[Wikimedia-l] Announcing new Wikimedia Foundation Trustees

I note we now have on the board: * Jimmy Wales, who has served as a member of Google's "Advisory Council" * Denny Vrandecic, who is a Google employee * Guy Kawasaki, who has served as special advisor to the CEO of the Motorola business unit of Google * Kelly Battles of Bracket Computing, which partners with Google Cloud Platform * Arnnon Geshuri, who served as Senior Director of HR and Staffing at Google Did I miss anyone? The Foundation is also acquiring something of a Tesla connection. Boryana Dineva, the Wikimedia Foundation VP of Human Resources, was previously Head of HR Systems, HR Operations & Data Analytics at Tesla Motors. Arnnon Geshuri currently serves as VP of Human Resources at Tesla. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Google are linked through Google's $900 million investment in Musk's SpaceX,[1] and Google's $280 million investment in Musk's SolarCity.[2] The Wikimedia Foundation's top decision-making body is now run by corporates, while James Heilman has been turfed out. And it seems that Bill Beutler's crystal ball was in good working order when he prophesied that Google would begin to play a bigger role in Wikimedia development in 2016.[3] I expect further developments will bear him out. [1] http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/10/google-confirms-it-put-900m-into-spacexs-1b-round/ [2] http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/14/technology/google_solarcity/index.htm [3] http://www.beutlerink.com/blog/ten-predictions-for-wikipedia-in-2016/ On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 2:09 AM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt at gmail.com> wrote: > Congratulations to Kelly and Arnon in joining the wikiverse at this crucial > time in our movement's existence. I hope their expertise - respectively in > Finance and HR - will be able to be put to good use! > > However, I do have a concern about diversity... > Both of these appointees are white Americans from Iowa/Kansas with > top-pedigree Silicon Valley resumes. > > I note that one of the other appointed WMF-board seats is currently also > occupied by Guy, also Silicon Valley, and one of the recently elected > community seats is occupied by Denny, who is a manager at Google. They all > live and work in the same field and within commuting distance to the WMF > office. > > I've always believed that Wikimedia is an education charity that happens to > exist exists in a technology field. I often note in presentations that I > give that the Wikimedia vision statement does NOT use the words, Internet, > or Wiki, or Encyclopedia. But these appointments indicate the Board and WMF > Executive believe Wikimedia is a technology charity that happens to exists > in the education field. > > These appointments will make a crucial difference to how the new WMF > strategic direction will go - and clearly the leadership is wanting to make > us act more like a Californian dot-com and less like a global education > charity. Less "community consensus building" and more "move fast and break > things" - is the message I am reading here. > > Can the board please address how it accounts for the geographical > proximity and professional-background similarity between three of the four > Board-appointed seats? And, whether you would define the WMF as a "tech > organisation"? > > - Liam / Wittylama > > > > > -- > wittylama.com > Peace, love & metadata > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >