Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to Depart Facebook Board of Directors | Hacker News Reader

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to Depart Facebook Board of Directors

cnbc.com

82 pointscoloneltcb24 comments

Before people comment too much about how he's departing because of conflicts of interest, I would like to point out that Bob Iger -- CEO of Disney, which just unveiled the new streaming app, Disney+ -- is on the board of Apple, which just weeks ago unveiled their new streaming app, AppleTV+

Point being, this wasn't because of conflict of interest.

"The addition of Alford, an African-American woman, comes as Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies strive for the inclusion of more women and minorities in their boards and throughout their workforces."

Honest note why do they have to add she's an African-American woman it just makes it seem the only reason she was hired was because she was a minority and not do to her skill set.

"The law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday, requires public companies whose principal executive offices are located in California to comply by the end of 2019. The minimum is two female directors if the company has five directors on its board, or three women if it has seven directors by the close of 2021." NPR, Oct 1, 2018 [1]

[1]https://www.npr.org/2018/10/01/653318005/california-becomes-...

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is unconstitutional. The Court does not like quotas.

That's female and not to do with race.

It's sad you had to use a throw away for this comment.

1. because the rest of that sentence/statement wouldn't make much sense without the context

2. because it's newsworthy: historically african americans and women have been excluded from boards. So as the trend begins to shift, this happening is, as an outlier event, newsworthy

3. because having diverse views and voices at the table is better for solving problems. Since business is fundamentally about solving customer problems, it is noteworthy to highlight the swap (african american woman replaces european american man)

If you read the article... It's clear that the author agrees with your statement that the most noteworthy thing about her is her ethnicity and her gender.

>The addition of Alford, an African-American woman, comes as Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies strive for the inclusion of more women and minorities in their boards and throughout their workforces.

That doesn't make it true, but it exactly what the author is intending to point out.

Insert a Jack Nicholson outburst here.

Do you want an honest answer? Does anyone?

The honest answer is that you can't know whether they're trying to implicitly point out that she was only hired for her race or whether they're trying to hold her up as a hero of the black community.

I would like more open discussion between people at the very least. I think large news outlets simply have to do a better job at taking advantage of their outreach and giving proper visibility into people like her when they're finally given their chance to be in the spotlight. She may be the least famous person in the article but she is his replacement and their coverage of her merits is laughable at best. Any other mention of her in this story is strictly filler. Just give her more than dropping her current title and that cringy statement. Improper coverage like this happens too often and needs to be pointed out so that it bad attention when it is published.

I understand that a segment of society descends into conspiracy theory when reading an article but perhaps you might consider whether noting that Alford is an African-American woman gives further context or is contrasted with the noting of SV's apparent push for demographic diversity.

Sometimes a sentence is just a sentence.

No doubt that she's a talented woman, but I'm guessing her minority status is the primary reason for her being chosen. Does anyone really believe that they were looking for the most skilled person for this position, and it just conveniently happened to be an African American woman? I'd want to believe that but I would just be lying to myself.

Perhaps she was hired for her skillset as well as being African American. If you are trying to include more minorities in your workforce then having a person from those minorities will have perspectives that people who are not from those minorities will not have.

Just make sure she's not a conservative A-A (like Kay Coles James) who was appointed to Google's AI oversight board, who happened to be conservative so got booed out. Such a sad state of things. [Most women independent of political affiliation applauded the appointment]

It's obviously not about being a woman or being African American/Black. They just cannot be conservative (or liberal-democrat).

I think the news here is that Erskine Bowles was not renominated. Erskine is the only one on Facebook’s board that is on the record as challenging Zuck and who has significant real-world political leadership.

Conflict of Interest seems to be the name of the game when it comes to board of directors

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate

[2] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/50-largest-u-s-companies-bo...

>[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlocking_directorate

Wow. First person I searched from your first link was Ellen Futter, former board member of JP Morgan and AIG. Turns out she has an extensive history of being involved with massive frauds/multi billion dollar "losses".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_V._Futter

Facebook is imploding from the top (key leaders leaving) and from the bottom (overall user sentiment).

I actually wasn't aware Reed was even on the board, but this makes sense considering the potential conflict of interest, as Facebook wants to push towards more video-based content (such as long-format videos delivered via IGTV).

What I heard is that he clashed with Thiel, and Thiel demanded him to leave.

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