シリコンバレーのシンギュラリティ・ユニバーシティは、いくつかの深刻な現実の問題を抱えている
Silicon Valley’s Singularity University Has Some Serious Reality Problems
- It’s lost Google funding and dealt with allegations of assault and fraud.
それは失われたGoogleの資金調達、暴力と詐欺の疑い。
ILLUSTRATION: SAM ISLAND FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEKThe pitch was simple: Forget accredited graduate schools and think big at Singularity University. Google co-founder Larry Page and futurist Ray Kurzweil could be among your lecturers in the Graduate Studies Program at Singularity, named for the notion that humans will someday merge with machines. You’d work in a kind of combination think tank and startup incubator, trying to address challenges as grand as renewable energy and space travel. Kurzweil announced the program during a TED Talk in 2009, adding that the Singularity team had leased its campus from NASA, just east of the agency’s historic Hangar One in Mountain View, Calif. The team received 1,200 applications for its first class of 40 later that year.
ピッチは単純だった：認定された大学院は忘れてシンギュラリティ・ユニバーシティを大きく考えて下さい。 いつか人類は機械と融合するだろうという概念に名付けられた「シンギュラリティ」の卒業研究プログラムでは、あなたの講師の中に、グーグルの共同創業者ラリー・ペイジと未来学者レイ・カーツワイルがいたはずです。あなたは、再生エネルギーや宇宙旅行チャレンジといった壮大な挑戦をしながら、シンクタンクとスタートアップインキュベーターを組み合わせたようなところで働くことになるのです。カーツワイルは2009年のTEDトークで、このプログラムを発表し、シンギュラリティチームがNASAからキャンパスを借りたことも加えました。 キャンパスはカリフォルニア州マウンテン・ビューにある、この政府機関の歴史的なハンガー・ワン)のすぐ東です。 チームはその年の最初の40クラスに対して1200通の出願を受け取りました。
- accredited - 認定された
- lecturers - 講師
- Graduate Studies - 大学院、卒業研究
- notion - 概念
- as grand as - 壮大な
- applications - 出願という意味もあるそうです。
シンギュラリティ大学が教える飛躍する方法 ビジネスを指数関数的に急成長させる
posted with amazlet at 18.02.16
Reality hasn’t matched the hype. Previously unreported police files, other documents, and interviews with current and former students and staff paint the picture that almost from the beginning, some Singularity staffers weren’t able to curb their worst impulses. A teacher allegedly sexually assaulted a former student, an executive stole more than $15,000, a former staffer alleges gender and disability discrimination, and Singularity dismissed 14 of about 170 staffers and suspended GSP, now called the Global Solutions Program, after Google withdrew funding last year.
現実は誇大広告に合致しませんでした。 これまで報告されなかった警察の資料、他の文書、そして現在と元生徒や元職員のインタビューで、ほとんど最初から、何人かのシンギュラリティのスタッフは、彼らの最悪の衝動に歯止めをかけられなかったという図式を描いでいます。 元生徒に対する性的暴行の疑いをかけられている教師、15000ドル以上を盗んだ重役、元職員はジェンダーと障害者差別を訴えており、 シンギュラリティは約170人の職員の14人を解雇し、昨年グーグルが資金を撤退したGSP ― グローバルソリューションプログラムと呼ばれている― を中断しました。
- curb - 縁石、ブレーキをかける
- impulses - 衝動
- withdrew - 撤退した
Alumni say for-profit Singularity is becoming just another organizer of conferences and executive seminars. It’s weighing buying the seminar company Abundance 360, started by Singularity co-founder Peter Diamandis. “It’s lost its soul,” says Vivek Wadhwa, who ran the faculty until 2013 and is at Carnegie Mellon University. “It’s become a moneymaking corporation.”
他のカンファレンスや役員セミナーの主催者によって営利目的のシンギュラリティが開始されていると同窓生が言っています。 それは、シンギュラリティの共同創業者であるPeter Diamandisが始めたセミナー企業のAbundance 360を買収しようとしています。 「それは魂を失ってしまった」と2013年まで教職員を務め現在カーネギーメロン大学にいるVivek Wadhwaが言っています。 「いまや金を作る会社になった。」
- Alumni - 同窓生
- faculty - 学部
- ran the faculty - 教職員を務めた
“If we want to make true impact … we need to do it in a sustainable fashion”
もしも我々が真の衝撃を生み出したいなら … 継続可能な方法で行う必要がある」
While Singularity says it takes seriously its community’s security and any related allegations, most of those matters are far in the past, says Chief Executive Officer Rob Nail. He says he was already planning to suspend and reevaluate GSP before Google ended its annual grant of $1.5 million. The grant covered about half the costs of the program, which was free for participants. Google, whose senior manager Jen Phillips left Singularity’s advisory board late last year and won’t be replaced, says it plans to focus on Singularity’s entrepreneurship programs instead.
