person:eric schmidt

Google’s Censored Search Would Help China “Be More Open,” Said Ex-CEO Eric Schmidt
▻https://theintercept.com/2019/05/14/google-search-china-eric-schmidt-comments

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has defended the company’s plan to build a censored version of its search engine in China. In an interview with the BBC on Monday, Schmidt said that he wasn’t involved in decisions to build the censored search platform, code-named Dragonfly. But he insisted that there were “many benefits” to working with China and said he was an advocate of operating in the country because he believed that it could “help change China to be more open.” As The Intercept first (...)

#Google #GoogleSearch #algorithme #Dragonfly #censure #surveillance #web

https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/05/GettyImages-1143071712-schmidt-google-1557851183-e1557851260431.jpg

#Elite gathering reveals anxiety over ‘class war’ and ‘#revolution’
Financial Times 2 mai 2019

The Milken Institute’s annual gathering of the investment, business and political elites this week featured big names from US Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin to David Solomon, chief executive of Goldman Sachs.

[..,]

Despite widespread optimism about the outlook for the US economy and financial markets, some of the biggest names on Wall Street and in corporate America revealed their anxiety about the health of the economic model that made them millionaires and billionaires.

Mr Milken himself, whose conference was known as the predators’ ball when he ruled over the booming junk bond market of the 1980s, was among those fretfully revisiting a debate that has not loomed so large since before the fall of the Berlin Wall: whether capitalism’s supremacy is threatened by creeping socialism.

Mr Milken played a video of Thatcher from two years before she became UK prime minister. “Capitalism has a moral basis,” she declared, and “to be free, you have to be capitalist”. Applause rippled through the ballroom.

In the run-up to the conference, essays by Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase about the case for reforming capitalism to sustain it have been widely shared. Executives are paying close attention to what one investment company CEO called “the shift left of the Democratic party”, personified by 2020 presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and the social media success of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the democratic socialist elected to Congress last year.

Former Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt issued his own rallying cry as he sat beside Ivanka Trump to discuss the conference theme of “driving shared prosperity”.

“I’m concerned with this notion that somehow socialism’s going to creep back in, because capitalism is the source of our collective wealth as a country,” Mr Schmidt said, urging his fellow capitalists to get the message out that “it’s working”.

Mr Milken asked Ken Griffin, the billionaire founder of the hedge fund Citadel, why young Americans seemed to have lost faith in the free market, flashing up a poll on the screen behind them which showed 44 per cent of millennials saying they would prefer to live in a socialist country.

“You and I grew up in a different era, where the cold war was waking up and there was a great debate in America about the strengths and weaknesses of socialism as compared to the economic freedom that we enjoy in our country,” Mr Griffin replied, saying that they had “seen that question answered” with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The younger generation that support socialism are “people who don’t know history”, he said.

Guggenheim Partners’ Alan Schwartz put the risks of rising income inequality more starkly. “You take the average person . . . they’re just basically saying something that used to be 50:50 is now 60:40; it’s not working for me,” he told another conference session, pointing to the gap between wage growth and the growth of corporate profits.

“If you look at the rightwing and the leftwing, what’s really coming is class warfare,” he warned. “Throughout centuries what we’ve seen when the masses think the elites have too much, one of two things happens: legislation to redistribute the wealth . . . or revolution to redistribute poverty. Those are the two choices historically and debating it back and forth, saying ‘no, it’s capitalism; no, it’s socialism’ is what creates revolution.”

There was less discussion of the prospect of higher taxes on America’s wealthiest, which some Democrats have proposed to finance an agenda many executives support, such as investing in education, infrastructure and retraining a workforce threatened by technological disruption and globalisation.

One top investment company executive echoed the common view among the conference’s wealthy speakers: “ Punitive #redistribution won’t work.”

But another financial services executive, who donated to Hillary Clinton’s US presidential campaign in 2016, told the Financial Times: “ I’d pay 5 per cent more in tax to make the world a slightly less scary place .”

#capitalisme #anxiété #capitalistes

[RAPPEL] : Eric Schmidt de Google admet qu’il y a une censure politique des résultats du moteur de recherche
▻https://www.crashdebug.fr/high-teck/15143-rappel-eric-schmidt-de-google-admet-qu-il-y-a-une-censure-politique

Vous avez du mal à trouver notre site web ? Notre nombre de visiteurs est en chute libre depuis 2 ans ? C’est normal ! Sous prétexte de chasse aux fake news, Google déclasse les sites alternatifs pour protéger les gouverneMENTS.

Update 30.08.2018 : « Situation très grave » : Trump accuse Google de truquer les résultats des recherches sur lui et dénonce l’hypocrisie de la censure des réseaux sociaux

Éric Schmidt, président exécutif de la société mère de Google, Alphabet, a confirmé ce week-end que la plus grande société Internet du monde, en étroite coordination avec l’État, manipule les résultats de la recherche pour censurer les sites critiques du gouvernement américain.

Répondant à une question sur la « manipulation de l’information » sur Internet lors d’une participation au « Forum sur la sécurité (...)

#En_vedette #Actualités_High-Tech #High_Tech

L’ex-patron de Google prédit un Internet scindé en deux entre la Chine et les États-Unis
▻https://usbeketrica.com/article/eric-schmidt-internet-chine-etats-unis

Lors d’un événement privé, Eric Schmidt a prédit qu’Internet se scinderait bientôt en deux. L’ancien patron de Google envisage « un Internet dirigé par la Chine, et un Internet non-chinois dirigé par les Etats-Unis ». Sa sortie intervient alors qu’étaient révélées, le mois dernier, les intentions de Google de prochainement relancer ses services en Chine, en s’adaptant à la censure locale. Pour certains, dont le développeur brésilien André Staltz, Internet est mort depuis 2014 : Google, Facebook et Amazon (...)

#Alphabet #Google #Amazon #Facebook #Dragonfly #domination #censure #contrôle #web (...)

##surveillance

https://static.usbeketrica.com/images/thumb_840xh/5bab8605e8a2a.jpg

Google : Eric Schmidt, le président de la Catalogne, vante une résultat que personne ne peut discuter, Puigdemont quitte ses fonctions à la maison mère d’Alphabet

#de_la_dyslexie_creative

Google will ‘de-rank’ RT articles to make them harder to find – Eric Schmidt — RT World News
►https://www.rt.com/news/410444-google-alphabet-derank-rt

https://cdni.rt.com/files/2017.11/article/5a132674fc7e93e0368b4567.jpg

Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, says the company will “engineer” specific algorithms for RT and Sputnik to make their articles less prominent on the search engine’s news delivery services.

