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https://www.schmidtfutures.com/our-work/statement-on-science-funding/ https://www.schmidtfutures.com/our-work/statement-on-science... Schmidt's rebuttal. Ther

https://www.schmidtfutures.com/our-work/statement-on-science-funding/ https://www.schmidtfutures.com/our-work/statement-on-science... Schmidt's rebuttal. There doesn't seem to be a lot of "there" there in terms of misconduct, relative to what I've seen elsewhere in the past 4 years. If anything, it's a bit of a new ethical question caused by the structure of a government office. Certainly something to look into but if we want to look at ethical issues of money in politics, there are a lot of easier places to start IMO.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kolbe 5y ago
I agree. I am, if anything, overzealous about screaming "corruption," but I really don't see it here. When someone worth $26bn sits on the board of a company (with no mention of equity) with ties to government contracts, it's hard for me to believe he's doing anything unethical for his own personal gain. There's just nothing of meaningful substance to be gained from it.
- flatearth22 5y ago
systemvoltage 5y ago
This rebuttal is incredibly shallow. To summarize and address 6 points: > 1) US has been accepting philanthropic funding for staffing for 25 years. Does not discuss the scale, impact or % of Schmidt's influence. > 2) We are experts at technology and with rapidly changing landscape, we can contribute. Yes, this is precisly the problem. Google has enormous monopoly power and you, Mr. Schmidt, are the beneficiary of that power. There is a conflict of interest here, need not be spelled out. > 3) We love helping US Gov because of 1971 IPA act of "tours of duty". Of course, Mr. Schmidt. > 4) We don't have any influence. We are one of the 20 orgs. Funding is administered by neutral party. There is a specific assertion in Politico article. Schdmidt Futures are not directly paying people's salaries, but quoting the Politico article: > Schmidt maintained a close relationship with the president’s former science adviser, Eric Lander, and other Biden appointees. And his charity arm, Schmidt Futures, indirectly paid the salaries of two science-office employees, including, for six weeks, that of the current chief of staff, Marc Aidinoff, who is now one of the most senior officials in the office following Lander’s resignation in February. Schmidt's rebuttal completely glosses over the details. > 5) Schmidt Futures staff had no authority to make any policy decisions and did not do so through OSTP, and the story presents no evidence or examples to the contrary. Schmidt Futures has no direct authority, that's correct. Politico article explicitly sources indirect authority of Schmidt Futures. > 6) OSTP has always had and continues to retain full discretion and ownership over appointments, hires and policy decisions. Mr. Schmidt, we can see the Front door. Clearly, it is locked with US Gov™ seal. You are not addressing Back door claims in the article. What a fucking joke.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  What does Google have a monopoly on? I think Google has repeatedly failed to gain or exploit any monopoly power. For example social.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    Google literally is the poster child of Big Tech monopoly masquerading as a “Technology company” which is a false broad characterization of what it does. Revenues are overwhelmingly from search ads. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you should be familiar with a decade long fight it has put up to fight off its monopoly status. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/opinion/google-monopoly-regulation-antitrust.amp.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/opinion/google-monopoly-r...
  - stonogo 5y ago
    Allow me to introduce you to Chrome, the software funnel through which Google absolutely dominates the internet advertising market.
  - simulate-me 5y ago
    Internet search? They have almost 92% market share.
    - dodobirdlord 5y ago
      Market share does not a monopoly make. Do you really consider Bing to be so bad that you don't even count it as a competing product in the same product category as Google Search? The cost to switch is literally nothing.
      - sli 5y ago
        You aren't wrong in theory, but in practice it's silly to pretend like the average person knows anything but Google. There comes a point where inertia and market share need to be considered and for some products (like Google, but especially Android) it really feels like we're beyond that. Antitrust and monopoly laws are almost always going to lag behind the needs of reality.
KerrAvon 5y ago
I agree that there are worse problems in this area (FDA regulatory capture is a major one), but this clearly isn’t a nothingburger either.
dataflow 5y ago
I don't know anything about this topic yet, but just reading their denial raises red flags for me before I even start reading the Politico article. > Schmidt Futures staff had no authority to make any policy decisions and did not do so through OSTP, and the story presents no evidence or examples to the contrary. Isn't this a clear misdirection? Nobody is accusing them of having "authority" (they're not the government!), but "influence". It's denying a nonexistent (and nonsensical) accusation, which is never a good sign. Right?
- vmception 5y ago
  Yes, it is. They present another thing and discredit that, in order to discredit the original premise. Its the structure of a strawman. In any case, their public sector work is probably frustrating and they havent achieved nearly the influence that they want, so its probably accurate but if it wasnt, what would we expect them to say?
vmception 5y ago
I think the whistleblower and a lot of people here are noticing that there are inherent conflicts of interest that are easily misdirected and subverted by the due process involved in making these institutional conflicts. So yes, the whistleblower messed up as of course the proper chain of command looked into it and found no legal issue, because the legalese version of ethics was met. This is different from whether the law needs to be revisited. This is also different from whether the people with the financial conflict have a noble goal. Many people with political influence believe in their goals. Some benefit more people, others dont.
kortilla 5y ago
> relative to what I've seen elsewhere in the past 4 years. If anything, it's a bit of a new ethical question caused by the structure of a government office. Certainly something to look into but if we want to look at ethical issues of money in politics, there are a lot of easier places to start IMO. This is all whataboutism. Either there is a problem here or there isn’t. If you find yourself comparing something to other corruption, that means it’s pretty questionable ethically.
- anamax 5y ago
  > This is all whataboutism. "whataboutism" is about equal protection under the law.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

kolbe 5y ago

I agree. I am, if anything, overzealous about screaming "corruption," but I really don't see it here. When someone worth $26bn sits on the board of a company (with no mention of equity) with ties to government contracts, it's hard for me to believe he's doing anything unethical for his own personal gain. There's just nothing of meaningful substance to be gained from it.

