The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative makes its first investment
cnet.com
cnet.com
"Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, a priest who heard the confessions of condemned witches, wrote in 1631 the Cautio Criminalis ('prudence in criminal cases') in which he bitingly described the decision tree for condemning accused witches. If the witch had led an evil and improper life, she was guilty; if she had led a good and proper life, this too was a proof, for witches dissemble and try to appear especially virtuous. After the woman was put in prison: if she was afraid, this proved her guilt; if she was not afraid, this proved her guilt, for witches characteristically pretend innocence and wear a bold front. Or on hearing of a denunciation of witchcraft against her, she might seek flight or remain; if she ran, that proved her guilt; if she remained, the devil had detained her so she could not get away."
Mind you, the cause might be honourable, and there is nothing evil about enlightened self interest. But since their foundation isn't a nonprofit, this seems not very different to me than if he had created a VC fund.
If I am wrong, I look forward to learning
If he does some charity, it's a non-democratic way to give money to the poor, which is frowned upon by many.
If he would give the money to the government, which will spent it in a democratic way, people are also unhappy, because of all the burocracy that eats up money for dumb things.
I don't think so...
> he's evil because he's trying to exploit the underprivileged to enhance his own prestige
These are straw men. Serious people aren't criticizing him for things like this. Almost 100% of publicly-known charity is, to some extent, designed to enhance prestige.
As far as "exploiting" black people to drive down labor costs, it's not like they're Chinese factory workers ruining their health. They'd just be coding. There's some probable protectionist criticism related to hiring Africans instead of Americans, but that happens regardless of the wages that foreigners are being paid.
I think the parent did well in exposing how people seemingly want to make a witch out of Zuckerberg no matter what he does.
- Aggressive disregard of privacy on FB
- Using deception and dirty tactics to make the FB app run continuously on the background of your phone
- Manipulating timeline results
- Manipulating trending topics
- Naming a for-profit arm of the company ".org"
- Publicly attacking net neutrality activists by buying gigantic ads across India
- Calling the Brazilian people to protest in front of the Congress
- Whitewashing his personal for-profit investment company as a "initiative"
Regardless of whether he is or not bad or whatever, he appears extremely arrogant when you take in account some of the actions above, so it is quite understandable that people see him that way. Oh, and the movie.
PS: Some of the actions above are not personally his, but are from the company which he controls completely, so it is quite understandable that people attribute it to him.
> Using deception and dirty tactics to make the FB app run continuously on the background of your phone
Can you provide a link that explains this in more detail?
> Manipulating timeline results
I actually see this as a feature. Somehow Facebook has kept time-on-site and MAU metrics very, very high, so the timeline must be working well for most people.
You can also configure it to a surprisingly granular degree.
> Manipulating trending topics
There was no anti-conservative bias, and any other manipulation could be construed as curation or editing. I hid trending topics with a CSS rule, but if I were using it, I would want it to be curated and edited. I see this as a potential feature if done right.
Anyway, no one is forced to get their news from trending topics.
> Naming a for-profit arm of the company ".org"
.org domains aren't required to be used for non-profits, and the Chan Zuckerberg initiative could certainly be considered a charity.
In the US, non-profit status is a tax designation and has no bearing on how beneficial an organization is. In fact, I'm glad that it's not a non-profit, because it means the money comes from Zuckerberg and not from tax-payers.
> Publicly attacking net neutrality activists by buying gigantic ads across India
Links? I know Facebook was heavily criticized for attempting to undermine net neutrality in India, but I've never seen anything about them attacking activists directly via ads.
(Not that it matters, but it's pretty ironic that an ad company would buy ads in the physical world...)
> Calling the Brazilian people to protest in front of the Congress
This is very reasonable and actually positive (even if it did directly involve his company). Are you for or against internet/communication freedom? The Brazilian people absolutely should have protested the WhatsApp ban, especially because the reasoning for it wasn't made public.
WhatsApp is one of the few apps with excellent encryption, as well.
> Whitewashing his personal for-profit investment company as a "initiative"
Again, for-profit vs. non-profit is a tax designation. The US is structured to allow people to profit from doing good things. Is there a reason people shouldn't benefit from their humanitarian efforts? Should all non-profit employees just be volunteers, in that case?
I can understand taking issue with capitalism and the idea that good deeds must be incentivized with money, but I can't understand taking issue with Zuckerberg operating within a system set up by others.
