One of Silicon Valley’s most prominent voices for ethical investing is implicated in a college admissions bribery scandal; Recode, March 12, 2019

Theodore Schleifer, Recode; One of Silicon Valley’s most prominent voices for ethical investing is implicated in a college admissions bribery scandal

"What is particularly damaging for TPG is that McGlashan has positioned himself as a leading voice in Silicon Valley for social responsibility...

McGlashan also allegedly made a $250,000 donation to USC in order for his son to enter through the school’s “side door,” according to the charges, by creating the impression that he was a potential recruited kicker or punter for the school’s football team — all thanks to Photoshop. This was all accomplished through mail fraud, prosecutors say.

“I’m gonna make him a kicker/punter and they’re gonna walk him through with football, and I’ll get a picture and figure out how to Photoshop,” William Rick Singer, the college prep adviser at the heart of the scandal, allegedly told McGlashan in August 2018.

“He does have really strong legs,” McGlashan told Singer. “Maybe he’ll become a kicker. You never know.”

“Pretty funny,” McGlashan would later add. “The way the world works these days is unbelievable.”"

The Backlash to Larry Fink’s Letter Shows How Far Business Has to Go on Social Responsibility; Harvard Business Review (HBR), January 31, 2019

Mark R. Kramer, Harvard Business Review; The Backlash to Larry Fink’s Letter Shows How Far Business Has to Go on Social Responsibility

"Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest investor with $6 trillion under management, evoked heated controversy with his remarks last week that his company would change its hiring and potentially its compensation structure to advance diversity and ensure that five years from now the company is not just “a bunch of white men.” This follows on the heels of his annual letter to CEOs asserting that companies need to embrace a purpose beyond just profit maximization.

Critics, according to Fox Business, were swift to accuse Fink’s commitment to diversity as a form of “corporate socialism,” complaining about “the propriety of a public company executive using business resources and his perch as CEO to advance a personal agenda.” The Fox article went on to quote Charles Elson, a corporate governance expert at the University of Delaware, saying: “This is fundamentally not the role of a public company, and it’s unfair to investors who may not agree with his politics. A CEO shouldn’t use house money to further a goal that may not create economic returns.”

I couldn’t disagree more. Business leaders must finally, once and for all, let go of the outdated and erroneous notion that social factors — and not just diversity — are irrelevant to the economic success of our companies."

What Facebook Owes to Journalism; New York Times, February 21, 2017

Steven Waldman, New York Times; 

What Facebook Owes to Journalism

"The 19th century robber baron Andrew Carnegie gave away most of his wealth later in life. “Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community,” he said. Carnegie built almost 3,000 libraries. All Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergei Brin and Laurene Powell (widow of Steve Jobs) have to do is fund 3,000 journalists.

If the leaders of these companies put the equivalent of just 1 percent of their profits, for five years, to the cause, local American journalism would be transformed for the next century.

That would be $4.4 billion — enough to establish a permanent endowment to fund local journalism."