programs in Moscow in 2010, Yerevan in 2007, and Paris in 2003, which has since evolved to serve students from the French University of Armenia and is held year round.

AGBU NYSIP is supported in large part through donations by supporters who believe in the program’s valuable mission. Gifts are added to a scholarship endowment fund to help ensure that qualified candidates who need financial assistance are able to take advantage of the program. Raffi Balian, the NYSIP co-chair, attributes NYSIP’s success to both the generosity of program donors and dedication of its supervisors. He has also emphasized that this July’s gala is not exclusively for alumni and supervisors, stating “we welcome all who have supported NYSIP through the years at this exciting event so that they can see, firsthand, the result of their contributions and meet the many accomplished professionals who have directly benefitted from their support.”

The celebration is one of two events being organized by the NYSIP anniversary committee that same weekend. On Friday, July 20, the AGBU Young Professionals of Greater New York will co-host an evening mixer. Tickets for the Saturday gala are now on sale for $175 and tickets for the mixer are available for $25. Both can be purchased via http://agbuinternship25thanniversary.eventbrite.com, where information about accommodations at the W Hotel – Union Square is also available.

Established in 1906, AGBU (www.agbu.org) is the world’s largest non-profit Armenian organization. Headquartered in New York City, AGBU preserves and promotes the Armenian identity and heritage through educational, cultural and humanitarian programs, annually touching the lives of some 400,000 Armenians around the world.

For more information about AGBU and its worldwide programs, please visit www.agbu.org.

Go See The Raid: Redemption

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:05:00 -0400

My friend Aram Tertzakian’s production company XYZ Films has a new film coming out in theaters this weekend, and I’d love if you could see it this weekend and spread the word to your friends. XYZ Films is a small start up in LA - they produced it and sold it internationally, and it’s a really really big one for them.

The film is called THE RAID: REDEMPTION, and it’s a pretty killer action film with a heavy martial arts component. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing it in LA, NY, DC, CHI, & SF this weekend, and will go wider the following weekend if it does well this weekend.

Here’s the Rotten Tomatoes page, and the trailer:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_raid_redemption/
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony/theraidredemption/

Here’s where you go to see theaters and buy tickets:
http://www.sonyclassics.com/theraid/dates.html

Inbox=0...My Favorite OCD Tendancy

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:54:00 -0500

Our team at work is constantly giving me a hard time for “inbox=0”. Every day before I go home from work, I try to get both my inboxes (work and personal) to zero. I initially started doing this every Saturday morning and extended to do this daily. When referring to “inbox=0”, every email has been archived, responded to or deleted. Obviously, its not always possible to get there, but I have found I have become much more effective and reliable by working towards cleaning out my inbox every day. People know I am reliable, it forces me to not put things off and almosts serves like a task manager clean up.

So what do I do if something is in my inbox and I need to respond later on, for instance the following week? I put a calendar reminder on when I need to respond by and when it shows up, it forces me to respond. Also, sticky tabs work great. If you are in a client facing/deal orientated role, you should give this a try. It forces you to not overlook anything and increases your churn on getting things done. It may be an extreme version of OCD, but it has worked great for me.

Stop SOPA/PIPA Now!

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:58:31 -0500

Stop SOPA/PIPA Now!:

If you like an open internet, the jobs it creates and its contribution to GDP, you should be opposed to SOPA…….the alternative is a China-esque controlled internet. Here is a little overview that Google has put together on the following: what is SOPA/PIPA? How does it affect you? How do I do something about it?

This is a potentially a very damaging initiative that on the surface may appear to try to stop piracy of Justin Bieber cd sales, but in reality is a lot more. They want to control what we can see, how we access it and who decides the appropriate channels. Its not only a hit to your entertainment but destroys the free information market that makes the web so powerful.