flatearth22 5y ago

systemvoltage 5y ago

This rebuttal is incredibly shallow. To summarize and address 6 points: > 1) US has been accepting philanthropic funding for staffing for 25 years. Does not discuss the scale, impact or % of Schmidt's influence. > 2) We are experts at technology and with rapidly changing landscape, we can contribute. Yes, this is precisly the problem. Google has enormous monopoly power and you, Mr. Schmidt, are the beneficiary of that power. There is a conflict of interest here, need not be spelled out. > 3) We love helping US Gov because of 1971 IPA act of "tours of duty". Of course, Mr. Schmidt. > 4) We don't have any influence. We are one of the 20 orgs. Funding is administered by neutral party. There is a specific assertion in Politico article. Schdmidt Futures are not directly paying people's salaries, but quoting the Politico article: > Schmidt maintained a close relationship with the president’s former science adviser, Eric Lander, and other Biden appointees. And his charity arm, Schmidt Futures, indirectly paid the salaries of two science-office employees, including, for six weeks, that of the current chief of staff, Marc Aidinoff, who is now one of the most senior officials in the office following Lander’s resignation in February. Schmidt's rebuttal completely glosses over the details. > 5) Schmidt Futures staff had no authority to make any policy decisions and did not do so through OSTP, and the story presents no evidence or examples to the contrary. Schmidt Futures has no direct authority, that's correct. Politico article explicitly sources indirect authority of Schmidt Futures. > 6) OSTP has always had and continues to retain full discretion and ownership over appointments, hires and policy decisions. Mr. Schmidt, we can see the Front door. Clearly, it is locked with US Gov™ seal. You are not addressing Back door claims in the article. What a fucking joke.

chrisseaton 5y ago
What does Google have a monopoly on? I think Google has repeatedly failed to gain or exploit any monopoly power. For example social.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Google literally is the poster child of Big Tech monopoly masquerading as a “Technology company” which is a false broad characterization of what it does. Revenues are overwhelmingly from search ads. If you haven’t been living under a rock, you should be familiar with a decade long fight it has put up to fight off its monopoly status. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/opinion/google-monopoly-regulation-antitrust.amp.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/opinion/google-monopoly-r...
- stonogo 5y ago
  Allow me to introduce you to Chrome, the software funnel through which Google absolutely dominates the internet advertising market.
- simulate-me 5y ago
  Internet search? They have almost 92% market share.
  - dodobirdlord 5y ago
    Market share does not a monopoly make. Do you really consider Bing to be so bad that you don't even count it as a competing product in the same product category as Google Search? The cost to switch is literally nothing.
    - sli 5y ago
      You aren't wrong in theory, but in practice it's silly to pretend like the average person knows anything but Google. There comes a point where inertia and market share need to be considered and for some products (like Google, but especially Android) it really feels like we're beyond that. Antitrust and monopoly laws are almost always going to lag behind the needs of reality.

KerrAvon 5y ago

I agree that there are worse problems in this area (FDA regulatory capture is a major one), but this clearly isn’t a nothingburger either.

dataflow 5y ago

I don't know anything about this topic yet, but just reading their denial raises red flags for me before I even start reading the Politico article. > Schmidt Futures staff had no authority to make any policy decisions and did not do so through OSTP, and the story presents no evidence or examples to the contrary. Isn't this a clear misdirection? Nobody is accusing them of having "authority" (they're not the government!), but "influence". It's denying a nonexistent (and nonsensical) accusation, which is never a good sign. Right?

vmception 5y ago
Yes, it is. They present another thing and discredit that, in order to discredit the original premise. Its the structure of a strawman. In any case, their public sector work is probably frustrating and they havent achieved nearly the influence that they want, so its probably accurate but if it wasnt, what would we expect them to say?

vmception 5y ago

I think the whistleblower and a lot of people here are noticing that there are inherent conflicts of interest that are easily misdirected and subverted by the due process involved in making these institutional conflicts. So yes, the whistleblower messed up as of course the proper chain of command looked into it and found no legal issue, because the legalese version of ethics was met. This is different from whether the law needs to be revisited. This is also different from whether the people with the financial conflict have a noble goal. Many people with political influence believe in their goals. Some benefit more people, others dont.

kortilla 5y ago

> relative to what I've seen elsewhere in the past 4 years. If anything, it's a bit of a new ethical question caused by the structure of a government office. Certainly something to look into but if we want to look at ethical issues of money in politics, there are a lot of easier places to start IMO. This is all whataboutism. Either there is a problem here or there isn’t. If you find yourself comparing something to other corruption, that means it’s pretty questionable ethically.

anamax 5y ago
> This is all whataboutism. "whataboutism" is about equal protection under the law.