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>> Dani Lever — who had worked in Cuomo’s press operation since 2014 but left in August 2020 to join Facebook as a communications manager This is the sort of h

>> Dani Lever — who had worked in Cuomo’s press operation since 2014 but left in August 2020 to join Facebook as a communications manager This is the sort of hire that drives me nuts. I'm sure this person is a fully capable communications manager, but what Facebook really purchased was political access. Is it no surprise then that long after beginning work she was doing favors for her former employer? Maintaining a connection to powerful politicians might well have been in her job description. >> Prior to joining Cuomo’s office in 2014, Lever worked as a press assistant for President Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign and worked in press relations at the Clinton Foundation, among other roles, according to her LinkedIn profile. Which is more valuable to Facebook: her skills as a "communication manager" or the fact that she probably has the personal numbers for half of Washington? After some quickly googling: she appears to be the daughter of a prominent NYC attorney, which might have something to do with her previous work, as a student, for NY's attorney general. And for NYC's comptroller general. I would have killed for such jobs during law school. She seems to have bounced between them while an undergrad. "Lever, who grew up in Quaker Ridge, graduated from [redacted] and the University of Wisconsin-Madison also worked for state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, President Obama's 2012 campaign, and Clinton Foundation. She is the daughter of Joel and Debbie Lever of Bradford Road." https://scarsdale10583.com/about-joomla/the-project/5776-scarsadale-s-dani-lever-named-press-secretary-for-governor-andrew-cuomo https://scarsdale10583.com/about-joomla/the-project/5776-sca... I love that "Bradford Road" reference. That is New England code for an old and well connected family. (The implications of her highschool are just inappropriate and so I redact it.)