“We are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of sites – it’s basically RT and Sputnik,” Schmidt said during a Q & A session at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada on Saturday, when asked about whether Google facilitates “Russian propaganda.”

“We are well of aware of it, and we are trying to engineer the systems to prevent that [the content being delivered to wide audiences]. But we don’t want to ban the sites – that’s not how we operate.”

La censure qui a déjà frappé les sites des progressistes américains va maintenant vers la droite soutenue par les Russes... mais c’est toujours de la censure... économique, ou du « ranking ».

During the discussion, Schmidt claimed that he was “very strongly not in favor of censorship,” but said that he has faith in “ranking” without acknowledging if the system might serve the same function. Schmidt, who joined Google in 2001, said that the company’s algorithm was capable of detecting “repetitive, exploitative, false, and weaponized” info, but did not elaborate on how these qualities were determined.

#Google #Censure #Ranking

#Google will ‘de-rank’ RT articles to make them harder to find – Eric Schmidt
►https://www.rt.com/news/410444-google-alphabet-derank-rt

Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google’s parent company #Alphabet, says the company will “engineer” specific algorithms for RT and Sputnik to make their articles less prominent on the search engine’s news delivery services.

“We are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of sites – it’s basically RT and Sputnik,” Schmidt said during a Q & A session at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada on Saturday, when asked about whether Google facilitates “Russian propaganda.”

Alphabet to build futuristic city in Toronto
▻https://www.ft.com/content/5044ec1a-b35e-11e7-a398-73d59db9e399
▻http://prod-upp-image-read.ft.com/64d05ab4-b383-11e7-8007-554f9eaa90ba

Alphabet is setting out to build the city of the future, starting with a downtown district of Toronto, in what it hopes will serve as a proving ground for technology-enabled urban environments around the world.

In a first-of-its-kind project, Alphabet’s subsidiary Sidewalk Labs will develop a 12-acre waterfront district, Quayside, with a view to expand across 800 acres of Toronto’s post-industrial waterfront zone.

Self-driving shuttles, adaptive traffic lights that sense pedestrians, modular housing and freight-delivering robots that travel in underground tunnels might all be part of the new development, according to the winning bid submitted by Sidewalk Labs.

In its proposal, Sidewalk also said that Toronto would need to waive or exempt many existing regulations in areas like building codes, transportation, and energy in order to build the city it envisioned. The project may need “substantial forbearances from existing laws and regulations,” the group said.

Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau announced the deal on Tuesday in Toronto.

“We started thinking about all the things we could do if someone would just give us a city and put us in charge,” said Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Alphabet. “That’s not how it works, for all sorts of good reasons,” he added with a laugh.

For Alphabet, the project presents a chance to experiment with new ways to use technology — and data — in the real world. “This is not some random activity from our perspective. This is the culmination of almost 10 years of thinking about how technology could improve people’s lives,” said Mr Schmidt.

Despite a growing political backlash against big tech in the US, where politicians are grappling with the growing influence of Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon, the company’s city-building effort has been undeterred.

Mr Trudeau described the project as a “test bed for new technologies . . . that will help us build cleaner, smarter, greener, cities”.

“Eric [Schmidt] and I have been talking about collaborating on this for a few years, and seeing it all come together now is extraordinarily exciting,” he added.
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, with Dan Doctoroff, chief executive of Sidewalk Labs © Bloomberg

One of the challenges for the new district will be setting data policies and addressing concerns over privacy, which are particularly acute because smart city technologies often rely on collecting vast amounts of data to make cities run more efficiently.

In the vision statement submitted as part of its bid, Sidewalk describes a vast system of sensors that will monitor everything from park benches and overflowing waste bins, to noise and pollution levels in housing. The development will also pioneer new approaches to energy, including a thermal grid and on-site generation, and tech-enabled primary healthcare that will be integrated with social services.
Big Tech’s power remains unchallenged

The transportation proposal for the district includes restricting private vehicles, and instead offering self-driving shuttles and bike paths that are heated in the winter, according to the vision document. A series of underground utility tunnels will house utilities like electrical wires and water pipes, and also provide pathways for freight-delivering robots.

Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Alphabet that was founded in 2015 by Dan Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor of New York, will spend $50m on initial planning and testing for the development. As part of the effort, Google will also move its Canadian headquarters to Toronto.

Mr Doctoroff said the group would present a detailed plan in one year, following extensive consultations with the community. “Our goal here is to listen, to understand,” he said. “This has to be a community conversation . . . otherwise it won’t have the political credibility to do things that are quite bold.”

#smart_city #Alphabet #Toronto #Dérégulation #Vectorialisme

Sans titre
▻http://02mydafsoup-01.soup.io/post/631302452

Must-Read: Best thing I have seen so far on Google, Open Markets, and the New America Foundation:

Ben Thompson: Google and The New America Foundation, Google’s Monopoly, Google’s Stupidity: "From the New York Times... ▻https://stratechery.com/2017/google-and-the-new-america-foundation-googles-monopoly-googles-stupidit

...The New America Foundation has received more than $21 million from Google; its parent company’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt; and his family’s foundation... helped to establish New America as an elite voice in policy debates on the American left and helped Google shape those debates. But not long after one of New America’s scholars posted a statement on the think tank’s website praising the European Union’s penalty against Google, Mr. Schmidt, who had been (...)

#regular #snth01

The Dumb Fact of #Google Money - The Atlantic
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/the-dumb-fact-of-google-money/538458

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2017/08/RTR2RMVL/facebook.jpg?1504122694

Washington, D.C., woke up to a humdinger of a story today, a flash portrait that shows the relationship between money, power, and ideas—and highlights the potential for intellectual #corruption that has accompanied the flood of Big Tech money into the capital.

The New York Times reported that the #New_America_Foundation, the digital-savvy center-left think tank, might have pushed out Barry Lynn, a ferocious and influential critic of “platform monopolies” like, for example, Alphabet (née Google). After Google was hit with a 2.42 billion–euro fine by the European Commission in June, Lynn posted a congratulatory note to the regulators and a call for action by American anti-trust officials.

