[Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

[Chad]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Gregory Kohs<thekohser at 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&graph=MucketyMap?_r=2D)
> 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
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>

Wow. Just....wow. Wikimedia, this really really doesn't look good. Regardless
of how it's intended, it REALLY doesn't look good.

-Chad