gadders 5y ago
Regulatory capture, innit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
jpxw 5y ago
Nick Clegg is another notable political hire by Facebook. It seems like a tactic of theirs.
- muglug 5y ago
  Nick Clegg was once the deputy prime minister of Great Britain. The two hires are in no way comparable.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
I know several people who have transitioned from working in politics to working in private sector. The reason is usually much less nefarious: Private sector pays a lot more than political jobs. This is especially true for FAANG positions. Facebook is large enough to afford professional lobbyists and consulting firms if they need political access. They don’t need to give executive level positions to former employees of a governor’s communications team to get access.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  >> professional lobbyists and consulting firms Those cost and are not very effective. Lobbyists create paper trails and must follow rules. A more efficient strategy is to hire the friends and family members of influential people.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    It's a cost worth paying as it provides the "cover" for the actual influence. "Everything is aboveboard, the lobbyists we hired are just that good."
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    > A more efficient strategy is to hire the friends and family members of influential people. Recently, a Picasso sold at auction for $150k. Recently, a Hunter Biden painting reportedly sold for $500k. Nothing to see here, he’s just a really great artist. Coming off his fantastic career as a Ukrainian energy guru.
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  “Facebook is large enough to afford professional lobbyists and consulting firms if they need political access. They don’t need to give executive level positions to former employees of a governor’s communications team to get access.” This is no different. Basically they are hiring lobbyists on staff instead of dealing with a lobbying firm.
gowld 5y ago
What is the job of "communications manager" if not to maintain human networking?
- sandworm101 5y ago
  To spellcheck outgoing messaging. To organize press events. To ensure a cohesive message is presented that is accurate to the intentions of the company. To stop execs from saying horrible things (Blizzard-Activision). There is plenty of communications work that doesn't require influence.
  - asteroidbelt 5y ago
    Any liberals arts intern can spell-check outgoing messages and mass-send invites to press events. Obviously the guy was hired to do something different.
JasonFruit 5y ago
These political hires remind me why I always question the "former" in "former CIA". Just like Lever seems to have carried loyalty to and willingness to work on behalf of her former boss into her new job, a lot of these "former CIA" types seem to do a lot of things that are beneficial to theirs.
lancesells 5y ago
I did a quick search for some of the big companies to see who is on their board with a political past. Apple - Al Gore (Vice President of the US) - Ron Sugar (Northrup Grunman) Google - Roger Ferguson (Federal Reserve of US) Facebook - Robert Kimmett (Department of Treasury) Facebook Oversight - Helle Thorning-Smith (PM of Denmark) - Nick Clegg (Deputy PM of UK) Salesforce - Colin Powell (Secretary of State in the US) - John Roos (Ambassador to Japan from the US)
- fortran77 5y ago
  And look at the board that was in place for Theranos....
- sandworm101 5y ago
  Those are past connections to companies. How many hires are sons/daughters of people still on boards or regulatory bodies. Active family connections are much more difficult to regulate or even document.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  Afterpay has a growing list of hires that are obviously for political and regulatory fire supression[0]. [0]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-04/afterpay-square-millennials-lobbyists-covid-pandemic-shares-grow/100347562 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-04/afterpay-square-mille...
- blantonl 5y ago
  Don't forget collections of low and mid-level staffers who really get work done who maintain connections back to the military/political industrial complex who collectively become invaluable to organizations.
- didgeoridoo 5y ago
  Dropbox - Condi Rice (Bush Sec. State)
  - lancesells 5y ago
    I don't think she's currently on the board.
cannabis_sam 5y ago
This is why politics and voting are completely pointless at this point… We currently live in a world where people who amassed wealth before we were even born, have bought off every politician, locked down our government and closed off every single avenue to real change. Welcome to our neo-feudal reality!
- danans 5y ago
  > This is why politics and voting are completely pointless at this point… That's patently false. The government, and in particular the executive branch, holds immense and immediate powers whose implementation materially changes when a change of officeholder takes place, even sometimes within the same party. It's not clear that Biden's platform would have been as worker focused were it not for Sanders' run or as America-first were it not for Trump. Also consider that within an 10 year span legislation as opposed to each other as Obamacare and the Trump tax cut took place. Voting matters a great deal.
BLKNSLVR 5y ago
The corruption of revolving doors pays for the grandkids college. "While he was Minister for Trade and Investment, Robb approved Chinese company Shandong Landbridge Group to lease Port Darwin for 99 years. As soon as he left politics, Robb was hired by Shandong Landbridge on a $880,000 per year salary. In 2019, Robb left the position, shortly before a new foreign-interference law took effect."[0] Good work if you can get it and still sleep at night. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Robb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Robb
- maxst 5y ago
  “The New York electorate seems to be inured to corruption, they seem to believe it’s normal and expected behavior" "According to a poll released last week by Quinnipiac University, 45 percent of New Yorkers consider corruption to be a “very serious” problem, but 48 percent of voters said it’s as bad as anywhere else" "You'll be hard pressed to find New Yorkers who don't think government corruption is a problem in New York State,” poll analyst Mary Snow said. “Yet, it's not the defining issue in the race.”[0] [0]: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2018/07/21/will-corruption-convictions-stick-to-cuomo-dont-bet-on-it-522187 https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/201...
kappi 5y ago
Sheryl Sandberg was also hired for political access. "Maintaining a connection to powerful politicians" is also her job description.How much she is paid for that!
jaywalk 5y ago
> The implications of her highschool are just inappropriate and so I redact it. Right before you link to the page where you pulled your self-redacted quote from. So all you really did was call more attention to it. Clever trolling.
geodel 5y ago
I think unless one keep claiming US exceptionalism everytime discussion like these comes up. This behavior is standard almost anywhere in the world. I would expect the same here. > Maintaining a connection to powerful politicians might well have been in her job description. Well not doing that will be just resorting to banal technicalities to hire one for an important job. To me it would be as stupid and irritating as companies asking me SpringBoot 2.3.1 experience for a Sr Engineer job instead of problem solving skills.
tqi 5y ago
> but what Facebook really purchased was political access. I wish people would evaluate their own susceptibility to conspiracy theory thinking. There is no evidence of this other than "it is something I've seen in the movies that seems plausible," which frankly is more or less the same level of proof as "Plandemic" and "Antivax."
- TillE 5y ago
  This is one of the most common things in the political world, we even have a name for it. It's the revolving door. Extremely weird or naive to think of it as an implausible conspiracy theory.
brendoelfrendo 5y ago
> I love that "Bradford Road" reference. That is New England code for an old and well connected family. Maybe I'm missing something, but you posted an article from a local news site in Scarsdale, NY. I'm pretty sure that just means that her family literally lived on Bradford Road. I've never heard Bradford Road used as code before, and I grew up in New England. (And besides, NY is not in New England.)
quesera 5y ago
FWIW re your last two paragraphs: I think you're reading too much into the small town newspaper editorial. "Bradford Road" is how you describe the road they lived on, in a small town paper. Scarsdale NY is a wealthy suburb in Westchester County, with a large Jewish population. "Solomon Schechter" (your redaction) is a private school in Manhattan named after an important rabbi. Censoring his name is confusing. Are you concerned that readers here will think you are reacting negatively to her family's (presumed) religious affiliation? Small town editorial is chummy and insular, but it's not written for a larger audience. I don't see anything unusual or inappropriate in the writing here. I feel that you missed the most egregious problem with the article though. It was posted in 2016, and almost five years later, no one has corrected the misspelling of the name of the town!
- sandworm101 5y ago
  >> Censoring his name is confusing. It isn't that. If we are talking about family relations, daughters working for people who know their fathers, a school with ties to a particular religion or community injects a statement that I did not want to make. It is irrelevant to the issue but can easily start a _very_ negative conversation. I don't think ever mentioning someone's likely religion in such context is ever appropriate. As for "of such and such road", that is a very common phrase going back centuries. It is a way of stating the wealth, or lack thereof, of a person's family.
  - quesera 5y ago
    OK fair enough. But what if her name had been something distinctly ethnicity-or-religion-linked instead of Dani Lever (which is actually pretty distinct though of course not determinative)? Is her name off limits? Ironically, perhaps, your redaction was the only part of your comment that made me want to read the linked article, which I found 110% inoffensive (aside from the spelling errors!). Sorry for the meta-discussion. Not much to say about the "privileged families raise privileged children, film at 11" thread.
icedchai 5y ago
Why is it inappropriate? She went to an exclusive high school costing over $45K/year.