> he appears extremely arrogant when you take in account some of the actions above, so it is quite understandable that people see him that way
Yeah, but so does Elon Musk a lot of the time, and people worship him. Off the top of my head, Paul Graham, Marc Andreessen, and Jeff Bezos also regularly come off as incredibly arrogant (more arrogant than Zuckerberg, in my view). I think that arrogance might be a pre-requisite for being wildly successful in the US startup world: you have to believe that you are special and will do something that 99% of others fail at.
> Oh, and the movie.
Well, it was fiction...
You might disagree with the reasons and defend him endlessly, that still doesn't mean the reasons don't exist.
Some sources: http://boingboing.net/2015/12/27/facebooks-fuddy-full-page-a... http://www.zdnet.com/article/insane-iphone-battery-drain-dis...
Also, we're not talking about the domain, we're talking about the name of the subsidiary: it's called "internet.org".
And non-profit isn't just about taxes. You can't take money out of a non-profit into your own pocket. Got it?
Oh, and people don't like when owners of foreign companies try to use them as fodder cannon to promote their own objectives, as in Brazil, no matter what's the upside.
And you don't see Elon Musk using FUD against activists, or doing any of the above.
About the movie, you're still not understanding my post. It doesn't matter if it was fiction or not, people still believe it.
Citation needed.
It is perfectly reasonable to donate publicly in an attempt to get more people to also donate to the cause you believe in. If you believe in a cause then it stands to reason you want more people to donate to it. Private donations are a net negative to the cause. But some people prioritize their privacy over the cause they care about.
Reference?
Chan Zuckerberg is specifically leading a $24M Series B Round in Andela.
Andela was founded in 2014 and has about 200 developers currently studying with them. There are about 50 mentors working to teach those developers full-time. It has rejected almost all of the applicants; about 40,000 people applied, which means only about 0.5% are actually accepted to study. Those who are accepted to study become "Andela fellows" and learn web and mobile development over four years.
According to Andela, they'd like to train 100,000 developers over the next ten years. They are hopeful they can do this with the African population, 60% of which consists of younger people under the age of 25, many of whom are unemployed or underemployed. Andela's clients pay "about half the annual salary for entry-level developers in major U.S. tech markets." With no specific numbers to go on, it's hard to estimate that. Maybe $50k - $60k? Apparently Microsoft is a client company.
It appears Andela will mostly use this cash infusion to expand into new African companies and scale up.
Could we kill this story or change the URL to the much better WSJ article? I don't understand why this is on the front page. The article has almost no detail or substance. As it stands, it's just flamebait that's getting the usual "Zuckerberg is evil" vitriol. I've never seen a messageboard triggered more easily than HN is when his name or company is brought up.
I'd also like to propose to the HN community that we be a bit more accepting of paywall URLs, because the difference between this CNET, ad-ridden article and the WSJ article (and the possible discussion opportunity around each) is huge.
Maybe at some point it will grow a 501c3 arm but thus far it has not.
So, what's the difference between it and other VC companies, besides being controlled by a single person?
It's unlikely I ever agree with how other people try to do good, but I am grateful that they try.
Go some go good; today!
I do: I pay my taxes instead of trying to avoid them like Facebook does.
Especially if the problems you have is maintaining your grip over people's digital lives.
Now where did I put my black and red flags...
Tax deductibility does indeed incentivise charitable giving, possibly for selfish reasons. But the person on the recieving end of education/healthcare/whatever, doesn't really care do they? The effect is what's important, not the motivation.
I am sure that some localized Good Things will occur as a byproduct of this arbitrage, but let's not pretend for a second that "advancing human potential" and "promoting equality" are actually the metrics by which the success of this enterprise is being judged.
Phrases like that ring to me to describe a two class of people: a "low cost" tier, and a "normal cost" tier. To me this has obvious racist overtones as "low-cost" is often followed by [nationality]. If someone is willing to work harder, she should get the job, but somehow if that same person is willing to work as hard for less money, she is unworthy? Sure the company benefits from a spread between what a person makes and what they contribute, but they do so already. Eventually if that spread becomes too large, other companies will exploit this arbitrage and start new businesses and bid up the employees compensation. You are free to do so as well assuming you live in a free capitalist society.
