Voltaire The Thinker
27.5K posts
.@RandPaul Asks Samantha Power: 'Did USAID Fund Coronavirus Research In Wuhan China?' "Should we be funding the Academy of Military Medical Research in China? ...Some of the research proposals in 2018 were the Wuhan Insitute of Virology asking for money to create a virus with a furin cleavage site. A SARS-like coronavirus with a furin cleavage site. That's exactly what COVID-19 turned out to be. So we want to know if there were other research proposals you either granted or denied that were in the same vain as creating viruses that could have become COVID-19. We can't tell because you won't give us information... I now have 25 Senators that have sent you a letter, and you aren't responding... You are being dishonest."
A Syrian national was charged with diverting millions in USAID funding to support a terrorist organization
Meta’s hiring of @kunalb11 to run WhatsApp is almost unprecedented in their bringing a leader from outside Silicon Valley to run a global product. And this wasn’t a straightforward hire either. Meta is paying $1b for the privilege of hiring him. The only comparable I can think of among tech companies is Apple hiring Angela Ahrendts (CEO of Burberry) to run Retail. Other than that hire, every product / business leadership role at the best tech companies has been filled from people in the Valley, if not the US. This is a great win for: - WhatsApp users, who will benefit from a leader who has a native and deep understanding of - and facility with - the product. - Meta, who gets one of the best global consumer product thinkers and builders for their crown jewel product. - The Indian / global product talent ecosystem, which will be inspired by seeing that you don’t need to be in Silicon Valley to lead a global product, that forward thinking tech / AI companies will stretch to get the best leaders from anywhere in the world. @Jessicalessin the story behind Kunal’s hire will be fascinating to break.
Today, at a dhaba on an expressway, a Hindu man who was sitting beside me casually asked, ‘What’s your caste?’ I was quite shocked because, as a Muslim, no one had ever asked me that question before. He didn’t know that I was Muslim, so I simply replied, ‘My caste is Muslim’.
