Bill Browder wanted to make lots of money, but not for the usual reasons.

It was a strange motivation.

I come from an unusual American family.

My grandfather was the head of the Communist Party of America.

And my father was a left-wing, left-leaning professor.

And so in my teenage rebellion, I decided to put on a suit and tie and become a capitalist to upset my family.

He went to Stanford Business School, and he happened to graduate the same year that the Berlin Wall got torn down.

And I had this epiphany one day, which is that if my grandfather was the biggest communist in America

and the Berlin Wall has come down,

I'm going to become the biggest capitalist in Russia.

And that's what I set out to do.

He eventually did just that.

Over about a decade, Browder made billions and became the largest foreign investor in Russia

by buying up cheap shares in newly privatized, wildly corrupt Russian companies.

His strategy was to expose the company's corruption and then watch their valuations rise as

they went legit. This worked great for a while, until powerful people in Russia, in particular

Vladimir Putin, decided they didn't want Browder shining a spotlight on

them and getting rich in the process. In 2005, Browder got booted from Russia permanently.

Not long after, Browder's lawyer, a Russian named Sergei Magnitsky, who'd helped Browder expose

corruption, was arrested, jailed, tortured, and

eventually killed by Russian authorities. Browder has since made it his life's calling to

avenge Magnitsky's death. Along the way, he's become such a thorn in Putin's side that the

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