Over the holiday break, I had the opportunity to check out the...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:14:15 -0500

Over the holiday break, I had the opportunity to check out the movie Midnight in Paris. I didn’t love it as much as everyone else did, but I thought the soundtrack was absolutely fantastic. Lots of great songs from the 20s remade. Conal Fowkes in particular stands out on the soundtrack-this song was my favorite. The album has a touch of romance with some fun quirkiness. Great relaxing dinner time music and worth a download if you like a jazz/big band feel. I feel like this should appeal to anyone regardless your musical taste.

I had the good fortune to begin the new year with old friends...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:04:38 -0500

I had the good fortune to begin the new year with old friends from Stanford in Scottsdale, Arizona. Our team made the Fiesta Bowl, which made for a great opportunity to have a reunion of sorts.

This post is a huge THANK YOU to Joe Liemandt, the founder of Trilogy Software, who is rumored to have thrown the best tailgate I have ever been to in my life. This epic tailgate in a covered space featured complimentary food, drinks and performances by LMFAO, Ke$ha and Brett Michaels from Poison performing for all of us immediately before the game. So a big thank you to Joe (although I dont know him personally, but know him through a 2nd degree connection). You made the day for many, as we got together and celebrated an amazing weekend. Here is a fun video from the LMFAO performance (turn the volume down because of the static; I took the video with my phone).

"There’s a lot of things that happened that I’m sure I could have done better when I was at a Apple..."

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 22:13:40 -0500

“

There’s a lot of things that happened that I’m sure I could have done better when I was at a Apple the first time and a lot of things that happened after I left that I thought were wrong turns, but it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter and you kind of got to let go of that stuff and we are where we are. So we tend to look forward.

And, you know, one of the things I did when I got back to Apple 10 years ago was I gave the museum to Stanford and all the papers and all the old machines and kind of cleared out the cobwebs and said, let’s stop looking backwards here. It’s all about what happens tomorrow. Because you can’t look back and say, well, gosh, you know, I wish I hadn’t have gotten fired, I wish I was there, I wish this, I wish that. It doesn’t matter. And so let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.

”

- Over the years, I have shared this quoataion with friends from Steve Jobs which along with the famous stanford commencement speech is an inspiration to both innovate and get through tough times…..little quoted because its transcribed from AllthingsD Conference

NYC Needs Stanford and Stanford Needs NYC

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:24:14 -0400

New York City is in a unique situation right now. It’s changing.

Several industries are core to New York: media, financial services, advertising, fashion, sports and social driven business (i.e. restaurants, nightlife), to name a few. Technology is influencing all these industries and altering the way we think about and interact with them.

I moved to New York two and a half years ago when the technology industry here was still relatively small, but I could see the entrepreneurial spirit inherent to building high growth technology companies starting to gain momentum. NYC industries were ripe for disruption and improvement through technology.

Fast forward to 2011. Some of the most promising technology companies in fashion (Gilt groupe), financial services (Kickstarter), social (foursquare) and advertising (Buddy Media) are coming out of New York. Google bought a 2.9M square foot building in the old Port Authority building, which also happens to house several prominent start-ups and venture capital firms. Mayor Bloomberg has taken it upon his office to incentivize technology innovation in the city through multiple programs. The technology community in New York is growing quickly and I’m thankful and proud to be a part of it.

When I heard that Stanford is submitting a proposal for a new engineering and sciences campus on Roosevelt Island, I was thrilled. Stanford embodies the entrepreneurial energy that is responsible for creating Silicon Valley and its biggest companies. New York needs this energy and the potential of these incredible technology resources.

On the other hand, it’s important for Stanford to be a part of the innovation that is happening here in New York. Yesterday’s semiconductor, enterprise software and hardware businesses are tomorrow’s software businesses that will transform industries like media, finance and advertising. These companies cannot exist anywhere but New York. They need technology to realize their full potential.

It’s an important and mutually beneficial relationship that needs to happen now as the technology market evolves in fundamental ways that will impact the next ten to twenty years and beyond. The United States’ ability to influence these industries through technology innovation is even more critical in this era of globalization.

