With OLPC in the midst of its Give One, Gone One developer program, we're starting to see who is in and who is out at One Laptop Per Child's 1CC headquarters. Below is the list as best as I can confirm:
No longer OLPC employees:
Still on the OLPC payroll
- Nicholas Negroponte
- Samuel Klein
- Ed McNierney
- Seth Woodworth
- Chris Ball
- Richard Smith
- Mitch Bradley
- Who else..?
If you have more info, please let me know in comments or email. For all the laid off OLPC staff, feel free to submit your resumes to me. I'd like to have the honor of making a master post of all who are available for hire. I for one would give each a great recommendation.
In fact, I know of great job opportunities, in Nepal and San Francisco If you're willing to relocate.
Ouuuuutch
These names seem to be the ones which did a lot of work according to the community newsletters.
I wonder if the proper amount of management was fired or only engineers. In the latter case, we can forget about advancements in Sugar for a year again.
Jim Gettys is one of the biggest assholes (both literally and figuratively) I have ever had the misfortune to meet. No matter his technical contributions the OLPC project will be better off without him.
I have never met this Jim Gettys fellow and know nothing about him (other than that he sends out the informative OLPC update newsletters), but you should strongly consider removing the above post by 'anonymous'. Un-signed, ad hominem attacks like the one above really don't deserve any sort of platform. I would recommend that others continue to mod that post down until the OLPCnews teams removes it from the board. (and if/when it is removed, please feel free to remove my posting here as well)
Seth is a great person on staff
and im glad he didn't get fired
Only Chris Ball and Richard Smith are left of the software developers.
Seems OLPC's salaries are pretty good for a nonprofit. Here are the 2006 numbers from the Association's IRS 990:
$57,417 Lindsay Petrillose, Special Assistant
$57,768 David Cavallo, Dir of Central America
$73,167 Melania Lewis, Assistant to the Chairman (Negroponte)
$88,957 Khalid Hassounah, Director of Education
$182,417 Jim Gettys, VP Software Engineer
$185,539 Michail Bletsas, Chief Connectivity
$226,333 Mary Lou Jepsen, Chief Technology Officer
$226,958 Walter Bender, President
$233,333 Mark Foster, VP Engineering
$244,666 Robert Fadel, Director of Finance, (his salary is split between OLPC Association & OLPC Foundation, two different legal entities)
And thats my pre-stock salary! I can't get rich but total compensation is closer to $1m. ;0
You need to better understand IRS forms if you are going to repeat this type of information. Or not copy information from other sites when they got it equally wrong.
Robert,
Interesting - I went back and looked at the IRS Form 990's for OLPC Association and OLPC Foundation.
Seems I read the Foundation's 990 a bit too fast - the 990 says you're not paid by the Foundation, only the Association. So it should read:
$122,333 Robert Fadel, Director of Finance
Apologies for the error. Though if you really are making more like a mill, I wouldn't be quick to advertise it. Negroponte might get jealous.
Thanks a lot for the support guys!
Pick up my e-mail from the link under my name above and don't hesitate to send any leads my way.
When the chips are down you appreciate the good people you've met a whole lot more.
Maybe I have been spending too much time talking to Bryan about Nepal, but I think I'm starting to believe in Karma :-)
Take care,
Greg S
It's amazing to me how few staff OLPC has always had. It just doesn't strike me as a smart way to run a global operation. How can the project continue to move forward with only half the staff?
... what about the 12 or so staff of OLPC Europe located in (near) Brussels (La Hulpe) at the premises of Swift ... in a castle?
http://www.olpceu.org/content/aboutus/aboutus_staff.html
This website is the most incredible piece of yellow journalism. In no way should a shift in the OLPC team be construed as "gutting" OLPC or 'firing' of the staff as is implied. Have ANY of the staff that left said they were fired or the project is in trouble? It probably means things are going along well. If you want to ask a question, send questions to the OLPC staff, and if you keep the rhetoric down they might answer, but if I were them I wouldn't answer any questions from this site for fear of having them spun against OLPC. This website "OLPCNEWS.com" seems like a determined effort to derail OLPC.
William,
You're a little late in all you huff and puff about OLPC News. And you're also a little off. Note what the post says:
"For all the laid off OLPC staff,"
THIS VERY MOTIVATED WEBSITE, "OLPC NEWS" IS IN NO WAY RELATED TO THE ACTUAL OLPC PROJECT. IT APPEARS OLPCNEWS.COM HAS BEEN MANUFACTURED BY SOME INTEREST TO DERAIL OLPC.
Well, the tactics this website use are typical. Always attacks on information counter to this website's line(negative spin on OLPC), never information without spin. Two symptoms of manufactured spin websites like OLPC News are (1)constant use of negative characterizations sans actual information[so therefore I'm full of "huff and puff" and am "late" instead of actually pointing out you lied] and (2)false information that incorporates the real information to allow for deniability[therefore the headline and the vast weight of information projects the false message of "fired", and even incorporates a third tactic of comedy - in the form of the graphic].
Of course you include the actual information that the staff were laid off...as a footnote to the false message actually pushed that they were fired. Having that tiny footnote allows you deniability of the reality that you lied about the facts - OLPC did not "gut" or "fire" their employees. A headline Comedy graphic portrays the false "fired" message of this story. The doomsday tack of this website is laughable. In no way would any respectable journalist accept the way the "news" stories here are presented, forget about the actual false nature of much of the information. You don't have anything to spin unless you actually include the real story, but after digesting a few of the stories here the real story is difficult to know for most readers and impossible to know even if you got the real story from OLPC itself. This website is such a classic attack and spin job.
William,
It may surprise you to learn that OLPC staff did, in fact, contribute to this list - both those laid off and those not.
I have no doubt actual OLPC employees have attempted to input into this site, just as they may try to input into other sites commenting on OLPC they may have stumbled on.
I also have no doubt that they may regret posting, once they understand that the purveyor(namely Wayan Vota) here is capable of using their input to bolster weighted negative spin.
So this is your website?:
http://wayan.com/about-wayan-vota.html
if so, one would speculate that you stand to financially benefit if OLPC is derailed.