Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday that he would form an activist organization, FWD.us — short for forward, “suivre” in French — bringing together big names in the U.S. tech industry.
The lobby group — because we should call it what it is — emerges in the midst of an immigration debate, which should see Democrats and Republicans agree on reforming the visa system for highly qualified foreign workers, a longtime desire of the technology sector.
“To lead the world in this new economy, we need the most talented and hardest working people. We need to train and attract the best,” writes the founder of the social network in a column published in the Washington Post.
Among the founders of FWD.us are LinkedIn Co-Founder Reid Hoffman and Dropbox (a file-sharing service) CEO Drew Houston. Its contributors include Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.
The group will lobby for “comprehensive immigration reform that begins with effective border security, allows a path to citizenship and lets us attract the most talented and hardest-working people, no matter where they were born,” states Mark Zuckerberg in his column.
Between 1995 and 2005, 52 percent of Silicon Valley startups counted a foreigner among their founders with Sergey Brin, Jerry Yang and Steve Chen among them. We can credit Google, Yahoo and YouTube to each, respectively.
The lobby will also support “higher standards and accountability in schools, support for good teachers and a much greater focus on learning about science, technology, engineering and math.” Finally, FWD.us also wants to push for higher investment in research and to assure that the benefits of these inventions “belong to the public and not just to the few,” assures the CEO of the social network.
In the U.S., it is not unusual for executives to take frank, even activist stances on political issues. During the debate on the fiscal cliff measures, Howard Schulz, Starbucks CEO, had “come together” inscribed on his company’s mugs. (That is to say, let’s come together to encourage the powers that be to quickly reach an agreement.)
The passionate CEO struck again several months later by inviting a shareholder, dissatisfied with the company’s favorable stance on gay marriage, to sell his shares!
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