シンギュラリティ大学は、そのコミュニティの安全性とあらゆる関連する訴えを深刻に受け止めていると言っているが、それら問題の多くは遠い過去のものであると、最高執行責任者のRob Nailは、GoogleがGSPへの年間150万ドルの提供を終了する前に、GSPの停止と再評価を既に計画していたと言っています。この資金提供は、この参加無料だったプログラムの費用の約半分をカバーしていました。シニアマネージャの Jen Phillipsが昨年の終わりにシンギュラリティ大学のアドバイザリー役員を退職し後任がいないGoogleは、この計画は、替わりにシンギュラリティの企業家精神プログラムへ注目するように計画していると言っています。
- reevaluate - 再評価
Nail says although GSP may be reborn largely online, conferences and executive education (tuition: $14,500 for a weeklong program) will become the bulk of Singularity’s work. It held 10 conferences last year and has 18 planned for 2018. On Feb. 15 it announced it raised $32 million in venture funding led by Boeing Co. and investment firm WestRiver Group. Erik Anderson, WestRiver’s CEO, is replacing Diamandis as Singularity’s chairman. These changes, Nail says, will help the company turn a profit and thereby aid more people. “If we want to make true impact,” he says, “we need to do it in a sustainable fashion.”
Nailはしかし、GSPはオンラインや会議、上層部教育（一週間のプログラムの授業料は14500ドル）など、幅広く生まれ変わるかもしれず、シンギュラリティ大学の取り組みの大部分になると言っています。 昨年10回のカンファレンスを開催し、2018年には18回を計画しています。 2月15日に、ボーイング社と投資会社のWestRiver Groupが率いるベンチャー基金で3200万ドルの資金調達を発表しました。 WestRiverのCEO Erik Andersonはシンギュラリティ大学の社長のDiamandisを変えようとしています。 この企業が利益を転換し、それによって多くの人々を助けることを、この変更が支援することになるとNeilは言っています。 「もし我々が真の衝撃を作り出したいのであれば、持続可能な方法でそれを行う必要がある」
- bulk of ～ - ～の大部分
- thereby - それによって
Singularity had NASA connections beyond its rented buildings. Early GSP students speak highly of a lecture by former astronaut Dan Barry, a physician who got into the space shuttle program after 13 rejections. Several say they saw him as a mentor. Barry hasn’t taught GSP students since 2013, when the company investigated him for allegedly sexually assaulting Yasemin Baydaroglu, a French student who attended GSP in 2011.
シンギュラリティ大学は貸与された建物以上にNASAとのコネクションを持っており、初期のGSPの生徒は、スペースシャトル計画に13回不合格になった後に搭乗した元宇宙飛行士で物理学者のDan Barryによる高度な講義の話をしました。 複数の人達が彼をメンターとしてみていました。Barryは、フランスから2011年にGSPに参加したYasemin Baydarogluへの性的暴行の疑いのため、同社が調査を行った2013年以来、GSPの生徒に教えていません。
Baydaroglu says Barry arranged a 2013 meetup in Paris. They went for a bike ride, during which she complained of back pain, and then went to his hotel to chat. He reminded her he was a doctor, she says, and offered her a massage, speaking in strictly medical terms. Because he was a mentor, she trusted him—until, she says, he touched her breasts and genitals, and she fled. “I really didn’t see it coming, and I’m so careful,” she says. “This time my guard was low.” She reported the incident to police several days later, then visited a doctor.
