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Billionaire Donors Lavish Millions On Code.org Crowdfunding Project
theodp (442580) writes "Whether it's winning yacht races, assembling the best computer science faculty, or even dominating high school basketball, billionaires like to win. Which may help explain why three tech billionaires — Code.org backers (and FWD.us founders) Mark Zuckerberg, VC John Doerr, and Sean Parker — stepped up to the plate and helped out Code.org's once-anemic Hour of Code Indiegogo crowdfunding project with $500k donations. When matched by Code.org's largest donors (Bill Gates, Reid Hoffman and others), the three donations alone raised $3,000,000, enough to reach the organization's goal of becoming the most funded crowdfunding campaign ever on Indiegogo. On its campaign page, Code.org remarked that "to sustain our organization for the long haul, we need to engage parents and community members," which raises questions about how reliant the K-12 learn-to-code movement might be on the kindness of its wealthy corporate and individual donors. Code.org started shedding some light on its top donors a few months back, but contributor names are blank in the 2013 IRS 990 filing posted by the organization on its website, although GuideStar suggests the biggest contributors in 2013 were Microsoft ($3,149,411) and Code.org founders Hadi and Ali Partovi ($1,873,909 in Facebook stock). Coincidentally, in a Reddit AMA at Code.org's launch, CEO and Founder Hadi Partovi noted that his next-door-neighbor is Microsoft General Counsel and Code.org Board member Brad Smith, whose FWD.us bio notes is responsible for Microsoft's philanthropic work. Just months before Code.org and FWD.us emerged on the lobbying scene, Smith announced Microsoft's National Talent Strategy, which called for "an increase in developing the American STEM pipeline in exchange for these new [H-1B] visas and green cards," a wish that President Obama is expected to grant shortly via executive action."
The fact that it benefits them and that we don't like some things they've done do not together imply that this is automatically a bad thing.
This is simple. Tech firms benefit when people are more competent with tech.
Nice thing about billionaires is it really only takes one to make a crowd.
...why all this obsession to get every kid out there and their dogs to "code"?
Why support a racist and misandric bunch of SJWs? This ends up perpetuating stereotypes, while creating resentment all around.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Here is how you boost your child's high school basketball team.
That's like 0.1% of their worth. It would be like me "lavishing" 60$ on them.
There is a great portion of my favorite book on Political thought regarding wages and the Artisan. Socrates points out that once a person in society receives ample money for a project they no longer have incentive to do future work. Socrates continues stating that this is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that the person with the wealth is now free to meddle in the affairs of everybody else in society. That meddling is almost never in societies interests, but that person or the person's close friends and associates, so that they gain further control of society and have more stuff than everyone else.
That book in case you are interested is Plato's "The Republic".
The whole "everyone should code" argument is foolish. Society needs plumbers, welders, architects, accountants, doctors, physicists, line workers, and every other job there is. As society has demand for jobs the wages should go up, which draws people into the needed jobs. Since coders are in demand and receive good wages for their work, it seems at least some of this push is to artificially reduce the wages by flooding the market. And lets face it, there are not a whole lot of decent paying middle class jobs left in the US any longer.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
One of the first things code.org needs to do is settle on the first coding language to teach. Problem with coding languages is they do not follow the logic of other things young people are taught 'reading, 'w'riting and 'a'rithmatic' but only follows their own 'internal' logic and this makes it much more difficult to learn. The language needs to more tightly align with normal spoken and written language and maths use. Which of course makes other spoken languages coding language an interesting problem. Want more people to learn to code make code learn able, make sure is does not break the logic rules of other things they are taught and adheres to those logic rules. So a new free open source learning to code language, with some real research on how to align it properly with language and maths use, rather than convenience, or because it was done that way on punch cards. Simple proof of how defective programmers and the computer industry, is the querty keyboard, seriously still making excuses for non-alphabetic keyboards when teaching alphabetic order is one of the first lessons learned when learning to bloody write. Any one who tries to excuse that is a fool.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
code.org and fwd.us is simply a scam to lobby for more H1-B visas, so that they can pay programmers minimum wage.
That's cheap compared to paying programmers enough to make the job desirable.
Where the heck do you work? Find a better job! (Or realize the all first jobs suck.)
Look at some of the donors: Facebook, Google, and MS all pay quite well. There's very few careers that pay better without going into business for yourself. I'm quite OK with heart surgeons making more than me, really.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Apply what you wrote in first paragraph to the second. Billionaries want to reduce costs not help the masses.
