I always appreciate an opportunity to reflect, but I seldom have been so impacted by an interview as I was by this one with Poppy Harlow. Our conversation allowed me to go a bit deeper than most interviews do and to reflect on how this all began. I hope that you enjoy.
It may not be optimal to its business model, but Facebook needs to acknowledge it is now a primary source for news, and it does bear a journalistic responsibility. Otherwise we will continue to see hatred and misinformation skyrocket. Facebook has an even greater responsibility to be consistent with its brand. The whole design is premised on verifiable and trustworthy content. There are plenty of gray areas where Facebook can stay out. But there are also plenty of black and white ones where staying out is an easy and financially convenient but socially harmful (and eventually brand dilutive) strategy. For Twitter, part of the reason it suffers is that it is so full of noise and fake identities that advertisers can’t monetize it as much. Sharing the below article from the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal
Deepa Seetharaman, Jack Nicas and Nathan Olivarez-Giles
These are the words that I shared with my team earlier this morning.
From: Daniel Lubetzky
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 4:21 AM
To: KINDTeam
Subject: what we need now
Dear Team,
This seemingly endless election season, culminating over the last several hours, has been a painful journey of division, vitriol and alienation for our country. It ends with America’s citizens torn further apart than any time I can remember.
Many of us are deeply shaken about the fate of our nation and our world. Global markets are signaling concern as we enter unchartered territory. There is a sense that the world’s greatest democracy is more fragile than we realized and cannot be taken for granted.
And I am asking myself how will I explain all of this to my children when they wake up in a few hours.
Finding common ground in the political space has been so challenging. Our government representatives (and the machinery that amplifies their messages) have not made it easy.
We have to step back and collectively reflect on how to protect and elevate the values we share and that have truly made America great – respect for one another, kindness, empathy, humility, warmth, the conviction that we can make a positive difference for our children and for each other, to lead our lives with purpose, to lead our communities with resilience and determination, to forge an inclusive society that prizes merit and hard work, and to contribute towards making the world we live in both kinder and stronger.
I’ve highlighted in the past that empathy and kindness are often confused with weakness. That, actually, it takes strength to be kind, particularly when we feel most vulnerable. That empathizing with “the other” requires enormous amounts of self-confidence, to feel comfortable putting yourself in the shoes of someone that you deeply disagree with. How trying has it been for many of us over the last year to understand “the other side.”
Along the night and before the election results became clear I was reflecting that, regardless of the outcome, roughly half the voters staked diametrically opposing positions. The toxic discourse made the rival platforms feel epically distant, almost as if the other side was morally repugnant. I wonder how will we get these two halves to find common ground when the distances that have been created between them are so vast. I find great solace knowing that people I greatly admire, including team leaders at KIND, and family members I love, disagreed with my political choice, and it never stood in the way of our relation. No matter how political campaigns try to program us (with billions upon billions of negative messages), we must find a way to respect one another and to appreciate our differences.
So how will I explain the results of this election to my children? I will explain that life doesn’t always serve up the path you wanted. But, always, you are served with a choice: do I retrench or do I rise up? Do I abandon hope or do I envision a way to make things better and act upon it? Do I demonize or humanize?
Now, more than ever, let’s show the strength within us to build common ground, not just to demand from our elected representatives that they rise above our differences and unite us, but to lead by example, with courage and conviction and without losing that sense of purpose, that commitment to excellence and to one another.
Time to unite.
Daniel Lubetzky
Founder & CEO
Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist and commentator, was national Hispanic campaign chairwoman for John McCain in 2008, national Hispanic co-chair for Jon Huntsman’s 2012 campaign and was supporting Jeb Bush’s candidacy for 2016. Follow her on Twitter @ananavarro. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers.
I didn’t want to write this. I avoided making a decision as long as I could. I schlepped my absentee ballot all over the country for almost four weeks. I would periodically take it out of the envelope, look at it, shake my head in disgust, and put it back in my suitcase.
I had decided to write-in my mother as a symbolic protest vote against the Democratic and Republican nominees. I didn’t want to vote for either of them.
#WhatWeNeedToSucceed: A Letter to the Next President on Behalf of Women Entrepreneur
Elizabeth Gore, Dell EIR Elizabeth Gore, Dell EIR 1 Nov 2016
#WhatWeNeedToSucceed
Nov. 1, 2016
To: Secretary Hillary Clinton / Mr. Donald Trump
Dear Madam Secretary / Mr. Trump:
We write to you today on behalf of our nation’s leading innovators, entrepreneurs and influencers regarding one of the largest untapped economic and social opportunities in our country – women entrepreneurs. If women and men participated equally in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, the United States’ GDP could rise by $30 billion.