gadders 5y ago

Regulatory capture, innit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

jpxw 5y ago

Nick Clegg is another notable political hire by Facebook. It seems like a tactic of theirs.

muglug 5y ago
Nick Clegg was once the deputy prime minister of Great Britain. The two hires are in no way comparable.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

I know several people who have transitioned from working in politics to working in private sector. The reason is usually much less nefarious: Private sector pays a lot more than political jobs. This is especially true for FAANG positions. Facebook is large enough to afford professional lobbyists and consulting firms if they need political access. They don’t need to give executive level positions to former employees of a governor’s communications team to get access.

sandworm101 5y ago
>> professional lobbyists and consulting firms Those cost and are not very effective. Lobbyists create paper trails and must follow rules. A more efficient strategy is to hire the friends and family members of influential people.
- bombcar 5y ago
  It's a cost worth paying as it provides the "cover" for the actual influence. "Everything is aboveboard, the lobbyists we hired are just that good."
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  > A more efficient strategy is to hire the friends and family members of influential people. Recently, a Picasso sold at auction for $150k. Recently, a Hunter Biden painting reportedly sold for $500k. Nothing to see here, he’s just a really great artist. Coming off his fantastic career as a Ukrainian energy guru.
spaetzleesser 5y ago
“Facebook is large enough to afford professional lobbyists and consulting firms if they need political access. They don’t need to give executive level positions to former employees of a governor’s communications team to get access.” This is no different. Basically they are hiring lobbyists on staff instead of dealing with a lobbying firm.

gowld 5y ago

What is the job of "communications manager" if not to maintain human networking?

sandworm101 5y ago
To spellcheck outgoing messaging. To organize press events. To ensure a cohesive message is presented that is accurate to the intentions of the company. To stop execs from saying horrible things (Blizzard-Activision). There is plenty of communications work that doesn't require influence.
- asteroidbelt 5y ago
  Any liberals arts intern can spell-check outgoing messages and mass-send invites to press events. Obviously the guy was hired to do something different.

JasonFruit 5y ago

These political hires remind me why I always question the "former" in "former CIA". Just like Lever seems to have carried loyalty to and willingness to work on behalf of her former boss into her new job, a lot of these "former CIA" types seem to do a lot of things that are beneficial to theirs.

lancesells 5y ago

I did a quick search for some of the big companies to see who is on their board with a political past. Apple - Al Gore (Vice President of the US) - Ron Sugar (Northrup Grunman) Google - Roger Ferguson (Federal Reserve of US) Facebook - Robert Kimmett (Department of Treasury) Facebook Oversight - Helle Thorning-Smith (PM of Denmark) - Nick Clegg (Deputy PM of UK) Salesforce - Colin Powell (Secretary of State in the US) - John Roos (Ambassador to Japan from the US)

fortran77 5y ago
And look at the board that was in place for Theranos....
sandworm101 5y ago
Those are past connections to companies. How many hires are sons/daughters of people still on boards or regulatory bodies. Active family connections are much more difficult to regulate or even document.
BLKNSLVR 5y ago
Afterpay has a growing list of hires that are obviously for political and regulatory fire supression[0]. [0]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-04/afterpay-square-millennials-lobbyists-covid-pandemic-shares-grow/100347562 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-04/afterpay-square-mille...
blantonl 5y ago
Don't forget collections of low and mid-level staffers who really get work done who maintain connections back to the military/political industrial complex who collectively become invaluable to organizations.
didgeoridoo 5y ago
Dropbox - Condi Rice (Bush Sec. State)
- lancesells 5y ago
  I don't think she's currently on the board.

cannabis_sam 5y ago

This is why politics and voting are completely pointless at this point… We currently live in a world where people who amassed wealth before we were even born, have bought off every politician, locked down our government and closed off every single avenue to real change. Welcome to our neo-feudal reality!