. Also, programmers don't all work at big software houses in the heart of Silicon Valley, and the discrepancy between the requirements and the pay is much more pronounced at smaller companies and in other parts of the country.
And coal miner pay really sucks in areas with no coal mines. Deep sea fishing jobs pay really well, but you're not going to find one in Kansas. Want a career as a physicist? Which 5 years are you spending at the LHC? If you want to be paid, you must first find someone to value the service you're offering.
Have you looked at what most layers actually make (those that can ever find work), and at what age they actually pull ahead of developers in lifetime earnings less schooling costs? Ditto doctors that don't have a much-in-demand specialty. Bankers? Only investment bankers make the big money you're thinking of, and try finding that job outside of a couple of cities. And managers? Most large companies have a technical track these days, as the industry matures.
But in any case, the pay of coders from the companies owned by the billionaires making these donations is quite high.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I do think their support of STEM is in the interest of growing the domestic workforce towards the needs of industry.
If by "needs of the industry", you mean "get to pay programmers less", then sure, that's what they want.
I never stated plumbing was a lucrative job, I don't even think I hinted at it. Automation has it's place, but many things are not better given our current ability to automate.
These wealthy tech billionaires see the writing on the wall and are trying to help equip the masses to be more relevant in tomorrow's job market.
These wealthy billionaires did not become wealthy billionaires by altruism, sorry. I appreciate your opinion, but I don't believe for one second that they have societies best interest in mind with this push. I consider that they read the reference I provided and took the message of Sophistry and Machiavelli instead of altruism. I could be wrong, but you would have to provide with evidence and we would have to debate case by case.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You're comparing the relatively few top paying programmer jobs to run-of-the-mill banking and management jobs. Compare Silicon Valley developer positions to Wall Street banking, for example, and see how programmers fare then. Or, as I mentioned earlier, compare the many programmers all over the country to the many managers everywhere. It is nice that you're content with your pay, but if programming were the excellent career choice that you paint it as, it would attract a far more diverse crowd, and career-minded programmers wouldn't strive to end up in management after all. Wouldn't you find it odd for doctors to want to essentially leave their profession in droves to earn more money managing other doctors? Why is that the path for programmers who want to earn more money?
Giving money to help others makes the world a better place, and is praiseworthy. Complaining about others doing so isn't helping.
Let us take a few billionaires in the US and see what "giving" could result in. Bill Gates with an estimated personal wealth of 67 Billion dollars could give away 66 Billion and still have a billion left (enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life and make his children very wealthy when he dies). That would purchase 660,000 houses for the homeless population in the US valued at 100,000 each. This is more than the amount of homeless people estimated in the US (by approximately 50,000) so would help 50,000 families in poverty as well. Add in Warren Buffet (53B), Larry Ellison(43B), the Koch brothers (34B each), and we have quite a few families that were in poverty in the US that now have a house bought and paid for.
Notice that we don't even touch a guy like David Rockefeller because his net worth is not reported, but estimated at 340 Billion dollars. That wealth alone would purchase 3.4 million houses valued at 100,000 each.
I would fully agree that the plan to purchase all of these people houses would not solve all of the problems, those people would need to get some form of income to pay their property tax every year, maintain the houses, and pay for insurance. The Walton family and all it's members could chip in some of their combined estimate of 130 Billion dollars into a fund to ensure that people can get by during hard times or just prepay the tax and insurance. Michael Bloomberg(27B), Jeff Bezos(25B) and Larry Page(23B) could all chip in as well, to make sure these people get education, medicine, etc.. to ensure that all of these people become productive members of society.
The guy that can't afford giving 60.00 without missing a phone bill would probably not complain if these stories were not presented as though these billionaires were making a sacrifice. Sure, it's nice that they give something to causes but the billionaires also seem to only give what they can benefit from giving. The issue is in the presentation, and it should be expected that people that do give what they can afford to the donation buckets have some resentment.