New York needs Stanford and Stanford needs New York. I implore all Stanford alums, students and friends who have any association with NYC to spread the word.

Ever since I was 18, I’ve been a proud member of the Stanford community. Its influence has profoundly affected me for two reasons: 1) exposure to amazing friends and mentors and their energy to think differently while trying to change the world 2) a vibrant startup community full of people passionate about business and engineering, two disciplines that are increasingly becoming blurred.

If Stanford is successful in its bid to establish roots in NYC, the Big Apple will experience both of these for itself, making the best city in the world that much better and well positioned for the opportunity that lies ahead.

This is Not a Tech Bubble!!!!!

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 09:45:09 -0400

With the economy and markets in flux and the threat of a double dip looming, the tech world seems immune if not stronger than its ever been since 1999. Everyone is talking bubble. This weekend, I had brunch with a group of classmates from business school and nearly everyone at the table insisted that their was a tech bubble. After walking away from that brunch, I feel 5 key points prove that this is not a bubble and why technology is different now then it has ever been.

1) High Growth Technology Businesses are Becoming Everything-Fashion, Sports, Media, Food, Supply Chain, Art, Payments, Coupons, etc. The scope of what technology influences is larger than ever before. Building a business using technology is easier than ever. At the brunch, I mentioned that Google is just as much a media company as a technology company. I got several confused looks…..ummm, Google sells media ads that big media companies like Viacom, Time Warner and Newscorp do. Same business model, different type of content. Ebay was your garage sale but with infinite garages. Zynga is your video game company. Etsy is your art dealer. Gilt Groupe is your designer boutique. Twitter is your news wire. AirBnb is your travel agent. Palantir is your consultant/analyst analyzing your operations. Square is your point of sale system. Access everywhere through mobile, 4g, tablets enables this. My prediction for the next big platform business….someone who figures out how to disrupt the financial services industry.

2) Cash Balances of Big Tech Companies- Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook and others (Cisco, IBM, Oracle) are all sitting on tens of billions of dollars of cash on their balance sheets (nearly $300B in aggregate). From 2000 to 2010 these companies all accumulated cash in an unprecedented rate. In 1999, technology companies did not have this much cash on their balance sheet. In fact, I dont know that their has ever been such a concentrated cash balance in one industry. What this means is more acquisitions of start-ups and further reinforcement of the ecosystem to innovate. People are going to be continued to be incentivized to build technology businesses and invest in these businesses. The cash on the balance sheet is immune to volatility in the markets. Sure if the relative market cap falls over time, companies will be a little less aggressive acquiring, but they will continue to seek growth. Tech companies generally dont acquire for cash flow, but acquire for innovative products and spectacular teams that can help them move into new markets.

3) Expansion into New Markets-A few weeks ago their were reports of fake Apple stores opening up in China in hopes to get Apple products to its massive population. Eastern Europe has some of the most underrated computer science talent in the world. Large parts of Africa and Southeast Asia still have not been touched with technology. Governments in the Middle east are being overturned by the openness of communication on social media through Twitter and Facebook. There are a lot of untouched markets.

4) The Public Companies are Real-The businesses going public such as Linkedin, Pandora, Zipcar and Opentable are real businesses with real cash flows. Although they may trade on high revenue multiples, these are all businesses that will be around 10 years from now. In 1999, businesses were going public purely on speculation of what they would be. The reason the Groupon IPO is delayed is because investors are carefully scrutinizing it as a real business and what its valuation will be based on that risk.

5) Angel Investors Dont Make a Bubble-There are a lot of arguments against too much angel money in the system. Much of the angel money that is funding the bad ideas does not come from the institutional dollars that help build big businesses. The game changing businesses are built with multiple rounds of financing from established venture investors. This market is not over saturated. Maybe there are too many angels, but that just means the barrier of entry has just moved a little further up the chain giving more people a shot to learn and try. An entrepreneur who has tried and failed is going to try and try again arguably making him or her a better entrepreneur and more likley to build that big business. Sure valuations on private investments may have gone up, but what ultimately dictates the success of an industry is the amount of innovation and the business models coming out of it. Lots of small checks and fewer large checks is great for technology.