While women are starting businesses twice as fast as men, they face unique challenges, including experiencing disproportionately high failure rates, receiving only seven percent of venture capital and being represented in only seven percent of media stories. Through leadership and sound public policy, our country can benefit from the economic and social opportunity women entrepreneurs cultivate.
Over the last month, top business leaders – from enterprise CEOs to leading entrepreneurs – developed a set of policy and leadership recommendations that we believe will help women entrepreneurs start and scale businesses. Our suggestions for the necessary elements for success for women entrepreneurs focus on access to capital, expanding and supporting networks and markets, and addressing the changing face of business through technology.
I am really saddened to lose Shimon Peres, a leader that was among the greatest statesmen of the 21st century, an inspiring voice of reason and wisdom not just for the Jewish people and for the Israeli people, but for humanity. Shimon Peres was one of the last living pioneers who established, built, secured, and strengthened the State of Israel. He was also a visionary, philosopher and diplomat with extraordinary insight into the human spirit. I was scheduled to meet him on my last trip to Israel on the afternoon when he suffered a stroke. My thoughts are with his wonderful family, including my dear friend Mika Almog, his amazing granddaughter, and his son Chemi and daughter Tzvia, all cut from the same cloth of wisdom and warmth. May Shimon’s incredible contributions to the Jewish people, to Israel, and to the world be a source of strength to you and to all of us during these difficult times, and may his words of wisdom guide all of us for years to come. Below you will find a beautiful statement from President Obama:
I just recently had a chance to read Ehud Barak’s speech from earlier this summer in full and I truly consider it to be one of the most important commentaries in years on the challenges Israel faces.
On the State of the Nation—and what is to be done?
A speech at the IDC, Herzliya, June 16, 2016
Greetings,
This year, we mark 120 years since the First Zionist Congress in Basel. Next year, we will mark 70 years since the UN resolution that led to the establishment of the State of Israel and 50 years since the Six-Day War. This is undoubtedly an appropriate time for introspection.
We have had great achievements. Zionism is the most successful national project of the 20th century. It is the shared project of a bold and far-reaching leadership and a nation that stood on the brink of disaster, defied it, and survived.
Three years after the fires in the crematoria were extinguished, the State of Israel, led by David Ben-Gurion, was born into war. Despite the difficulties—seven wars, two (or perhaps three) intifadas, countless operations in between, and quite a bit of other kinds of trouble—Israel could look back at its history with contentment and pride.
This brief piece in the National Review provides very provocative contrast about the way Trump’s new campaign CEO thinks about building the right wing (“turn on the hate”) and how traditional conservatives do (“love of country”).
We shouldn’t give a pass to those in the ‘Establishment’ that flirted with the racism and hatred that over the last eight years allowed many to delegitimize President Obama – not just to question his policies which is more than fair game, but to question his citizenship and allegiance to America. But this is elevating the source of that aggressive hatred to the leadership of the Republican Presidential campaign and threatening the entire party.
This issue is not just going to impact the conservative movement or Republicans. It will impact America and the world.
Any place in the world where extremism and radicalism are celebrated ends up harming the very society that tolerated and encouraged it, ultimately boomeranging against those that unleashed that intolerance against others. The ruling house of Saud in Saudi Arabia promulgated Wahabbi teachings across the world, spreading a militantly intolerant version of Islam across the world. This more than anything metastasized into Al Qaeda and ISIS, which now also consider the Saudi rulers as apostates and attack them also.
If we teach our children to disdain those different from them as opposed to teaching them empathy and respect for those different from us, they will grow with hatred as a reflex, which is so destructive to them and to our world. The antidote is to teach them empathy, the strength it requires, and the strength it provides. The same goes for adults, only it is so much harder by the time we’ve developed our habits, our instincts and our way of thinking.
Article below:
This is a great piece about Thread, a wonderful program we are proud to have been introduced to by the Weinberg Foundation.
A must read! In The Power of Broke, Daymond John takes an insightful look at individuals who’ve launched their own powerful brands and careers from a place of desperation, harnessing the “power of broke” to think creatively, alternatively, and aggressively in order to make a meaningful mark.