Baydarogluは、Barryが2013年にパリで会う手配をしたと言います。 彼らはバイクに乗っていきました。その間、彼女は背中に痛みを訴えていました。そして、彼のホテルへ話をするために行きました。 彼は彼女に、自分が医者であると思い出させました。そして、マッサージをして、厳格な医療用語で話をしました。 彼はメンターであったため、彼女は彼を信頼していました。彼が彼女の胸と性器に触れるまでは。そして彼女は逃げました。 私はそれが来るのを本当に見なかったし、私はとても慎重なのですが、この時は私のガードは低かったのですと彼女は言っています。 彼女は、数日後に警察にこの事故を報告し、医者を訪れました。
“I completely deny her accusations,” Barry says, adding that the inquiries that followed led to “a distressing time for me and my wife.”
「私は完全に彼女の告発を否定します。」とBarryは言っています。 その後の問い合わせが「私と私の妻にとって悲惨な時」へつながったと付け加えています。
- accusations - 告発
- inquiries - 問い合わせ
- distressing - 悲惨な
（以降、あとで）
Baydaroglu showed signs of psychological distress that she said were linked to a physical assault, according to a copy of a May 31, 2013, doctor’s report reviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek. According to a copy of a letter sent from France’s Office of the Prosecutor, it declined to pursue the case because authorities hadn’t been able to find Barry.
Singularity began its internal investigation after Baydaroglu separately reported the alleged assault to the company. Barry left that summer’s program in June; his wife was ill, and the company told students he left for personal reasons. In a June 22, 2013, email to Baydaroglu reviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek, a Singularity human resources official told her Nail believed “the facts around the central allegation of unwanted sexual touching are inconclusive” but that he told Barry the circumstances indicated “poor judgment.” The official wrote that Barry wouldn’t be present for the remainder of the 2013 GSP and asked Baydaroglu not to discuss the matter with other parties.
The email outlined steps Singularity was taking to reduce the likelihood of staffers being in “potentially intimate situations” on campus, including prohibiting them from being alone with a student at the end of a program day and installing webcams to monitor classrooms. Baydaroglu says Singularity’s response left her feeling deeply depressed and betrayed. Particularly galling, she says, was “asking me not to talk about it.” The company declined to discuss the case except to say Barry hasn’t been an active faculty member since 2013.
Singularity leaders have a history of shady financial practices. When the organization was in its infancy in 2009, Alicia Isaac, the financial controller, used its credit cards to make $13,500 in personal purchases; she also kept the cash from a $2,000 check to Singularity, according to a subsequent police report. And she helped the president of an artificial intelligence institute try to steal almost $80,000. Police arrested Isaac in 2009; she pleaded no contest to felony fraud charges. Isaac didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Another early Singularity architect, Bruce Klein, was convicted in 2012 of running a credit fraud operation in Alabama. He’s no longer associated with the company. Board member Naveen Jain was convicted of insider trading in 2003. He appealed a $247 million judgment and ultimately settled.
Nail, who previously helped found an automation company, arrived in late 2011 with Chief Strategy Officer Gabriel Baldinucci, a former Virgin Group executive. They soon changed Singularity from a nonprofit to a for-profit B Corporation, which means a private accreditor certifies it meets certain social and environmental standards.
For years several staffers close to Baldinucci lived alongside him in a series of rented houses nicknamed the SU Villa, in Atherton and Woodside, Calif. Other employees say the group got favorable treatment and the general atmosphere was unfriendly to women. Eleanor Schuermann, a lawyer at Kastner Kim LLP, is representing a staffer who alleges Singularity discriminated against her because of her gender and disability, paid her less than men in the same position, and retaliated against her for complaining. The attorney’s filings with state regulators, the first steps toward a lawsuit, aren’t yet public record. Schuermann, who wouldn’t name her client, says she’s heard from two other Singularity employees about similar claims. The company declined to comment on the case but says it works hard to support women.
Singularity is a long way from 2009, when the first GSP led to the creation of Getaround, a car-sharing company that’s raised $85 million from investors including Toyota Motor Corp. “It is amazing what all has happened here,” Google’s Page said during the program’s opening ceremony the following year. “It exceeded all my expectations.” These days, Page isn’t involved with Singularity. Kurzweil doesn’t dispute that while he attends board meetings, he rarely speaks.
Anderson, the new chairman, says the company expects to meet its revenue and social goals. Nail says it’s making good on some of its grander ambitions, citing work on United Nations anti-hunger efforts. Still, he says, Singularity can do better: “We’re nowhere near impacting the billion people our students talk about.”
BOTTOM LINE - Singularity is using a $32 million lifeline to steer its programming hard toward a series of executive training seminars and conferences.
