Re: pacer and lollapalooza

["Aaron Swartz" <xx@aaronsw.com>]

Naive question: what's the problem with a paper board? Funders get turned off?

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 4:25 PM, Carl Malamud <xxxxxxx@media.org> wrote:
> P.S. ... he's the rainmaker, so don't be surprised if he does an initial
> call but quickly hands you to a nonprofit lawyer in his firm.  Let me know
> if you need help on this process.
>
> My biggest advice: choose your board *really* carefully so that you can keep
> control of  your vision.  You don't want a paper board, but you almost never
> want your funders on the board as they have a different vision than you do.
>  There are exceptions, but not many.  :)
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: Carl Malamud <xxxxxxx@media.org>
>> Date: July 25, 2008 4:18:59 PM PDT
>> To: Rhett Millsaps II <xxxxxxx@gmail.com>
>> Cc: Aaron Swartz <me@aaronsw.com>
>> Subject: Re: pacer and lollapalooza
>>
>> Hi Rhett -
>>
>> I'm David Halperin's friend.  I used to be Podesta's Chief Technology
>> Officer at the Center, am now running a c(3) nonprofit out of California
>> that puts primary legal materials (e.g., court cases) on the net called
>> Public.Resource.Org.
>>
>> I'd like to introduce you to Aaron Swartz who has created Watchdog.Net.
>>  The advice they received from their first funder, the Sunlight Foundation,
>> was that they should be a c(4).  I believe this is Aaron's first nonprofit,
>> but he has accumulated a distinguished record in a variety of Internet
>> enterprises.  He wrote the "RSS" standard which is what newsfeeds are based
>> on.
>>
>> He was also a founder of Reddit, a popular social networking site that was
>> sold to Conde Naste.  And, perhaps most importantly, he's been the technical
>> smarts behind a lot of impressive operations for Internet veterans such as
>> Brewster Kahle and Lawrence Lessig (a name you may remember from your recent
>> Harry Potter suit. :)
>>
>> Watchdog has some funding, but because they are early stage they are
>> definitely not flush, so I know Aaron would appreciate any reduced fees or
>> perhaps even pro bono representation for the initial C(4) application.  If
>> it is helpful, I am happy to provide advice during the process, but this is
>> Aaron's gig and I'm not directly involved.
>>
>> I'll let you two arrange a phone call with each other and you can decide
>> if this is worth taking the next step.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Carl
>>
>> P.S. Aaron ... Rhett's URL, which you no doubt found already, is
>> http://web.omm.com/rhettmillsapsii/
>>
>>
>
>