"Whether it's winning yacht races, assembling the best computer science faculty, or even dominating high school basketball, billionaires like to win. Which may help explain why three tech billionaires — Code.org backers (and FWD.us founders) Mark Zuckerberg, VC John Doerr, and Sean Parker — stepped up to the plate and helped out Code.org's once-anemic Hour of Code Indiegogo crowdfunding project with $500k
I guess they could have bragged about how great their skiing abilities are compared to the Urban crowd that can't afford 100K worth of gear and 1,000/day lift fees to make things look worse.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
That was funny!!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I work with an extremely diverse crowd, and always have - or did you mean a "diverse" set of white Americans? Relative to the cost of living in NYC, I think West Coast mid-career programming jobs pay OK compared to run-of-the-mill investment banker jobs (especially considering the EA-style workweeks those guys have), or for that matter corporate lawyer jobs.
Where I work, the number of senior tech-track jobs and senior engineering managers is roughly the same - many companies are lagging in that regard, but then again there aren't many of us with 20+ years of experience (eventually it should be nearly half).
But then, if you want to get paid more, you have to do more than sit in a corner and bang out code by yourself. There's only so much one person can do: technical leadership is different from management, but it's still work few people will ever be good at. Still, if you're at all successful in this field you'll make six figures if you go where the jobs are - very few professions can say that.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Now it all makes sense. These are cheap flashy diversions intended as distraction from the real agenda. They can claim they are supporting the future of STEM education in the US, and training those post K-12 to become employable in software. See, they are patriotic businessmen who love the US!!!
Meanwhile the real plan is to flood the market with unlimited foreign trained employees and drive technical salaries into the dirt. They won't be satisfied until technical talent is in the same range as minimum wage.
Before anyone screams that I'm crazy, that is exactly what happened in the visual effects industry. A combination of moving jobs offshore, lots of 1H-B visas, and a glut of under-trained people moved salaries for many into the under $25/hour range. No health insurance, and since everyone is a show hire, no job security. You don't like the unpaid 40% overtime? Go work at Starbucks.
By the way, that is not a theoretical circumstance. I know someone who used to do pretty well doing visual effects. Eventually he had to declare bankruptcy, and take jobs at both Starbucks and Target. When he finally got back into do effects he was making a third his previous salary. Since he is officially a "professional", he works at least 16 hours a week unpaid overtime. The job is six months, and at the first of the year he'll be pounding the pavement looking for something else. It's kind of like free lance indentured servitude.
If your think that your precious technical ass is immune to this, you deserve to end up sleeping in your car. The plan to screw you is in motion and all systems are go. The only question is what are you going to do about it.
Why is Snark Required?
It should not be surprising to see those names up there, for them it is all about getting access to cheaper employees by conjuring up the idea that there are not enough "experts" available. Bitkom has been doing the same scheme for over a decade now in Germany and it has become a running joke amongst IT professionals.
"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." - Mark Twain
This still doesn't explain why Facebook is worth $208 billion. That's more than AT&T which has paying customers, Toyota, which makes cars, and Pfizer, which makes drugs. How does Facebook make their money, or enough to justify it being more valuable than Toyota?
This Sig does not Exist.
I did supect in smaller percentages than name engineering schools. A couple months of web coding does not make a software engineer.
They wouldn't have to do this if we just closed tax loopholes, then America would actually have the money to teach its youth.
Technology is not the solution; you can't scale attention.
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before. - Thorstein
Am I wrong to think that plumbing, as a profession, will outlive every job in the tech sector?
It's a network effect - you hire where you can find lots of skilled workers, and the worker move to where companies are hiring. Silly Valley is the largest hub, but on the West Coast there a fair pool of jobs in LA associated with Hollywood, and a large and fast-growing pool in Seattle where MS and Amazon are headquartered, and many other large companies have offices to mine that talent pool.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm quite OK with heart surgeons making more than me, really.
So am I, but I am not quite OK with a lot of managers and bankers making more than me. Also, programmers don't all work at big software houses in the heart of Silicon Valley, and the discrepancy between the requirements and the pay is much more pronounced at smaller companies and in other parts of the country. Does programming pay enough to live comfortably? Sure. Does it pay enough compared to the "go to" money making jobs? No, it doesn't. Not for the majority of programmers.
It's good old capitalist supply and demand. Contrary to the majority opinion here on slashdot, being able to use or program a computer does not make you the equivalent of a movie star.
Capitalism's great when you're the one near the top of the money tree, not so good when you're falling down through the branches as companies realise that moving your job oversees works just as well for programmers as call centre operators.
The harsh truth is that you're a fungible asset, like 99% of people in the world of work.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The simple proof of this is the number of people doing tedious jobs on minimum wage, when according to your theory they could all be out there earning much more as plumbers now.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it