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Arnnon Geshuri, Newest Wikimedia Trustee, Forced To Resign
New submitter Mdann52 writes: Following an earlier vote of no confidence, it was announced that the recent appointee, Arnnon Geshuri, had stepped down from the board. This was following community criticism into his background. Says the announcement:
The Board Governance Committee is working to improve and update our
selection processes before we fill the vacancy left by Arnnonâ(TM)s departure.
We are sorry for the distress and confusion this has caused to some in our
community, and also to Arnnon.
For detailed background, see coverage in the Wikipedia Signpost, Wikipedia's community newspaper:
Geshuri steps down from board
Media coverage of the Arnnon Geshuri no-confidence vote
Also check the previous two weeks' News & Notes for how the no-confidence vote came about.
He's so corporate he trademarked his own name.
I just hate how the 'related links' at the bottom of the page, about Wikipedia, for a site that is about tech "stuff" are:
1165 - 10 Confirmed Dead In Shooting at Oregon's Umpqua Community College
1094 - Los Angeles Raises Minimum Wage To $15 an Hour
1081 - How To Execute People In the 21st Century
1032 - Writer: "Why I Defaulted On My Student Loans"
965 - Explosions and Multiple Shootings In Paris, Possible Hostages
How are stories that are better suited to USA Today the most 'related' stories?
Slashdot, how the mighty have fallen.
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
Where are you getting that? From the BBC:
Documents filed with a US court indicated Mr Geshuri, who now works for Tesla Motors, had been involved in enforcing a deal struck between Apple and Google not to poach each other's staff.
In a 2007 email, while he had been working at Google, he had assured his boss, Eric Schmidt, that a company employee would be "terminated within the hour" for approaching an Apple staff member, the documents indicated.
I wish they would have presented that before this, because this makes no sense otherwise:
Nearly 300 backed a vote of no confidence over allegations of involvement in a no-poaching deal while he was a Google human resources boss.
Mr Geshuri was alleged to have fired an employee who violated an agreement by approaching an Apple staff member.
I don't know about you AC, but I would not want somebody working for me that had been involved in that breach of ethics. This guy played a part in keeping IT workers' salaries down because Google and Apple do not want to pay for what their talent is actually worth to them.
And of course, you know what that makes him in my book: a gaslighting asshole manager.
He was breaking the law. No hire agreements are illegal constraints of trade under a variety of antitrust acts. Not wanting to work with him based on that isn't an activist position, its not wanting to hire a criminal to a position of trust.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I wish I had mod points. California is pretty strict on both sides of its "right to work" laws, and what Google and Apple did should have resulted in prison sentences for executives at every company involved. Not morally "should have," but legally "should have." They committed serious crimes.
Unfortunately, in California, you can't put rich people in prison, especially if they're also famous.
"Only following orders" can sometimes be a valid excuse.
Maybe. But that is not the case here.
Arnnonâ(TM) Geshuri was no flunky. He was an executive in charge of 900 recruiters. It was his job to know the law, and more importantly, it was his job to tell Eric Schmidt (or anyone else) "this is illegal and we shouldn't be doing it".
Lost in all of this is that he might actually have been a strong appointment and done a good job in this role. Capable people with a golden Rolodex who are willing to work for quasi non-profits don't grow on trees.
What I couldn't stomach was his having made no public statement about where he now stands on his past behaviour, and that's how I registered my own opinion in the Wikipedia straw poll. This was for me 90% communication failure. I guess I kind of take it for granted that unethical behaviour among the upper echelons of the minions of the captains of industry goes with the territory.
No doubt there's a good reason the invisible hand won't show its face. Shame, mainly, it seems to me.
Your link says nothing about lack of liability for following orders.
Also, international law is clear on this - following orders is not an excuse.
Nuremberg principals
Principle IV
"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him".
This principle could be paraphrased as follows: "It is not an acceptable excuse to say 'I was just following my superior's orders'".
Previous to the time of the Nuremberg Trials, this excuse was known in common parlance as "Superior Orders". After the prominent, high profile event of the Nuremberg Trials, that excuse is now referred to by many as the "Nuremberg Defense". In recent times, a third term, "lawful orders" has become common parlance for some people. All three terms are in use today, and they all have slightly different nuances of meaning, depending on the context in which they are used.
Nuremberg Principle IV is legally supported by the jurisprudence found in certain articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which deal indirectly with conscientious objection. It is also supported by the principles found in paragraph 171 of the Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status which was issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Those principles deal with the conditions under which conscientious objectors can apply for refugee status in another country if they face persecution in their own country for refusing to participate in an illegal war.
The ucmj, article 92, also only requires you to obey lawful orders. An order to participate in a massacre of civilians, as often happened in viet nam, is unlawful, and should be disobeyed.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Geshuri did not create the no-hire policy that was agreed upon by Google, Apple and the other Silicon Valley companies. He was just an HR guy who followed his company's policies
Which is no excuse for breaking the law. As an HR guy he should not have been following illegal policies.
He wasn't just "an HR guy". He was the HR guy. He was in charge of recruiters. At his level, he was well aware that the policies he was implementing were utterly illegal.
Don't try to make it sound like he just worked in the HR department handing out benefit information to new hires.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The fact he wasn't charged doesn't mean he didn't break the law. The fact that they lost the civil lawsuit, and in fact lost it so badly that the judge rejected the initial settlement for not being big enough, proves that they did.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I think you just concluded the exact opposite of what I wrote. But I'm not sure, because you're fairly incoherent.
Not OP here, but I actually thought it was funny. o.o
Maybe your sense of humor is poorly calibrated. Here's a quick test. Do you find this joke funny?
I wondered why the frisbee was getting bigger, and then it hit me.
lucm, indeed.
1. Somebody does something that's actually quite minor.
Well, no. He actually did something that was pretty major, affecting tens or even hundreds of thousands of workers.
What's actually going on here is that he was a big-time human resources manager, but it turns out that many of those human resources don't like they way they were managed. Also, they just plain object to someone that demonstrably unethical being appointed to the Wikimedia board.