New America, meanwhile, has received more than $20 million since its founding in 1999 from Alphabet companies and the foundation established by Eric Schmidt. Schmidt, currently executive chairman of Alphabet, also previously served as chairman of New America’s board.

BOYCOTT the June 19 Tech Summit
▻https://techsolidarity.org/boycott_the_june_19_summit.html

Boycott the Trump Summit

On Monday, June 19, the CEOs of at least six major tech companies plan to fly to the White House to attend a meeting with Donald Trump. The known attendees are:

Jeff Bezos, Amazon
Satya Nadella, Microsoft
Tim Cook, Apple
Safra Catz, Oracle
Ginny Rometty, IBM
Eric Schmidt, Alphabet (aka Google)

The remit of the group will be to “transform and modernize” government information technology and digital services, under the leadership of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.

This meeting doesn’t have to happen. Tech employees have the power to stop it.

We’ve learned in the last six months that there is no clean way to do business with the Trump Administration. The President does not respect boundaries or institutions. You are either for him, or against him. That decision doesn’t belong to our CEOs; it belongs to us as an industry.

Tech executives met with Trump once before, in a famously awkward December meeting in Trump Tower. They know perfectly well who they’re dealing with, and yet they’re choosing to offer their tacit support to:

- A president who has attempted to bar people, including our own neighbors and colleagues, from entering the United States based on their religious beliefs or national origin.
- A president who has boasted on tape of his history of sexual assault.
- A president who has made shameless use of his office to profit his many business interests.
- A president who has unilaterally withdrawn the United States from the Paris agreement, and makes public statements doubting the existence of climate change.
- A president whose Administration is even now passing a bill in secret to deprive millions of Americans of health care.
- A president who fired his own FBI director for investigating his Administration, and who now accuses him of perjury.
- A president whose agenda for tech includes dismantling the few remaining protections on online privacy, and eliminating net neutrality.

Appel au boycott de la réunion des Gafam avec Trump le 19 juin 2017.

Marissa Mayer , CEO de Yahoo !, sa carrière résumée en une page. (c’est comme ça que je perçois l’article).
Mon partage n’est pas une ode au capitalisme, plus, un intérêt pour une personne déconsidérée en plein cœur de l’économie de marché. Elle n’est sûrement pas à plaindre.
En plus, un article du monde, d’habitude, je partage avec des pincettes (sur le nez). Mais la rubrique Pixel semble mieux travaillée.

http://s2.lemde.fr/image/2017/04/28/534x0/5119597_6_3b62_marissa-mayer-la-pdg-de-yahoo-en-2013_0739ebe78ce5567a44dcff099e7f73ed.jpg

Elle a étudié la psychologie cognitive. Elle arrive chez Google en 1999 comme la vingtième employée de l’entreprise, nommée responsable de la page d’accueil. Marissa Mayer participe à de très nombreux projets-clefs, dont la création d’AdWords, Gmail, Google Maps.
À partir de 2010, lorsque Larry Page reprend le poste de PDG, Marissa Mayer, perd une partie de son pouvoir et est partiellement écartée des grandes décisions stratégiques.
En juillet 2012, elle quitte Google pour diriger Yahoo ! dans une situation catastrophique. Elle met en place une vaste réorganisation. Alors que les actionnaires la pressent de licencier des milliers d’employés pour redresser les comptes, elle les convainc de lancer plutôt de nouveaux projets.
Elle met en place un nouveau système d’évaluation des performances des salariés, censé les rendre plus productifs et pousser vers la sortie les moins impliqués, baptisé « Quarterly Performance Reviews ». Structurellement injuste, le système bloque l’avancement et les augmentations des employés, est critiqué à la fois par les salariés du bas de l’échelle et par les managers.
Les révélations d’Edward Snowden sur l’espionnage de masse de la NSA révèlent que l’agence américaine espionne les données des utilisateurs de Yahoo !
Le magazine Fortune, qui l’a placée plusieurs années dans son classement des plus puissants patrons au monde, la fait passer en 2016 dans sa liste des chefs d’entreprise les plus décevants.
Les départs de personnes clefs se multiplient chez Yahoo !
Elle part avec un parachute doré de 190 millions de dollars.

#people #femmes #historicisation #silicon_valley

Quand Le Monde, Facebook et Google partent en croisade contre la post-vérité
▻https://medium.com/@sly/se-repenser-%C3%A0-lheure-du-pr%C3%AAt-%C3%A0-penser-quand-le-monde-facebook

Pas mal de choses intéressantes dans ce billet d’un prof de communication et responsable de la communauté numérique de l’université Lyon 2.

Premier point notable : le procédé se place au niveau de la source (du média) et non du contenu (de l’article) ou de l’auteur (du journaliste).
(…) Deuxième point : malgré les apparences, le classement en 5 classes n’est pas véritablement un système d’échelle (du plus ou moins fiable), mais cache une classification en fait assez binaire, incarnée par un système de whitelist / blacklist, avec une classe intermédiaire pour les bordelines, une classe pour les inclassables et une classe pour les médias satiriques. (…)

Problème : (…) on ne sait pas grand chose sur la méthodologie : quelles sont les personnes qui participent à la classification, sous quelle forme (individuelle, participative, “démocratique”), avec quelle grille de critères ?

Noter le média plutôt que le contenu, un mode de préservation de statut :

Le système du décodex fonctionne en fait sur le modèle traditionnel médiatique : c’est la sélection et la curation réalisées par les humains ( des journalistes ?) qui cadrent le corpus médiatique légitime, non plus à l’échelle du contenu (agenda-setting), mais ici à l’échelle du média : on pourra donc parler de media-setting.

Paradoxalement, on retrouve derrière ce modèle qui dit évaluer par les faits (fact-checking) un modèle traditionnel de gatekeeping basé sur l’autorité, celles de journalistes, et du coup de leur opinions (ce qui n’est pas grave en soi, mais qui est toujours gênant quand le procédé se réclame d’un modèle opposé).

Au fond, cela n’est pas tellement étonnant : Le Monde reste ici dans un modèle médiatique pré-digital, à l’opposé des processus d’accessibilité à l’information des plateformes sociales (facebook, twitter) qui, couplées avec des algorithmes, fonctionnent sur l’input des utilisateurs (mon propos ici a valeur de constat et non de jugement).

Pour aller plus loin, on peut même se demander si Le Monde, perdant son statut de média de référence avec les bouleversements induits par le digital, ne trouve pas avec cette initiative un ultime sursaut de restaurer ce statut, non plus via sa ligne éditoriale mais en s’auto-imposant légitime dans un rôle d’évaluateur et d’accréditeur des médias, c’est à dire en se plaçant “au dessus” des autres médias.

Du fact-checking à l’argument d’autorité :

Parce qu’il est toujours possible d’opposer des faits à d’autres, surtout lorsque des liens de causalité rentrent en ligne de compte, le fact-checking utilise l’argument d’autorité pour contourner cette subjectivité et parvenir au bout du processus : classer les média, et donc finalement créditer ou discréditer, qualifier ou disqualifier (…)

Par contre, et c’est là un terrain de jeu majeur du fact-checking, l’exercice de rattacher l’auteur d’une idée ou d’un propos à une autorité prend tout son sens.

Au plus cette autorité est au centre de la sphère consensuelle, au plus son auteur sera facilement crédité. Au plus elle s’écartera de celle-ci au plus elle sera discrédité.

Les fake news, une radicalisation sémantique :

Il est intéressant de constater une radicalisation sémantique dans le champ lexical médiatique : le nom rumeur, qui décrit le mode de propagation d’une information plus que la qualification de l’information, a laissé place à des concepts tels que fake news ou post-vérité, qui disqualifient en formant et en enfermant une catégorie de contenus bannis.

Sur la question de la vérité, la définition de la rumeur offre la possibilité d’un doute (“véracité douteuse”) là ou le concept de fake news repose sur une approche binaire (vrai / faux) et excluante.

Et plein d’autres choses intéressantes, notamment sur Wikipedia que l’auteur semble bien connaître.

#Decodex #fake_news

Who will have the AI edge? | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
▻http://thebulletin.org/who-will-have-ai-edge10497

[Mary] Cummings argues that companies like Google and Facebook could outpace militaries when it comes to the science of artificial intelligence, which in turn could lead to potentially dangerous technologies going into use before they have been properly tested.

#IA #silicon_army #voiture_autopilotée #armement

Huit #médias français s’allient à #Facebook contre les « #fake_news »
►http://www.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2017/02/06/huit-medias-francais-s-allient-a-facebook-dans-sa-lutte-contre-les-fake-news

Concrètement, le projet est de déployer prochainement en France un dispositif similaire à celui qui a été mis en place, en décembre aux Etats-Unis, avec le concours de cinq médias (ABC News, AP, FactCheck.org, Politifact et Snopes), et qui doit prochainement être lancé en Allemagne, avec la rédaction de Correctiv. En France, outre Le Monde, les médias partenaires sont l’Agence France-Presse (AFP), BFM-TV, Franceinfo, France Médias Monde, L’Express, Libération et 20 Minutes. Après la #France, Facebook projette de poursuivre le déploiement dans d’autres pays.

Ce dispositif permet aux utilisateurs, grâce à une nouvelle catégorie de signalement, de « faire remonter » une information qu’ils pensent être fausse. Les liens signalés sont rassemblés au sein d’un portail, auquel les médias partenaires ont accès. Ceux-ci peuvent dès lors « fact-checker » ces informations.

Si deux médias partenaires établissent que le contenu signalé est faux et proposent un lien qui en atteste, alors ce contenu apparaîtra aux utilisateurs avec un drapeau mentionnant que deux « fact-checkers » remettent en cause la véracité de cette information. Quand un utilisateur voudra partager ce contenu, une fenêtre s’ouvrira pour l’alerter.

Silicon Valley exploits time and space to extend frontiers of capitalism | Evgeny Morozov | Opinion | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/29/silicon-valley-exploits-space-evgeny-morozov

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Space_Shuttle_Program_Commemorative_Patch.png

The US Congress quietly passed an important piece of legislation this month. The Space Resource Exploration and Utilisation Act – yet to be signed by Barack Obama – grants American companies unconstrained rights to the mining of any resources – from water to gold. The era of space exploration is over; the era of space exploitation has begun!

While the 1967 Outer Space Treaty explicitly prohibits governments from claiming planets and other celestial resources, as their property, Congress reasoned that such restrictions do not apply to the materials found and mined there.

The bill’s timing might, at first, seem surprising – after all, Nasa, the US space agency, is almost constantly fighting against budget cuts – but is easily explained by the entrance of new space explorers on to the scene, namely the Silicon Valley billionaires who are pouring millions into “disrupting” space, Nasa, and the space programme of yore. From Google’s Eric Schmidt and Larry Page to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Tesla’s Elon Musk, Silicon Valley’s elites have committed considerable resources to the cause.

And while the long-term plan – to mine asteroids for precious metals or water, which can then be used to fuel spaceships – might still be a decade or more away, Silicon Valley has a very different business proposition in mind. Space, for these companies, offers the most cost-effective way to wire the unconnected parts of the globe by beaming internet connectivity from balloons, drones and satellites.

Morph’s Outpost on the Digital Frontier
▻http://morphsoutpostonthedigitalfrontier.blogspot.de
On arrive de loin. A l’époque de la space shuttle les limites du cyber-espace étaient encore inconnues et illimitées.

Wired wrote briefly about Morph’s Outpost in the September/October 1993 issue, online at
▻http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.04/streetcred.html?pg=8

Morph’s Outpost - By Will Kreth

Don’t knock programmers. Contrary to popular belief, many of them do have lives and look nothing like the bespectacled, pasty-faced, Jolt-cola- slurping traitorous overweight hacker depicted in Jurassic Park (personally, I was thrilled when he got eaten in the Jeep). Some of them ride mountain bikes, kayak, play alto sax and read books by Peter Matheissen. Some of them were never interested in programming until HyperCard, while others have been working on PC’s since the birth of the Altair in the ’70s. Until recently, they’ve been stuck wading through various patently dull programming magazines for the information they needed to stay on the edge.

The rise of interactive multimedia has given birth to a new crop of programmers, and they’re starving for deep technical information about their current (albeit over-hyped) obsession. Now they have a new magazine dedicated to their cause. Morph’s Outpost on the Digital Frontier is the brainchild of Craig LaGrow, a founder of the popular Computer Language, and Editor-in-Chief Doug Millison. Augmenting the magazine’s seriously technical treatment of authoring environments and the like is a whimsical cartoon character named (what else?) Morph, who runs his Outpost on the boundary between cyberspace and the digital jungle. He’s the silicon- surfing Sherpa who’ll outfit you with the “intel” you need to make the right decisions on hardware, software, scripting tricks, and marketing your creations. Morph, who looks as if he just came out of a graffiti-artist’s spray-paint can, has assembled several notable names within the industry to contribute to the Outpost on a regular basis - like Rockley Miller (publisher and editor of Multimedia and Videodisc Monitor), Richard Doherty (editor of Envisioneering), Tony Bove (publisher and editor of the Macromedia User Journal and the Bove & Rhodes Inside Report), and Michael Moon (of the market research firm Gistics, Inc.). Do you know your XCMDs from CLUTs? Script-X from a 3:2 pull-down ratio for mastering a videodisc? Then Morph’s Outpost on the Digital Frontier is a must-read for all you seasoned media fanatics surfing the Digital Pipeline.

Digital Work CyberTrends
▻http://people.duke.edu/~mccann/q-work.htm
Un an après la catastrophe de la Challenger l’espace sans fin du monde digital se traduisait en job opportunities sans limites.

Work in Cyberspace
Rise of the Personal Virtual Workspace
Rise of the American Perestroika
The Demise of the Job
Rise of Entreployees
Rise of the Movable Job
Demise of the Department
Rise of the Project
Demise of the Hierarchy
Rise of Multimedia in Corporations
Big Business in Your Little PC
Rise of the Digital Wealthy
Devolution of Large Entities
Rise of the Individual
Rise of the Video Communications
Rise of Internet Collaboration
Rise of the Virtual Office
Rise of Soft Factories
Dematerialization of Manufacturing
Put Your Knowledge to Work
Rise of New Organizational Structures
Demise of the Branch
Rise of Document-centric Computing
Rise of Intranet
Rise of Knowledge Worker Hell
Rise of a New Life in the Web
Rise of Business Ecosystems
Death of Competition
Rise of New Industry Definitions
Rise of Intellectual Mobility
Rise of the Internet Job Engine
Rise of Coordination-Intensive Business
Rise of the Internetworked Business Structures
Rise of Global Networks
Rise of Globalization
Rise of the Underdeveloped
Rise of Free Agent, USA

InfluenceHR | The Shift From Wellness to Well-being : Empowering a Workforce with a Whole-employee Approach
▻http://influencehr.com/sessions/the-shift-from-wellness-to-well-being-empowering-a-workforce-with-a-who
Depuis on chasse du cerveau dans la silicon valley , alors il faut faire des efforts pour en attirer les meilleurs.

Speaker:
Dr. Michael M. Moon, CEO and Principal Analyst, ExcelHRate Research and Advisory Services
Workplace wellness is undergoing a transformation from a limited view of employee physical wellness to a more holistic view that also includes employees’ emotional, mental, and financial well-being — inside and outside the workplace. To really engage employees, employers need to provide the right balance of resources, programs, tools, and technology to enable employees to own and manage their well-being along with building a culture that supports these initiatives. The HR vendor community has a tremendous opportunity in helping employers to empower their employees to own their well-being through innovative technologies that deliver personalized learning, feedback, and targeted interventions.

Michael Jay Moon - Wikipedia
▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jay_Moon#Awards_and_associations
C’est l’occasion pour les vieux hippies et les habitants de première heure de la vallée de silicone de vendre quelques conférences.

Moon was a contributing editor for Morph’s Outpost from 1993-1995, launching the magazine and writing a monthly column. A technical publication on emerging multimedia design technology, it was based on the design of ’60s underground newspapers. He was a blogger for Customer Engagement Agencies, DAM for Marketing and Engagement Marketspace. In 2000, he co-authored Firebrands: Building Brand Loyalty in the Internet Age with Doug Millison. The book is now available in 13 languages.

Closing the Digital Frontier - The Atlantic
▻http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/closing-the-digital-frontier/308131
Une chosequi ne change jamais dans le monde capitaliste est l’incertitude. Où trouver the next big thing (#TNBT), commen investir, comment survivre. Alors les spécialistes annoncent des vérités assez simples pour plaire aux décervelés de la finance.

The era of the Web browser’s dominance is coming to a close. And the Internet’s founding ideology—that information wants to be free, and that attempts to constrain it are not only hopeless but immoral— suddenly seems naive and stale in the new age of apps, smart phones, and pricing plans. What will this mean for the future of the media—and of the Web itself?

Michael Hirschorn July/August 2010 Issue

Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft : Which Will Fall First ?
▻http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/01/06/google-apple-facebook-amazon-microsoft-which-will-fall-first

Which company will fall first, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, or Microsoft? originally appeared on Quora: the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Terrence Yang, Angel investor, on Quora:

I own stock in Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, but if I had to pick which tech giant I think will fall first, I would pick Facebook.

That being said:

Zuckerberg’s latest moves include:
Keeping control of Facebook even after he donated almost all his Facebook stock to charity. Facebook shareholder suit alleges secret texts from Marc Andreessen to Mark Zuckerberg.
Being the only public company CEO to skip Trump’s tech summit. I bet most shareholders wanted him to attend.
Making his 2017 resolution “to have visited and met people in every state in the US by the end of the year. After a tumultuous last year, my hope for this challenge is to get out and talk to more people about how they’re living, working, and thinking about the future.” Mark Zuckerberg - Every year I take on a personal... Maybe he is sincere in trying to better understand America, given that Facebook, together with Google, account for almost all the online ad revenue. Google and Facebook are booming. Is the rest of the digital ad business sinking?
Zuckerberg said he is no longer an atheist and that religion is very important (hat tip Hunter Johnson). (Mark Zuckerberg says he’s no longer an atheist, believes ‘religion is very important’.)
All of these moves are more consistent with someone laying the groundwork for a possible run for political office someday than with someone singularly focused on growing the Facebook empire. What would Steve Jobs do?
People have speculated before about Zuckerberg’s aspirations to run for President. (Does Mark Zuckerberg Want To Run For President?)
I believe his actions are an investment risk factor. At the margin, his latest moves drove some investors to sell Facebook stock (raising its cost of capital) and possibly providing cheaper capital to the Facebook’s competitors (if investors sell Facebook and buy Snap, for example).
Facebook’s metrics are wrong, though others (Google?) may have the same issue. It’s not just Facebook: Digital advertisers say internet metrics are often wrong Facebook Says It Found More Miscalculated Metrics.
Robert Scoble says spatial computing will dominate, meaning you will be able to physically walk around in the real world and see virtual items placed on them. Scobleizer - Entrepreneur in Residence.
Scoble said he would ask Zuckerberg this: “How are you going to compete with a “mixed reality” release of the iPhone that’s coming in 11 months? I expect that iPhone will sell 60 million in first weekend…"
Scoble goes on to say: “That’s more VR sold than all others combined. In one weekend … If I were at Facebook I’d get the entire Oculus team to pivot. Toward mixed reality glasses. Why? Microsoft’s execs already told me they are betting 100% on mixed reality (with its Microsoft HoloLens product). The strategy at Microsoft is “Cloud + Hololens.” That’s it. The entirety of a $455 billion company is betting on mixed reality.” Apple Strategy 2017. Very important change to iPhone coming (hat tip to Leo Harsha).
Oculus headset sales are low. VR is taking longer to take off than some guessed. VR headset sales by device 2016 | Statista.
Instagram is doing a great job copying Snap’s popular features and avoiding the unpopular ones (fast follower). But they don’t have anything like Spectacles yet. Instagram’s Best Move in 2016? Copying Snapchat — The Motley Fool Snapchat vs. Instagram: Who’s Copying Whom Most?
Even Zuckerberg’s write-up and videos about Jarvis home AI reveals Facebook’s weaknesses. While Amazon, Google and Apple can combine hardware and software to give you a better, more seamless experience via Echo/Alexa or the Google and Apple equivalents. To date Facebook only has software.
Some others cite Microsoft or Apple as the most likely to fail. I disagree.

SILICON VALLEY (THE BIG FIVE) RULEZ

Tech Companies Are Dominating the Stock Market as Never Before (July 29 2016)
▻http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/07/29/the_world_s_5_most_valuable_companies_apple_google_microsoft_amazon_facebook.

Tech’s ‘Frightful 5’ Will Dominate Digital Life for Foreseeable Future ( JAN. 20, 2016)
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/technology/techs-frightful-5-will-dominate-digital-life-for-foreseeable-future.html?_r

The Big 5 are Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook
(August 2, 2016)
▻http://www.greenm3.com/gdcblog/2016/8/2/the-big-5-are-apple-google-microsoft-amazon-facebook

The Big 5 Year in Review : Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook (December 29, 2015)
▻https://stratechery.com/2015/the-big-5-year-in-review-apple-google-microsoft-amazon-and-facebook

#silicon_valley #capitalisme #technologie #disruption

La Corée du Nord n’est plus un trou noir dans Google Maps
(mais on a pas encore les vues des google car)
▻http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2013/01/29/01003-20130129ARTFIG00484-la-coree-du-nord-n-est-plus-un-trou-noir-dans-goo

https://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1466269/north-korea-science-technology.jpg?w=1180 https://dl.dropbox.com/s/9onwcp2q6mlxguo/Capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202016-11-20%20%C3%A0%2011.34.05.png?dl=0 https://dl.dropbox.com/s/z7e1tfqsz6lut7s/Capture%20d%E2%80%99%C3%A9cran%202016-11-20%20%C3%A0%2011.35.00.png?dl=0

La Corée du Nord n’est plus un trou noir dans Google Maps

Par Sébastien Falletti Mis à jour le 29/01/2013 à 23:57 Publié le 29/01/2013 à 13:28

Le service cartographique du moteur de recherche américain vient de publier une carte de la Corée du Nord encore rudimentaire, mais qui permet d’identifier quelques monuments et des sites d’internement.

Séoul

La Corée du Nord n’est plus une terra incognita, du moins pour Google. Le service cartographique du moteur de recherche américain vient de dévoiler une carte actualisée du pays le plus fermé du monde, quelques semaines après la visite sur place de son président Eric Schmidt.

Le nouveau service de Google Maps localise aussi bien les grands monuments « touristiques » de Pyongyang à la gloire du régime que les batteries de missiles sol-air la protégeant, sans oublier les principaux camps d’internement du goulag nord-coréen, où 200.000 prisonniers croupissent selon Amnesty International. C’est le cas du « kwan Li so » n°18 identifié à une centaine de kilomètres au nord-est de la capitale. En plein bras de fer nucléaire entre Kim Jong-un et la communauté internationale, la carte dévoile certains centres de recherche atomique du royaume ermite, mais de multiples zones d’ombre subsistent.
Des données collectées par satellite et grâce à des visiteurs occidentaux

« Pendant longtemps, la Corée du Nord est demeurée l’une des plus vastes zones dotées de données cartographiques limitées. Aujourd’hui, nous y remédions », s’est félicité Jayanth Mysore, responsable de Google Map Maker. Le royaume ermite était jusqu’ici l’un des derniers « trous noirs » du service cartographique en ligne le plus populaire de la planète, contrastant avec la représentation ultra-détaillée de sa rivale capitaliste, la Corée du Sud, l’un des pays les plus high-tech du monde.

#corée_du_nord #google_map #google #cartographie

Les démocrates américains envoûtés par la #Silicon_Valley, par Thomas Frank (mars 2016)
►http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2016/03/FRANK/54926 #st

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/IMG/arton54926.jpg

Quand ils chantent les louanges de ce secteur, arrive fatalement le moment où ils se réfèrent à #Google. Dans L’Audace d’espérer, paru en 2006, M. Obama raconte avec enthousiasme son pèlerinage au siège de la compagnie lorsqu’il était sénateur. Une fois président, il a continué de citer Google dans la moitié de ses discours sur l’état de l’Union. Les employés de l’entreprise se sont hissés sur le podium des trois donateurs les plus généreux de sa campagne de 2012. Et M. Eric Schmidt, ancien président-directeur général (PDG) et actuel président du conseil de surveillance de Google, se taille une place de choix dans les annales du social-libéralisme moderne. Il a par exemple siégé au Transition Economic Advisory Board (TEAB) du président et paradé à la tribune avec lui et ses principaux conseillers économiques trois jours après la victoire électorale de 2008. Durant la campagne de 2012, c’est encore lui qui a conseillé le candidat démocrate sur sa stratégie relative aux données de masse. Et qui a-t-on retrouvé en 2015 à la tête d’une « start-up de technologie politique » conçue pour fournir à la candidate Hillary Clinton le fin du fin en matière de ciblage des électeurs ? M. Schmidt, bien entendu. Le 137e homme le plus riche du monde — selon le classement 2015 de Forbes — est le milliardaire préféré du centre gauche américain.