Its an exciting time to be in tech. Embrace it and enjoy the ride!

Google Wallet Press Release

Sat, 28 May 2011 05:10:01 -0400

Google Wallet Press Release:

I am proud to be on the launch team for Google Wallet. We have been working very hard for a long time to get this amazing new product off the ground. Here is our official press release.

The Silicon Apple-Why Tech Works in NYC

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:31:00 -0400

For several years, I lived in Silicon Valley and thought that the Bay Area and Boston were the only places you could start tech companies and grow them to large businesses. The ecosystem was established in these two locales and the research universities provided all the necessary resources. Inside, I always selfishly wanted to live in NYC, but never thought that tech would be possible here (it was a town for media, fashion, finance, finance, finance and finance). However, when I graduated from business school, I was determined to live in NYC. In my mind, if I did not live there immediately out of school, I would never get the chance to. At the time, I made what I thought was a move that may have been detrimental to my tech career by relocating to NYC. Sometimes you make decisions that don’t necessarily optimize every aspect of your career but drive your happiness in life.

However, over the last two years since moving to this amazing city, I have come to realize that being in technology in NYC is working hugely to my advantage. I am growing up with the tech community in this city and love it. As evident in the press, tech is growing like it never has before in NYC. In fact, many of the amazing people I met from Silicon Valley who I considered visionaries in technology have begun to move to NYC for the opportunity here over that in California. Stanford even recently announced that is was putting in a proposal to open up a technology/sciences/engineering campus in NYC, further validating this idea. The community here is different. It has a tight sense of camaraderie that wants to prove that technology is real here. We want to live in NYC. We want to think about and work in technology in NYC. We want to prove that NYC is not just a finance city.

Someone asked me yesterday why I use Foursquare. The answer is twofold 1) its fun and I do get utility out of tracking friend check-ins and selectively providing where I am 2) I want to support NYC start-ups and see Foursquare succeed.

So how real is NYC? Certainly there is a lot of hype, but below are ten reasons why I think it will be successful and that we are part of something very special.

1) People want to live in NYC-There is no city that compares in terms of excitement and things to do. Given the option to move here, people will do so because its exciting and fast paced. You never get bored.

2) Research Universities Exist and Are More Accessible than Ever-Technology companies have been founded because of their proximity to research universities (the reason why Silicon Valley exists). Access to remote/satellite campuses, the continued growing strength of the local engineering schools (Rutgers, Columbia and Cooper Union) and new schools extending to NYC (see Stanford) will drive this.

3) Power of Brands and Ad networks-The ads created and placed by Madison Avenue monetize a larger portion of the web than ever. The development of the various layers of ad networks give a huge advantage to companies near the placement of this media spend.

4) Importance of Proximity and Local-Location based services and coupon businesses are more valuable in NYC than anywhere else, given the concentration of businesses in localities in NYC. Further, the ability to move around quickly in the city, take on a lot of meetings, meet several people in one day and close many deals is driven by how quickly people can move around in NYC.

5) Finance Needs to be Disrupted- Investment banking and other financial services were driven by facilitating introductions and providing services (raising money, being introduced to companies to acquire, issuing debt) that companies did not have access to. Technology is changing the importance of these services because the flow of information is fundamentally much easier because of the web. Entity A knows about process B without the need of the bankers who provided the expertise. You think Facebook is going public next year….well, it already has kind of done an IPO thanks to SecondMarket and other secondary share sources. Bankers watch out, that is your advisory fee.

6) Dream of Making it in NYC-People come to NYC to “take a bite out the big apple” and accomplish their hopes and dreams. NYC embodies the most driven people who want to make an impact on the world. Technology is a perfect fit for this ambition because it fundamentally innovates and changes the way we act.

