User:Vipul/FWD.us

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FWD.us is a 501(c)(4) lobbying group based in the United States that aims to lobby and advocate for its version of immigration reform as well as changes to the US education system to improve science and technology education. It is primarily supported and funded by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and the initiative is led by principal Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and its president is Joe Green, a close friend and confidante of Zuckerberg. The group is non-partisan and aims to build a bipartisan consensus around its proposed policies.

History[edit]

Pre-launch[edit]

The first rumors of the creation of a lobbying group on immigration reform were reported by Evelyn Rusli in the Wall Street Journal on March 26, 2013.[1] On April 4, 2013, Politico obtained a leaked prospectus prepared by Joe Green intended for prospective contributors, with a proposed name of "Human Capital" for the lobbying group. Green admitted that the prospectus was authentic but also stated that many details, including the name of the group, had changed since the time the prospectus was sent out.[2]

Launch[edit]

FWD.us was launched on April 11, 2013. The launch was accompanied by an op-ed by Mark Zuckerberg in the Washington Post laying out the agenda and arguing for the vision of the group.[3] There was extensive media coverage of the launch.[4][5][6][7]

Goals[edit]

The main goals of FWD.us, as outlined by Zuckerberg in his Washington Post op-ed[3] and described on the FWD.us website[8] are:

  1. Immigration reform (in the context of immigration to the United States)
  2. Improving the quality of science and technology education (again focused on the United States)
  3. Encouraging more investment in breakthrough technologies in a manner that benefits the public at large.

Immigration reform[edit]

Zuckerberg's op-ed written at launch[3] as well as the FWD.us website[9] describe the following main aspects of immigration reform that FWD.us will advocate for:

  1. Improved border security.
  2. An immigration policy that is biased in favor of attracting extremely talented and hard-working people.
  3. A path to citizenship for current and prospective immigrants to the United States, including those who are present in the United States illegally.
  4. An improved employment verification system (the current most widely used system is e-verify).

People[edit]

Founders and key supporters[edit]

The founders of FWD.us include Mark Zuckerberg (the public face of the group), Joe Green (founder and president of the group), Dropbox employees Drew Houston and Ruchi Sanghvi, LinkedIn CEO and founder Reid Hoffman, and venture capitalists Jim Breyer (of Accel Partners), Matt Cohler (of Benchmark Capital), Ron Conway (adviser to SV Angel), and John Doerr (of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers).[10]

Other major contributors include Brian Chesky (founder of Airbnb), Chris Cox, Paul Graham (co-founder of Y Combinator), Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix), Chad Hurley, Josh James, Max Levchin, Joe Lonsdale, Andrew Mason (founder and CEO of Groupon), Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo!), Mary Meeker, Dave Morin (CEO of Path), Elon Musk (CEO of SpaceX and of Tesla Motors), Mark Pincus, Keith Rabois,David Sacks, Eric Schmidt (executive chairman at Google Inc), Kevin Systrom (CEO of Instagram), Padmasree Warrior (CTO of Cisco), and Fred Wilson (of Union Square Ventures).[10]

Although some earlier reports, including the leaked prospectus by Politico, had suggested that Bill Gates and Marc Andreessen would be involved with FWD.us,[2] their names did not appear on the FWD.us site at launch.[7]

Team[edit]

The team is split between the Silicon Valley area and the Washington D.C. area.[11]

The team in Silicon Valley is led by Joe Green (CEO and President).[12]

The team in Washington D.C. includes Rob Jesmer (former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee) and Kate Hansen (who worked as the communications director for the Democratic Governors Association in 2012).[13]

Funding[edit]

According to news reports, the lobbying group is raising about $50 million (USD) for its lobbying efforts.[1] As of April 2013, information about funds is not available on the official site, though a list of major contributors is available.[10]

Methods[edit]

The leaked prospectus obtained by Politico suggested that the lobbying group was planning to use the tremendous leverage that tech companies and their leaders had in pushing their agenda to the public, similar to the tactics used for the protests against SOPA and PIPA that were coordinated for January 18, 2012. However, in the same Politico article, Joe Green said that the prospectus used misleading language, and that various tech leaders would, "operating solely as individuals", promote the agenda of the lobbying group.[2]

According to the leaked prospectus, the tactics were described as follows:

"grassroots and grasstops" organizing in targeted congressional districts, online advocacy campaigns, paid online and television advertising that will be “critical to creating the political infrastructure we need” and “earned media.”[2]

Reception[edit]

The first report in the Wall Street Journal that reported rumors of the lobbying group that would eventually become FWD.us considered its possible overlap in terms and methods with Michael Bloomberg's group called the New American Economy as well as with the March for Innovation, a "virtal march for immigration reform."[1]

The launch of FWD.us met with a wide range of reactions. Gregory Ferenstein, writing for TechCrunch, expressed skepticism regarding whether FWD.us was that different from existing lobbying groups and whether it would be able to accomplish anything.[5] Om Malik, writing for GigaOm, also expressed a mixed reaction.[6]

A blog post by the Sunlight Foundation sought to put FWD.us in the context of the existing state of immigration lobbying.[14]

In a blog post for Open Borders: The Case (a website advocating for open borders), Nathan Smith critiqued Mark Zuckerberg and FWD.us for their focus on high-skilled immigration and for their endorsement of border security.[15]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Rusli, Evelyn (2013-03-26). "Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Starting Political Group". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2013-04-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ a b c d Epstein, Reid (2013-04-04). "Mark Zuckerberg immigration group's status: Looking for footing". Politico. Retrieved 2013-04-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ a b c Zuckerberg, Mark (2013-04-11). "Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg: Immigration and the knowledge economy". Washington Post. Retrieved 2013-04-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  4. ^ Constine, Josh (2013-04-11). "Zuckerberg And A Team Of Tech All-Stars Launch Political Advocacy Group FWD.us". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-04-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  5. ^ a b Ferenstein, Gregory (2013-04-11). "Zuckerberg Launches A Tech Lobby, But What Will It Do Differently?". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-04-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  6. ^ a b Malik, Om (2013-04-11). "Why I have issues with Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us". GigaOm. Retrieved 2013-04-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  7. ^ a b Brian, Matt (2013-04-11). "Mark Zuckerberg launches FWD.us with notable Silicon Valley execs in fight for immigration reform". The Verge. Retrieved 2013-04-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ^ "About Us". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-04-17.
  9. ^ "Immigration Reform". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-04-17.
  10. ^ a b c "Our supporters". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-04-17.
  11. ^ "Our team". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-04-17.
  12. ^ "Silicon Valley team". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-04-17.
  13. ^ "Washington D.C. team". FWD.us. Retrieved 2013-04-17.
  14. ^ Furnas, Alexander (2013-04-11). "Looking back to predict what FWD.us means for tech and immigration". Sunlight Foundation. Retrieved 2013-04-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  15. ^ "Mark Zuckerberg". Open Borders: The Case. 2013-04-12. Retrieved 2013-04-17. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

External links[edit]

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