Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation
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Ah, yes... the other shoe drops. This is similar to the time when Amazon invested $10 million in Wikia, Inc., but they insisted on installing Jeffrey Blackburn from Amazon ( http://www.muckety.com/Query?SearchResult=30740&SearchResult=97356&g...) onto the Wikia board of directors. You don't want to throw $10 million at something without having someone on the "inside" to pull a few strings.
Thus, we see why Halprin now sits on the WMF board. It's to keep an eye on the $2 million. And all "transparently" announced on the very same day! Bonus that Halprin also probably oversees the part of the $4 million that Omidyar invested in Wikia, whose co-founder (Jimmy Wales) might be sitting next to Halprin at the next board meeting, or whose OTHER co-founder (Angela Beesley) might be found "advising" the WMF board from the position of chair of the WMF Advisory Board.
If you're having trouble envisioning a Venn diagram of this arrangement, let me try to help you. Imagine a few grains of rice (Jimbo and the WMF board). Then imagine the color white (Halprin). Imagine some tasty flavored sauce (Beesley). Then visualize a guy lining up the yummy rice on his fork (Omidyar Network).
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Gregory Kohsthekohser@gmail.com wrote:
Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation
+++++++
Ah, yes... the other shoe drops. This is similar to the time when Amazon invested $10 million in Wikia, Inc., but they insisted on installing Jeffrey Blackburn from Amazon ( http://www.muckety.com/Query?SearchResult=30740&SearchResult=97356&g...) onto the Wikia board of directors. You don't want to throw $10 million at something without having someone on the "inside" to pull a few strings.
Thus, we see why Halprin now sits on the WMF board. It's to keep an eye on the $2 million. And all "transparently" announced on the very same day! Bonus that Halprin also probably oversees the part of the $4 million that Omidyar invested in Wikia, whose co-founder (Jimmy Wales) might be sitting next to Halprin at the next board meeting, or whose OTHER co-founder (Angela Beesley) might be found "advising" the WMF board from the position of chair of the WMF Advisory Board.
If you're having trouble envisioning a Venn diagram of this arrangement, let me try to help you. Imagine a few grains of rice (Jimbo and the WMF board). Then imagine the color white (Halprin). Imagine some tasty flavored sauce (Beesley). Then visualize a guy lining up the yummy rice on his fork (Omidyar Network).
-- Gregory Kohs _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Wow. Just....wow. Wikimedia, this really really doesn't look good. Regardless of how it's intended, it REALLY doesn't look good.
-Chad
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org