Now this is something that's worthy of being dismissed (involuntarily, if necessary) from the WMF board. This individual clearly does not meet our community values of transparency and honesty, or at least such is in serious question.
Is the Board considering doing so, or reading this at all? It's really time to open up, not close the ranks.
On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 3:17 PM, Kevin Gorman kgorman@gmail.com wrote:
You'll find the allegations to be true, Dariusz. Although the link provided was just to Pando, the internal email from Arnnon was released by court order - and the entire anti-solicitation fiasco has been fairly widely covered in the US tech news. I knew I recognized Arnnon's name from somewhere, I just didn't remember where immediately. It recently resulted in a $435 million settlement for employees of the the companies involved due to lost competitive wages. There's also an ongoing shareholder lawsuit about it still. Besides the news coverage, really, the damning thing is just the direct emails. They were unsealed by the judge and a copy is hosted here: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1019489/google-email-chain.pdf
although you can also get a copy from PACER if you want a 100% verified one.
They show in Arnnon's own words that (a) he's willing to participate in an illegal anti-solicitation agreement, and (b) he's willing to instantaneously fire any employee who violates that illegal anti-solicitation agreement. I know WMF has benefited from it's relationship with Google historically... but in terms of board members, I really think we need people who are not just talented but who uphold the values of the movement - and I don't think Arnnon's behavior as covered in the media and in the case filings do that. Also, since we're appointing a fiduciary, it seems like it might not be the best idea to appoint a fiduciary whose actions at another company were part of a chain of actions that resulted in a $435 million settlement. That's a lot of Jimmyeyes from the corner of my screen.
I'm additionally kind of worried because... this really should have come up in background vetting of potential board members. Since there's information explicitly about it within the first couple pages of any search engine, this suggests that the process involved in vetting potential board members didn't involve digging deep in to their backgrounds at all. Hiring for pretty much *any* position should normally involve at least a cursory scan of the internet to see if they are, say, a wanted fugitive, or participated in illegal anti-competitive behavior like this in the past to the point that it resulted in a settlement that large (and that is just for the employees of the companies involved, several shareholder lawsuits are ongoing.)
Here's a recent lawsuit from shareholders related to it. Keep in mind that these are just allegations by the shareholders, but they're pretty well supported by the court-ordered released emails - http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Googpoach.pdf - and a class action by employees of the companies involved recently settled for $435 million in lost competitive wages due to the illegal anti-solicitation agreement.
"Defendant Arnnon Geshuri (“Geshuri”) has served as Google’s Director of Recruiting at all times relevant to this lawsuit. Defendant Geshuri was involved in developing and perpetuating the illegal collusive scheme alleged herein. Defendant Geshuri knowingly, recklessly, or with gross negligence: (i) oversaw the creation of the protocols governing anticompetitive hiring agreements between Google and other companies; (ii) caused or allowed Google to enter into such illegal anticompetitive agreements; (iii) allowed Defendants Page, Brin, and Schmidt to dominate and control the Google Board of Directors with little or no effective oversight; and (iv) failed to implement adequate internal controls to ensure that Google complied with federal laws and regulations"
Even though those are allegations from an unsettled shareholder lawsuit, since the employee class action was settled for $435m and there are extensive details of what went on in the settement documents, I'd give that paragraph a bit more credence than I would a paragraph from an average unsettled lawsuit. I'm sure that Arnnon is personally skilled, I just really don't feel that his behavior as described in the settled class action/documents related to it/the general news media is in line with the values of the Wikimedia movement.
Best, Kevin Gorman
On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 12:43 PM, Dariusz Jemielniak darekj@alk.edu.pl wrote:
On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 3:16 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Dariusz, you said in your statement that was published in the Wikimedia Blog that WMF "considered dozens of candidates from all over the world, with not-for-profit and technology experience, and the highest
professional
standards.” I would be interested to hear how you reconcile "highest professional standards" with the prior actions of Arnnon,
I have read about these allegations today, and I am going to follow up on that. I don't have an opinion formed, as jumping to conclusions is definitely not just to people. I can assure you that in the whole process Arnnon's expertise, professionalism, as well as technological connection were clearly outstanding (but obviously we have not discussed this case).
best,
dariusz
--
prof. dr hab. Dariusz Jemielniak kierownik katedry Zarządzania Międzynarodowego i grupy badawczej NeRDS Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego http://n http://www.crow.alk.edu.pl/wrds.kozminski.edu.pl
członek Akademii Młodych Uczonych Polskiej Akademii Nauk członek Komitetu Polityki Naukowej MNiSW
Wyszła pierwsza na świecie etnografia Wikipedii "Common Knowledge? An Ethnography of Wikipedia" (2014, Stanford University Press) mojego autorstwa http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=24010
Recenzje Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml Pacific Standard:
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/killed-wikipedia-93777/
Motherboard:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/an-ethnography-of-wikipedia
The Wikipedian: http://thewikipedian.net/2014/10/10/dariusz-jemielniak-common-knowledge _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe