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Eric Schmidt to become technical advisor to Alphabet

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Re: Eric Schmidt to become technical advisor to Alphabet

#71

At the bottom of this thread is a comment by 'AmIFirstToThink' which has been inexplicably marked "dead". It seems to be the only reply as of writing this that makes the connection of Schmidt's stepping down to his strong bets during the 2016 election. A little-noticed WSJ piece from October would support that idea: > [Google] Employees donated $1.6 million to her campaign, about 80% more than the amount given by wor…

There's also this story by Assange outing Schmidt as a government lackey, which I find to be an interesting read.

https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

Re: Eric Schmidt to become technical advisor to Alphabet

#72

At the bottom of this thread is a comment by 'AmIFirstToThink' which has been inexplicably marked "dead". It seems to be the only reply as of writing this that makes the connection of Schmidt's stepping down to his strong bets during the 2016 election. A little-noticed WSJ piece from October would support that idea: > [Google] Employees donated $1.6 million to her campaign, about 80% more than the amount given by wor…

What do HN people think about a law to prevent corporate executives from giving money to politicians?

If you care about democracy, you want to make it easier for individual people to spend a lot of money on politics.

As with so many regulations, it mostly benefits the people who have enough resources to work around them:

With strict limits per person, you need a huge established machine that can reach out to many individuals to get your donations rolling. Without limits, you just need to convince one eccentric billionaire. While the latter is still hard, it's still much easier done than the former.

Re: Eric Schmidt to become technical advisor to Alphabet

#73

At the bottom of this thread is a comment by 'AmIFirstToThink' which has been inexplicably marked "dead". It seems to be the only reply as of writing this that makes the connection of Schmidt's stepping down to his strong bets during the 2016 election. A little-noticed WSJ piece from October would support that idea: > [Google] Employees donated $1.6 million to her campaign, about 80% more than the amount given by wor…

What do HN people think about a law to prevent corporate executives from giving money to politicians?

[deleted]

Re: Eric Schmidt to become technical advisor to Alphabet

#74
post #71

At the bottom of this thread is a comment by 'AmIFirstToThink' which has been inexplicably marked "dead". It seems to be the only reply as of writing this that makes the connection of Schmidt's stepping down to his strong bets during the 2016 election. A little-noticed WSJ piece from October would support that idea: > [Google] Employees donated $1.6 million to her campaign, about 80% more than the amount given by wor…

There's also this story by Assange outing Schmidt as a government lackey, which I find to be an interesting read. https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

[deleted]

Re: Eric Schmidt to become technical advisor to Alphabet

#75
post #68

One of the most interesting debates was between Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel back in 2012, especially in the positions that Eric staked out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsXFwy6gG_4

Wow, Peter Thiel, is annoying, to say the least. He sounds like someone who lives in a bubble that is completely decoupled from the real world. He doesn't even let anyone else make any point. Am I even allowed to say all these without getting sued or banned?

I watched this video before. He is very annoying but I am mostly agreeing with him.

Re: Eric Schmidt to become technical advisor to Alphabet

#77
post #76

Is it just me or does anybody else think that the reason could potentially be a sexual harassment?

Something is fishy which is why they released this info just before the holidays so that the general public forgets about it soon.

There is some amount of gossip floating around: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2371719/Googles-Eric...

Not that the Daily Mail is a credible source, but there is a little smoke.

Re: Eric Schmidt to become technical advisor to Alphabet

#80
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do HN people think about a law to prevent corporate executives from giving money to politicians?

If you care about democracy, you want to make it easier for individual people to spend a lot of money on politics. As with so many regulations, it mostly benefits the people who have enough resources to work around them: With strict limits per person, you need a huge established machine that can reach out to many individuals to get your donations rolling. Without limits, you just need to convince one eccentric billio…

Yes, because we want people with sufficient money to be the only ones with a voice, and we want their voices to massively outweigh the voices of everyone else. That's definitely what someone who cares about democracy would want.
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