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How Larry Summers got involved with Big Think, the YouTube for intellectuals

How Larry Summers got involved with Big Think, the YouTube for intellectuals:

"In June 2006, Peter Hopkins, a civic-minded and idealistic 2004 Harvard graduate, trekked up to his alma mater from New York for a meeting with Lawrence H. Summers, the economist and former Treasury secretary. Mr. Hopkins, who finagled the appointment through his friendship with Mr. Summers’s assistant, had a business idea: a Web site that could do for intellectuals what YouTube, the popular video-sharing site, did for bulldogs on skateboards.

The pitch — 'a YouTube for ideas' — appealed to Mr. Summers. 'Larry, to his credit, is open to new ideas,' Mr. Hopkins recalled recently. 'He grilled me for two hours.'In the age of user-generated content, Mr. Summers did have one worry: “Let’s say someone puts up a porn video next to my macroeconomic speech?'

It took awhile, but a year after that meeting, Mr. Summers decided to invest ('a few tens of thousands of dollars,' he said, adding 'not something I’m hoping to retire on') in the site, called Big Think, which officially makes its debut today after being tested for several months."

Big Think is currently populated by video interviews with prominent figures like Richard Branson and Steven Pinker (above) but the real test will be whether ease of use and community building will get widespread public participation.  Otherwise it may end up as a slow-moving expert oriented project like Citizendium rather than a Wikipedia or a YouTube.

South Asia Loves Larry Summers

Former Harvard president Larry Summers is finding a receptive audience for his views on visits to India, China, and Singapore where "his views on the importance of Asia’s growth, the challenges of globalization and the danger of the United States’ huge trade deficit are widely promoted by policy makers and economists. He is eagerly solicited for lectures and keynote speeches, where his characteristically unvarnished opinions creep into discussions of fiscal policy."

Fake Summers Controversy?

The Columbia Journalism Review accuses the Globe of creating a phony controversy surround former Harvard president Larry Summers' recent speech at Tufts.

Lawrence Summers at Tufts

Lawrence Summers, late of Harvard, spread good cheer at Tufts when he spoke on “Rethinking Undergraduate Education" March 14th there.

Harvard Donation Problems Post-Summers?

The Wall Street Journal looks into the question of whether there is a donor backlash at Harvard ($) following the whole Summers debacle with several rich donors cancelling their gifts to Harvard recently.  The Journal adds up the total reduction in donations by Larry Ellison, Mortimer Zuckerman, Richard A. Smith and David Rockefeller to a grand sum of $390 million.  Obviously Harvard won't be going out of business soon but the Journal notes that "Summer's critics weren't donors on the same scal as those now withholding funds, with the result that Harvard on balance may suffer financially, at least in the short term, from his departure" and that the "donor backlash could hamstring the university's plans for a long-delayed capital campaign."  The importance of money for Harvard should make this an interesting topic for the future.

The Politics of Larry Summers

An inside look at the academic disputes and maneuvering that led to the resignation of Harvard president Larry Summers.