Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
1–10 of 65 posts
Re: Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
#2[deleted]
Re: Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
#3“He rejects all questions about extrajudicial killings or humanitarian atrocities as propaganda: “The media is often reporting that we execute people, which is not true,” he claims.”
Interesting article. I often wonder about the mindset of people who deny the obvious facts. Does he really believe it or is he just cynical?
Re: Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
#4“He rejects all questions about extrajudicial killings or humanitarian atrocities as propaganda: “The media is often reporting that we execute people, which is not true,” he claims.” Interesting article. I often wonder about the mindset of people who deny the obvious facts. Does he really believe it or is he just cynical?
> Does he really believe it or is he just cynical
Neither, IMO. From observing him over the years, he knows what's good for him, and he knows how to get a good vibe going with others at the same time. The vibe can make anything true or false and is not known for being concerned with moral true/false questions, which get into subjective (qualitative) ethics. (You can argue that those same ethics prevent reasonably helpful business from being done in many cases, as distasteful as it sounds.)
I'd add that he has a good nose for opportunity and a higher than average threshold for risk. This is your typical "fixer" type.
Re: Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
#5“He rejects all questions about extrajudicial killings or humanitarian atrocities as propaganda: “The media is often reporting that we execute people, which is not true,” he claims.” Interesting article. I often wonder about the mindset of people who deny the obvious facts. Does he really believe it or is he just cynical?
The 2nd largest company on the Fortune 500 has its executives doing major business with a government that dismembers Washington Post employees in foreign embassies. In fact, US defense contractors were profiting off their slaughter of Yemenis until recently. The attempts to look abroad and decide to find someone to find fault with is risible.
Re: Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
#6paywall :(
Re: Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
#7This man apeared some times in the spanish TV. He avoids questions about censorship and critic questions. It's just regime propaganda
Re: Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
#8Just read the opening two paragraphs. Whoever wrote that is totally clueless about how the Mormon church does its missionary assignments.
Re: Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
#9"Lately, Cao de Benós says he’s fostered agreements with European companies to use cheap, skilled labor on technology projects. “We develop a lot of apps for Android and iOS, and very cheap,” he says. “And we are very strong in animation. We export a lot for all kinds of modern cartoons.”
He cites an example, but obliquely: “Let’s say you’re making a cartoon, and you are outsourcing the work. So you go to Romania, because you know it’s very cheap.” But the Romanian company knows of an even cheaper option. Its representative flies to Pyongyang and makes a deal for the same work at half the cost—and then gets 50% of the fee without employing anyone. “This has happened,” he says. He will not name movies. Nor popular video games. North Korean labor is also behind websites and crypto, he says. The shadow hands of globally sanctioned socialist labor are all around us."
I am particularly interested in the double outsource example he mentioned involving Romania. We know it's a shady country however, I think this happens more often and in more parts of the world. So it is entirely possible that companies that outsourced work from the US have paid for labor in North Korea without knowing about it or knowing about it and wanting to take advantage of a better project quote. Sounds like a good investigative story for a tech journalist to pick up.
This could also be a security and privacy risk. Think of proxies of funneling data from consumers. Oh, how I hope for an app store where a tab would be present to see everyone who was involved which created the app and its web services and the github history of it. Wasn't the blockchain supposed to be the end all fix of transparency across the supply chain?
Re: Wanna Do Business in Pyongyang? Call Alejandro Cao de Benós
#10“He rejects all questions about extrajudicial killings or humanitarian atrocities as propaganda: “The media is often reporting that we execute people, which is not true,” he claims.” Interesting article. I often wonder about the mindset of people who deny the obvious facts. Does he really believe it or is he just cynical?
The 2nd largest company on the Fortune 500 has its executives doing major business with a government that dismembers Washington Post employees in foreign embassies. In fact, US defense contractors were profiting off their slaughter of Yemenis until recently. The attempts to look abroad and decide to find someone to find fault with is risible.
Is this something other than "America bad"? What do US defense contractors have to do with any of this?