danans 5y ago
> This is why politics and voting are completely pointless at this point… That's patently false. The government, and in particular the executive branch, holds immense and immediate powers whose implementation materially changes when a change of officeholder takes place, even sometimes within the same party. It's not clear that Biden's platform would have been as worker focused were it not for Sanders' run or as America-first were it not for Trump. Also consider that within an 10 year span legislation as opposed to each other as Obamacare and the Trump tax cut took place. Voting matters a great deal.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago

The corruption of revolving doors pays for the grandkids college. "While he was Minister for Trade and Investment, Robb approved Chinese company Shandong Landbridge Group to lease Port Darwin for 99 years. As soon as he left politics, Robb was hired by Shandong Landbridge on a $880,000 per year salary. In 2019, Robb left the position, shortly before a new foreign-interference law took effect."[0] Good work if you can get it and still sleep at night. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Robb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Robb

maxst 5y ago
“The New York electorate seems to be inured to corruption, they seem to believe it’s normal and expected behavior" "According to a poll released last week by Quinnipiac University, 45 percent of New Yorkers consider corruption to be a “very serious” problem, but 48 percent of voters said it’s as bad as anywhere else" "You'll be hard pressed to find New Yorkers who don't think government corruption is a problem in New York State,” poll analyst Mary Snow said. “Yet, it's not the defining issue in the race.”[0] [0]: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2018/07/21/will-corruption-convictions-stick-to-cuomo-dont-bet-on-it-522187 https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/201...

kappi 5y ago

Sheryl Sandberg was also hired for political access. "Maintaining a connection to powerful politicians" is also her job description.How much she is paid for that!

jaywalk 5y ago

> The implications of her highschool are just inappropriate and so I redact it. Right before you link to the page where you pulled your self-redacted quote from. So all you really did was call more attention to it. Clever trolling.

geodel 5y ago

I think unless one keep claiming US exceptionalism everytime discussion like these comes up. This behavior is standard almost anywhere in the world. I would expect the same here. > Maintaining a connection to powerful politicians might well have been in her job description. Well not doing that will be just resorting to banal technicalities to hire one for an important job. To me it would be as stupid and irritating as companies asking me SpringBoot 2.3.1 experience for a Sr Engineer job instead of problem solving skills.

tqi 5y ago

> but what Facebook really purchased was political access. I wish people would evaluate their own susceptibility to conspiracy theory thinking. There is no evidence of this other than "it is something I've seen in the movies that seems plausible," which frankly is more or less the same level of proof as "Plandemic" and "Antivax."

TillE 5y ago
This is one of the most common things in the political world, we even have a name for it. It's the revolving door. Extremely weird or naive to think of it as an implausible conspiracy theory.

brendoelfrendo 5y ago

> I love that "Bradford Road" reference. That is New England code for an old and well connected family. Maybe I'm missing something, but you posted an article from a local news site in Scarsdale, NY. I'm pretty sure that just means that her family literally lived on Bradford Road. I've never heard Bradford Road used as code before, and I grew up in New England. (And besides, NY is not in New England.)

quesera 5y ago

FWIW re your last two paragraphs: I think you're reading too much into the small town newspaper editorial. "Bradford Road" is how you describe the road they lived on, in a small town paper. Scarsdale NY is a wealthy suburb in Westchester County, with a large Jewish population. "Solomon Schechter" (your redaction) is a private school in Manhattan named after an important rabbi. Censoring his name is confusing. Are you concerned that readers here will think you are reacting negatively to her family's (presumed) religious affiliation? Small town editorial is chummy and insular, but it's not written for a larger audience. I don't see anything unusual or inappropriate in the writing here. I feel that you missed the most egregious problem with the article though. It was posted in 2016, and almost five years later, no one has corrected the misspelling of the name of the town!

sandworm101 5y ago
>> Censoring his name is confusing. It isn't that. If we are talking about family relations, daughters working for people who know their fathers, a school with ties to a particular religion or community injects a statement that I did not want to make. It is irrelevant to the issue but can easily start a _very_ negative conversation. I don't think ever mentioning someone's likely religion in such context is ever appropriate. As for "of such and such road", that is a very common phrase going back centuries. It is a way of stating the wealth, or lack thereof, of a person's family.
- quesera 5y ago
  OK fair enough. But what if her name had been something distinctly ethnicity-or-religion-linked instead of Dani Lever (which is actually pretty distinct though of course not determinative)? Is her name off limits? Ironically, perhaps, your redaction was the only part of your comment that made me want to read the linked article, which I found 110% inoffensive (aside from the spelling errors!). Sorry for the meta-discussion. Not much to say about the "privileged families raise privileged children, film at 11" thread.

icedchai 5y ago

Why is it inappropriate? She went to an exclusive high school costing over $45K/year.