▻http://zinc.mondediplo.net/messages/33604 via Le Monde diplomatique

#Google and European governments have visited each other EIGHTY times in past decade | Daily Mail Online
▻http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3626126/The-revolving-door-Google-European-governments-spun-EIGHTY-times-past-d

At least 80 people are thought to have transferred in one direction or another between Google and European Union governments in the past decade.

Joanna Shields, a former Google managing director, was made a baroness and minister by David Cameron, while the Prime Minister also appointed Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, to his business advisory council.

Google has been at the centre of controversy over corporate tax arrangements while the European Commission has accused of abusing a dominant position in the market.

#lobbying #revolving_doors #europe

Facebook recrute un ex-juge
▻http://www.numerama.com/business/170344-facebook-recrute-ex-juge.html

Facebook s’offre les services d’un ex-magistrat qui travaillera sur les questions de contentieux. Les liens entre la Silicon Valley et Washington sont étroits. D’une sphère à l’autre, des transferts ont eu lieu selon les aléas d’une carrière. On a vu par exemple que l’ex PDG de Google, Eric Schmidt, occupe aussi des fonctions de conseil auprès du Pentagone, ou qu’un ancien conseiller de Barack Obama être nommé vice-président d’Uber pour gérer la stratégie, les questions politiques et la (...)

#Facebook #lobbying

Aujourd’hui, le Monde t’explique que Google/Alphabet ne serait pas intéressé à avoir pour « débouché commercial » l’« armée américaine ».

Google veut se séparer des robots humanoïdes de Boston Dynamics
▻http://siliconvalley.blog.lemonde.fr/2016/03/18/google-veut-vendre-les-robots-humanoides-de-boston-dynami

D’autant qu’une partie des projets de Boston Dynamics sont menés en collaboration avec l’armée américaine, un débouché commercial qui n’intéresse pas Alphabet.

Ohhh… tu veux dire qu’à la rubrique « 2.0 » du Monde, vous ne suivez pas l’actualité et que vous n’avez pas Wikipédia ? Il y a quinze jours :
▻https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt

En 2016, il devient également directeur d’un comité pour le Pentagone américain afin d’étudier l’apport des innovations de la Silicon Valley à l’armée américaine.

Discutez entre vous, les gens : Le patron d’Alphabet à la tête d’un comité de conseil du Pentagone
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2016/03/03/le-patron-d-alphabet-eric-schmidt-prend-la-tete-d-un-comite-de-conseil-du-pe

Eric Schmidt, l’ancien PDG de Google et actuel président exécutif d’Alphabet, va prendre la tête d’un comité de conseil du Pentagone, a annoncé mercredi 2 mars le secrétaire américain à la défense, Ashton Carter.

Ce nouveau comité sera consacré à l’innovation technologique dans la défense et devra conseiller le Pentagone sur des domaines « très familiers des entreprises de la Silicon Valley », comme « le développement rapide de prototypes », « l’analyse de données », « l’utilisation d’applications mobiles et du cloud » ou encore « l’organisation du partage d’informations », peut-on lire dans un communiqué.

Je suppose que le Pentagone est surtout intéressé à pouvoir battre les asiatiques au jeu de go.

Évidemment, on parle de robots humanoïdes et de Google, on ne va quand même pas rappeler les lubies transhumanistes de ces gens (alors que l’intitulé Replicant devrait un peu t’inquiéter). Tiens, encore récemment : Le pape parlera de transhumanisme avec le PDG de Google
▻https://www.cath.ch/newsf/le-pape-parlera-de-transhumanisme-avec-le-pdg-de-google

Le pape François recevra le PDG de Google, Eric Schmidt, en audience privée au Vatican, le 15 janvier 2016. La firme américaine investit beaucoup financièrement dans le transhumanisme.

#Silicon_army : le président de #Google devient (officiellement) conseiller pour le Pentagone
▻http://www.lefigaro.fr/secteur/high-tech/2016/03/03/32001-20160303ARTFIG00203-le-president-de-google-devient-conseiller-pour-le

Le ministère américain de la Défense embauche chez Google. Eric Schmidt, président de la holding Alphabet, qui englobe le moteur de recherche, va en effet prendre la direction d’un nouveau comité de conseil du Pentagone en matière d’innovation technologique. Il sera à la tête d’une douzaine de personnes et conseillera l’armée sur des domaines « très connus de la Silicon Valley » (…)

Le département de la Défense a aussi annoncé mercredi le concours « Piratez le Pentagone », qui offre une récompense pécuniaire à ceux qui parviendront à trouver des failles sur les pages Internet de l’entité.

Le communiqué : ▻http://www.defense.gov/News-Article-View/Article/684366/pentagon-to-establish-defense-innovation-advisory-board

L’an dernier, le « Wall Street Journal » révélait qu’Eric Schmidt et Larry Page, co-fondateur de Google, s’étaient rendus à la Maison Blanche plus de 200 fois depuis que Barack Obama avait été élu.

▻http://www.lesechos.fr/tech-medias/hightech/021739515432-google-se-rapproche-encore-un-peu-plus-du-gouvernement-america

Résumé en deux tweets :

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32121091/siliconarmy-google.png

Google’s chairman wants algorithms to censor the internet for hate speech
▻http://qz.com/568580/googles-chairman-wants-algorithms-to-censor-the-internet-for-hate-speech

In an op-ed for The New York Times (paywall), Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, inserted himself directly into the middle of a heated debate about the line between fighting terrorism’s online reach and internet censorship. “It’s our responsibility to demonstrate that stability and free expression go hand in hand,” he writes. “We should build tools to help de-escalate tensions on social media—sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment.” His words came just after (...) #Google #algorithme #censure #anti-terrorisme

Google veut “réguler” la liberté d’expression - Quartz
▻http://alireailleurs.tumblr.com/post/134849081693

Contrairement à ce dont il nous avait habitué jusqu’à présent (Google étant jusqu’à présent plutôt sur une ligne de défense de la liberté d’expression dans le respect du premier amendement de la Constitution américaine), Eric Schmidt, son président, dans une tribune pour le New York Times, vient de se prononcer en faveur d’une meilleure régulation des propos sur les réseaux sociaux. “Il est de notre responsabilité de démontrer que la stabilité et la liberté d’expression vont main dans la main”, écrit-il. “Nous devons construire des outils pour aider à désamorcer les tensions sur les médias sociaux, des formes de correcteurs orthographiques pour la haine et le harcèlement”. Cette réponse à l’appel d’Hillary Clinton, candidate à l’investiture démocrate pour la Maison Blanche (et ouvertement soutenue par (...)

