cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/14961640
We’re excited to announce the Board of Directors governing this newly formed entity:
Esra’a Al Shafei is a human rights advocate and founder of Majal.org
Karien Bezuidenhout is an advocate for openness and supporter of social entrepreneurs.
Amir Ghavi leads Fried Frank’s core technology practices as the co-head of the Technology Transactions Practice
Felix Hlatky has been the Chief Financial Officer of Mastodon since 2020.
Biz Stone is an entrepreneur best known as a co-founder of Twitter, one of the world’s leading social media platforms.
All I’m saying is generally when those in big tech establish a non profit, it’s for the wrong reasons, or it eventually becomes the wrong reasons. Look at open AI. They had a non profit and and profit side. The non profit side essentially controlled with the for profit side did, then when they ousted the CEO for doing things that were clearly in the interest of profit over the betterment of society, the CEO had set it up so that without him the open AI ship began to sink. Then those on the board that were against him were ousted from the board. It was a hostile takeover.
I’m not saying that’s going to happen with mastadon, I’m just saying they have some key players that are investors and/or long time workers in big tech and it puts a bad taste in my mouth.
The open AI governance model was doomed to fail, however, and structurally had no chance to work. By ignoring human nature and greed, things ended up with the profit side getting backing from a massive for profit company and employees voted with their pocket instead of sticking to some mission statement idealized by the non-profit board.
I sure hope mastadon turns out better. We need a strong voice advocating for the fediverse.