Mark Zuckerberg has remained relatively quiet about anti-Semitism at Harvard, but he broke his silence Friday as the Silicon Valley tycoon joined the powerful committee overseeing the embattled Ivy League school. He is expected to support joining, On the Money reported.
Sam Lessin — a tech investor and former Facebook employee who, coincidentally, is married to The Information founder Jessica Lessin — is part of a group of about 30 people who will be overseeing Harvard University. He is seeking membership on the group Harvard University Oversight Committee. And he is the president of the university.
On Friday, Lessin will speak with Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan on a Zoom call at 6:30 p.m. ET about the future of Harvard and why the Facebook founder supports Lessin's candidacy. is.
This is the first time Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, has spoken publicly about Harvard and its future since the attack on Israel.
“Anti-Semitism at Harvard is very unfortunate and a huge problem,” Lessin told On the Money. “It needs to be resolved, but it's also a canary in the coal mine in terms of free speech issues.”
After the Oct. 7 attack, Mr. Lessin called Harvard University and said, “I said I would no longer donate until governance and management improved and the campus clearly prioritized academics.”
“Most of my friends who did the same thing stayed put, but I don't think that's enough,” Lessin added.
Lessin has already joined forces with Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner, former Oscar Health CEO Mario Schlosser, former Zappos COO Alfred Lin, as well as General Catalyst, Sequoia, Y Combinator, Bessemer, and Tiger Global. It has also received support from company executives.
Harvard University's Board of Supervisors has recently been a focus for Pershing Square founder Bill Ackman, who announced his own nomination after leading the campaign against Claudine Gay, who resigned earlier this month. is nominated.
The Board of Supervisors is the school's second-highest authority after Harvard University, and has “the power to consent to certain actions, such as the election of corporate membership,” and is responsible for approving or rejecting the school's next president. Her term as a board member is six years.
All four candidates Ackman is pushing are military veterans and under the age of 40, but they don't understand the world of technology, Lessin told On the Money.
In fact, he added, very few people involved in Harvard's leadership appear to have a technology background. At a time when artificial intelligence and social media are more important than ever, majors like computer science and applied mathematics are more popular than ever.
At least five members of the board are retiring this year, but under arcane rules only two newly appointed members will be eligible for additional nominations.
The remaining three must be nominated by the Harvard Alumni Association.
This group can become bureaucratic, making it difficult to get new blood onto the board.
Lessin points out that voting platforms can also have glitches.
On Friday, Lessin and other write-in candidates received word from Harvard officials that they would be informed by Harvard officials of how many votes they had received by the Jan. 31 nomination deadline, out of the 3,238 votes needed to fill out the ballots. Are expected.
“My email inbox is full of hundreds of people who don't know how to set up their accounts,” Lessin said.
It's unclear why Harvard's leadership is undervalued in Silicon Valley. Part of this has to do with the Bay Area's approach to business: “Silicon Valley is focused on building new things. They neglect brand equity,” Lessin added.
“In the technology industry, I think a lot about platforms. You need a trusted institution like Harvard,” he added.
Lessin also said that Harvard graduates are more “decentralized” than those of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, a group of primarily New York-based capitalists who succeeded in ousting Liz McGill as president. It is pointed out that
Of course, at least a handful of notable Harvard graduates, like Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, never actually earned their degrees.
Representatives for Harvard University and Zuckerberg University did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