This destabilizes the local economy, creating gentrified districts or entire cities(See: SF) where only the privileged laborers for a foreign economy can afford to live. It will also lead to a sharp increase in luxury good prices due to new demand, driving the bar for middle-class living out of reach for local workers. The skilled workers hired by the foreign economy become a brain drain - the government has invested resources into their education, but no one in the local economy can afford them, thus they'll never create goods for it to improve local technology levels.
Helping people is hard.
With corruption having bled those countries dry, there remains little by way of local engineering opportunities and those able to, leave. A local training hub as Andela is difficult to see as worsening that situation.
So paying people more and giving them jobs destabilizes the local economy because these people now have money and spend more on housing and other items? And if they're paid less, they're being exploited?
> The skilled workers hired by the foreign economy become a brain drain - the government has invested resources into their education, but no one in the local economy can afford them, thus they'll never create goods for it to improve local technology levels.
Doesn't the government prefer rich denizens and a higher tax base? Isn't this how education is funded and higher salaries and tax base partially the point of investing in education?
> but no one in the local economy can afford them, thus they'll never create goods for it to improve local technology levels.
Aren't digital good mostly global in nature? Don't poor countries benefit from Facebook/Google/Apple/etc?
You're not paying all people more, just some of them. The rest get to enjoy rising prices for good housing and luxuries that they won't be able to afford with their local pay.
> Doesn't the government prefer rich denizens and a higher tax base? Isn't this how education is funded and higher salaries and tax base partially the point of investing in education?
Unless you're planning to turn all Nigerians and Kenyans into software developers, this isn't really the case. Just higher taxes may pay for the education the government invested in you, but the investment is made with a hope that you would do more than break even. Without skilled technological leaders driving progress forward(because they're busy driving someone else's progress forward), you'll stagnate, which means the costs of global goods gets worse for your population,
> Aren't digital good mostly global in nature? Don't poor countries benefit from Facebook/Google/Apple/etc?
Yes - which is why most poor countries can't afford them.
Correct, gains are never distributed equally. This has been tried and failed. You can keep everyone poor or allow some to accumulate wealth.
In regards to modern technology not benefiting poor countries, please note that more people in Africa have a mobile phone than access to electricity [0]. Across the seven countries surveyed, roughly two-thirds or more say they own a cell phone. Ownership is especially high in South Africa and Nigeria, where about nine-in-ten have a cell phone [1]. I think you're understating the positive impact western technology is having on transforming the lives of poor Africans.
[0] http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/04/tech/mobile/africa-mobile-opin...
[1] http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/04/15/cell-phones-in-africa-co...
I would however question the extent this is driven by Western innovation though. I would argue that this driven primarily through the ability of the Chinese to make technology for a significantly lower cost.
[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/19/africa/africa-afrobaromete...
Although there is no law against a charity or not-for-profit deciding to remove funding for a program they, by definition, are not motivated by the money flow of the program. Sure they are interested in making the program run efficiently and that there is enough funding to begin the program and see the program through but profit is not their core motivation and thus, I would argue, are more committed in their programs and investments. Those exploiting inefficiencies for gain should be reprimanded by the system granting these special business types.
Even if his particular brand of education is in the particular areas in which his company employs people (note that it is also his own personal area of education and expertise), I don't think that should be enough to dismiss funding education as a valid tax deductible charity. Now, if in the next months it emerges that this coding schools teach only FB specific technologies (e.g. something like how to build a Messenger bot, I don't even mean PHP/Hack or React) or that admission is contingent in signing a contract to work for FB afterwards, I would feel very differently.
To put an extreme example, do you consider the companies listed here: http://www.blackgirlscode.com/partners.html to also be participating in a tax deductible anti-labor scheme? If not, where is the line?
Sure, maybe at some point Zuckerberg will realize, like Gates did before him, that the world still needs more anti-malaria drugs and nets, before it needs computers and programming courses. Nonetheless, education initiatives (even highly-targeted professional-skill education initiatives) are charities and do produce a public benefit. Whether or not that benefit exceeds the benefit produced by the taxes that would otherwise have been collected leads to a lengthy policy discussion about when and how to tax charitable donations, which might indeed be an option.
Edit: I just realized this indeed an investment from a for-profit company to another, which will actually pay taxes (which is good), but seems to be surprisingly describing itself as a philanthropic initiative. So I actually see your point about this being a strange PR spin on it...