#censure #algorithmes #comportements

Pando : #Silicon_Valley vs Civilization
▻https://pando.com/2015/11/17/silicon-valley-vs-civilization/446c5504d796dfc506200e27a414235ccdd356dd

https://assets.pando.com/uploads/hug.jpg

Late in September, Mark Zuckerberg was pictured hugging India prime minister Narendra Modi at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters.

About the same time, on the other side of the world in Modi’s India, a Hindu lynch mob broke into a local Muslim family’s home and bludgeoned to death 50-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq by smashing in his skull, and then dragged him through the streets of Bisara, a village just 30 miles north of the capital New Delhi. The mob also bashed in his 22-year-old son’s head, leaving him in a coma with severe brain damage, and sexually assaulted the dead man’s daughter.

It was just the latest in a series of increasingly gruesome attacks by Hindu extremists, reportedly inspired and encouraged by Modi’s far-right political party, and affiliated grassroots organizations like the notorious RSS, a paramilitary group established in the 1920s explicitly modeled after Mussolini’s and Hitler’s paramilitaries, through the ranks of which Modi rose to power. For weeks, Modi kept menacingly quiet about the lynching, one of several this year, while his ministers and party officials fanned the flames.

Modi’s culture minister dismissed the lynching as an “accident” in which no one was at fault — even though a local Hindu temple priest admitted he organized the mob at his temple through announcements over the loudspeaker falsely accusing the only Muslim family in the village of killing a cow. Modi’s culture minister then claimed that the father had died of “shock” after being wrongly told that his son had been killed. This is the father whose head was crushed by bricks in front of his family, and whose body was dragged through the streets of the village.

Other members of Modi’s party threatened riots and worse if any of the lynch mob murderers were prosecuted. Another BJP party official called for the prosecution of the Muslim family’s survivors for allegedly killing the cow.

After two weeks, Modi finally issued a statement so vague and tepid that it worked more like gasoline than cold water. Which was exactly the point. As many have explained already, it was Modi himself who began exploiting cow-slaughtering and beef-eating as a way to whip up hatred and rearrange the political divisions along communal religious lines rather than along class and caste lines.

(For an excellent rundown of how Modi has spent years cultivating and whipping up communal violence with speeches about minorities slaughtering cows and political rivals waging a “pink revolution” [i.e. raw meat] read this Quartz article, “How Narendra Modi spread anti-beef hysteria in India”.)

While Silicon Valley swoons over Modi’s talk of Digital India and SmartCities and bullet trains and the rest, back at home Modi has talked up a very different and very violent, far-right game. And it seems just about everyone in the world who isn’t a far-right Hindu chauvinist understands just how bad and how dangerous Modi is. 

Everyone, that is, apart from Silicon Valley’s “smartest guys in the room.”

The New York Times editorial board has been sounding the alarm over Modi’s dangerous lean towards violent sectarianism, authoritarianism and censorship for the past half year (see here, here, here, here, and here). Meanwhile, India under Modi now leads the world in Facebook censorship, and well surpassed Putin in shutting down progressive western NGOs and foundations (excluding Omidyar Network, which has played a hugely supportive role in helping Modi to power). Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was forced out as chancellor of Nalanda University, set up by a consortium of Asian governments on the site of what was one of the oldest universities in the world, as Modi’s allies have cracked down on academics and intellectuals across the country who don’t adhere to the ruling party’s line. In an unprecedented protest for India, dozens of leading writers have been returning the most prestigious literary award from India’s National Academy of Letters, citing intolerance and violence against intellectuals and minorities.

Salman Rushdie spoke about what writers are facing in India under Modi:

“There are attacks on ordinary liberties, the ordinary right to assembly, the ordinary right to organize an event in which people can talk about books and ideas freely and without hostility.”
Last month, Rushdie tweeted,

“Alarming times for free expression in India.”
And it isn’t just intellectuals and minorities who have been complaining. The head of India’s central bank, Raghuram Rajan—long a respected favorite of the global neoliberal elites, and a quiet supporter of Modi’s election victory—made a rare and unusual public criticism of Modi’s intolerance. And Moodys, the ratings agency, issued a warning to Modi that his ruling party’s violent intolerance could jeopardize business and investments.

None of this, however, seems to have put even the slightest damper on Silicon Valley’s love affair with their favorite world leader.

It’s not hard to imagine how Zuckerberg’s photo gleefully bro-hugging the far-right Indian leader — or Pierre Omidyar’s top India partner in Omidyar Network becoming Modi’s Minister for Finance after spending years helping to elect Modi using his Omidyar perch — will come back to haunt them.

Zuckerberg especially should be worried. There are those rare photos in history that can capture something dark and contrary that can never be erased from a public figure’s image: Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam’s hand a few years before the Iraqi dictator gassed Kurdish villages; Milton Friedman advising Gen. Pinochet even as his concentration camps were torturing tens of thousands of Chilean students, intellectuals and labor union activists.

Ignorance is no defense; particularly when you pride yourself in being boy-geniuses, with the best information of anyone in the world. Silicon Valley’s Modi problem is apparent to everyone in the world but Silicon Valley’s billionaires. Now, even Modi’s own citizens in India are revolting against him. In the recent election in the state of Bihar, Modi’s party suffered a shocking, crushing defeat to a socialist-led rival. In the campaign before the election, Modi and his top party officials tried inciting communal violence for electoral gain, but locals overwhelmingly rejected it. Now Modi’s own party is openly criticizing him.

It’s not like Pando hasn’t been warning about the Modi danger since he was first elected in May 2014. Modi crossed our radar precisely because he was such a favorite of so many big-name Silicon Valley leaders — Pierre Omidyar, Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, Sheryl Sandberg, Tim Cook. . . .

And yet, what we’re seeing is that one of the most divisive, intolerant and dangerous leaders in the world has charmed the socks off of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest, against all information and opinion and evidence out there. Our tech leaders are literally the last people in the world to get it.