Ka-Ching!
Posted on June 23rd, 2011 in Uncategorized | 14 Comments »
Larry Summers has joined the board of Square, a tech start-up that designs software to facilitate credit card transactions on phones.
The appointment comes as other technology start-ups try to strengthen their political ties….
14 Responses
6/23/2011 10:13 am
Richard,
What point were you trying to make?
6/23/2011 10:47 am
It’s important to keep track of the private sector activities of government officials. After all, Larry has never worked in the private sector, never shown any talents for getting along with co-workers or boards, and isn’t the guy one would instinctively turn to for help running a company. (I mean…didn’t go so well at Harvard, did it?)
So why is he on the board? Well, to open doors and make connections, presumably. (Just as Sheryl Sandberg met with Larry in secret and landed Harvard’s participation in the Google books project.)
This is how the rich and powerful operate, and one does what one can to shine a light.
6/23/2011 10:47 am
Sorry, “former government officials,” I should have said.
6/23/2011 11:03 am
Oh.
Because of the Ka-Ching!, I thought you were complaining about Larry making money from a company he was going to be spending prescious time with, to the detriment of his role as a professor.
6/23/2011 11:04 am
That should have been precious
6/23/2011 11:24 am
There is that, of course, Sam. But I would guess that, for Larry, teaching is a matter of showing up and delivering a lecture based on the book he is writing, then taking off for the next speech/board meeting/whatever.
6/23/2011 4:52 pm
On a different topic, RB, care to comment on the arrest of Whitey Bulger? Especially considering this from Salon on Mike Barnicle’s defense of the Bulgers- including an article in George:
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/23/whitey_bulger_barnicle/index.html
6/23/2011 6:08 pm
God, I frigging hated that article, and I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anyone as unpleasant as Mike Barnicle and Peter Maas were at the time. You can read between the lines here:
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/29/business/media-talk-a-magazine-checks-up-on-its-investigators.html
And here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/07/business/media-a-forum-for-media-feedback-and-back-talk.html?pagewanted=2
Let’s just say the final decision on whether to run that story was not mine.
6/23/2011 7:41 pm
it’s the BC crowd….no need to look a whole later father (Billy is a triple eagle, Barnicle….totally BC’s up along with all the other coat-holders and lookers-on)
keep looking and you will find all sorts of swells who are nervous today…look at the boards of local companies and non-profits…who is leaving, who is staying and why now….matrix boys, matrix…..
tell the lions the Christians are ready!
and Richard, really…don’t be so hard on yourself…it is over now. they have to go away now. relax and watch this unfold….some of us have been waiting for this day for more than 30 years. just hang in there…..
6/23/2011 7:42 pm
oops…should be “a whole lot further”…sorry for that.
6/23/2011 9:08 pm
Well, it certainly looks like Salon’s Kornacki was right in saying the George article was essentially a movie treatment- the hint Maas dropped to Alex Kuczynski in that first NYT item is just deliciously sleazy.
Can someone translate 7:41’s comment for me? Triple eagle? Matrix?
6/23/2011 10:22 pm
Sorry, but I had to delete a string of comments, all of which were from one person.
6/24/2011 4:50 pm
“Triple Eagle” = graduate of Boston College High School, Boston College, and (usually) Boston College Law School.
6/27/2011 9:36 am
For the sake of completeness, the Salon article I linked to earlier now has a correction, though not related to the George article.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/06/23/whitey_bulger_barnicle