Julian Assange: "The number one enemy is ego"

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange rails against Facebook, says it's a spy tool for US government

NY Daily News May 2nd 2011

BY Nina Mandell
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER


Maybe he's a MySpace guy.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called Facebook "the most appalling spying machine ever invented" in an interview with Russia Today, pointing to the popular social networking site as one of the top tools for the U.S. to spy on its citizens.

"Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other and their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US Intelligence," he said. "Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all these major U.S. organizations have built-in infaces for US intelligence.

"Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook they are doing free work for the United States intelligence agencies," he added.

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Google buys prime real estate in NY City with Fibre Optic bonus

Google’s $1.9 Billion Chelsea Office Building Sits on a Fiber-Optic Highway

Daily Intel 12/22/10
By: Nitasha Tiku

Back in 2000, Google's New York outpost consisted of one salesperson working out of a Starbucks on 86th Street. Today, the company announced that it closed the deal to buy an eighteen-story office building at 111 Eighth Avenue, otherwise known as Googleplex East, for $1.9 billion, paid in cash. Taxes on the sale will net $7 million for the state and $46,462,500 for New York City, as well as over a billion dollars in profit for the sellers, Jamestown, New York State Common Retirement Fund and Taconic Partners. Bonus backlash, the real estate edition? The 2,000 Google employees (Facebook prefers to think of them as future hires) working in the 550,000-square-foot space the company currently occupies work in both sales and engineering. What justifies this kind of deal in a down economy? Google has plenty of cash to burn, but the appeal probably lies in the fiber-optic cables transmitting high-speed data that lie under the former Port Authority building, primarily the "fiber highway" along Eighth Avenue/Hudson Street and Ninth Avenue that's considered one of the most vital connection points to the world's telecommunications networks. It's the same reason that high-tech companies like Verizon, Sprint, and Level 3 Communications, the company that streams Netflix to your laptop, also have offices in the building — and can probably expect a rent hike from their new landlord.

Speaking of Google News, it seems that Google Maps is now doing a thing where you can follow the numerous incidents of mass animal deaths on a global scale.

Googleplex News: Goldman Sachs IPO's Facebook

NY Times January 3, 2011, 10:22 am Investment Banking

Why Facebook Is Such an Important Friend for Goldman Sachs

By PETER LATTMAN

Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersGoldman Sachs sent Facebook a friend request, and Facebook accepted.

The news that Goldman has taken a stake in Facebook, the white-hot social networking giant, has tongues wagging from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. As first reported by DealBook, Goldman has invested $450 million in a deal that values Facebook at $50 billion. As part of the deal, Goldman is looking to raise as much as $1.5 billion from its wealthy clients to invest in Facebook alongside the firm.

The move is straight out of Goldman’s playbook. The firm has a long history of “friending” America’s hottest companies and chief executives. By collecting so many important friends, Goldman generates big fees.

The ancillary benefits of buying a stake in Facebook are several. First, it has likely established itself as the leading candidate to win the very lucrative and prestigious assignment of Facebook’s initial public offering, whenever that day comes. Then, of course, there are secondary share offerings, mergers-and-acquisitions business and other banking fees that would inure to Goldman.


.Second, Goldman’s private wealth management clients — handled by the firm’s money management unit for rich families — can boast to their friends on the golf course that they own a pre-I.P.O. stake in Facebook.

There is also the huge paper wealth being accumulated by the Facebook co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his fellow executives that will some day be monetized and have to be managed. Goldman would likely have a leg up there, too.

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