Why is this :( though? The market is working and filling a market opportunity. Maybe he likes running his own business? Unless he was being discriminated against for being a Russian immigrant and treated unfairly?

This is so true and still the case. I've seen so many highly skilled immigrants passed over for politics and image reasons... Academia is ruthless but for the wrong reasons.

My calculus professor from university in the late '90s had earlier on won a Lottery Visa to the US. As I understood it he took advantage of it, only to find out that while there he could only find very menial jobs.

He came back to Romania and to Bucharest, which was really good for me and for my then colleagues because he was an excellent professor.