7) Social is a Huge Part of the Consumer Web-What is the most social city in the world? Enough said. Social products will strive here.

8) Enterprise Software and B2B will Succeed Here-Enterprises need management of their big data. No city in the world has more data driven businesses than NYC. Technology will play a bigger part powering this than ever. Long live big data.

9) Sports, Fashion, Video, Print and Music are Born Here-All the major sports team, record labels, fashion agencies, newspapers and media companies are in NYC. Technology has changed these industries and many people are building technology start-ups focused on these businesses to change the way they are consumed.

10) Mayor Bloomberg- The man is doing everything to push technology jobs, initiatives and incentives in the city. He is the man in charge and our number one advocate.

However, there are lots of risks associated specifically to New York, and as a community, we need to be cognizant of the following and help remedy.

1) Engineering talent is still poor

2) Cost of living is very high thanks to inflated salaries in finance

3) No big tech company with the exception of AOL has its headquarters here

4) Finance still sucks up the best talent but this is slowly changing

As a proud member of this technology community, I believe NYC can do this. As the Knicks PA announcer says “Go New York, Go New York, Go”

Disclaimer to my friends in LA: This does not mean I like the Knicks anywhere close to how I feel about my Lakers. Lets do this Threepeat (an entirely different blog post on that topic).

Please "Like" this Facebook page

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:52:00 -0400

Please "Like" this Facebook page:

My close friend Boris Eykher had a recent tragedy happen to someone very close to him (his girlfriend’s mother and sister) and is trying to bring justice to a criminal. Please “like” this Facebook page and support him and those close to him. If you know anyone who can help and influence the Russian government, reach out to Boris or myself. All information is on this Facebook page. Below are the details translated from Russia (that is why grammar and spelling is off):

On April 16th 2011, a quiet home became the scene of a horrific double homicide. A mother and her daughter, both registered nurses at Brookdale and Mt Sanai hospitals were murdered in cold blood by the raged husband/ step father who was with the family for over twelve years. Based on the video from the building, Nikolai Rakossi, Tatyana’s husband who was recently became unemployed and depressed came home at 12:30 pm. Tatyana’s last conversation with her sister was around 1 pm and according to her things seemed absolutely normal on the other side of the line. No one knows what occurred in the next few hours but according to the video Larisa left her apartment which was three floors down and took the elevator to her mom’s apartment on the 6th floor in a very agitated state. It is unknown if her mother called fearing for her life or Nikolai has set up a trap for Larisa but Larisa was woken up from her afternoon map which she usually took before leaving for night shift at Mt Sanai. The next video footage was captured at 9:30 am the following morning showing Nikolai leaving the building with two suitcases, a duffle bag, a bandaged nose and hands. What he left behind were two dead bodies, knives with finger prints and the apartment full of blood.

Nikolai took a livery cab straight to the airport where he paid for a ticket to Moscow with $1600 cash. He boarded the plane that evening. On Monday 1 am, Larisa’s and Tatyana’s bodies were found at the apartment by NYPD after relatives reported them missing, the same time when Nikolai was still in the air, preparing to land in Moscow. All the evidence was pointed to Nikolai, he was the prime suspect, information was known that he boarded the plane, only half an hour was left before the landing and nothing was done to detain him even for questioning once he arrived in Moscow. He was home free knowing that he just got away with a double murder.

Russia and the US do not have an extradition treaty. The NYPD is cooperating with their detectives in Russia but have little hope on being able to catch Nikolai. Justice needs to be served and he must pay for his actions, whether he gets prosecuted in Russia or brought back to the US for a fair trial. The only chance of catching this murderer is if both American and Russian police forces cooperate with political support from both sides.

The family and friends of Tatyana and Larisa ask that you join us in the fight to find Nikolai Rakossi and bring him to justice.