Your assumption here is that the reporter did not press Systrom for "real" answers. Did you consider that perhaps these were the answers he gave when pressed for more?
You're right, I should have been clearer that the episode was about Michelle Rhee and her philosophy that schools should be run more like private companies. And new allegations that her system may have led to test results being manipulated to improve scores and achieve the goals she set out for teachers and principals. Is that fair?
Innovation is a really scary thing for public agencies. Democracies and public bureaucracies are set up specifically to mitigate risk. Yet risk is an essential factor in the success of innovative companies, many of which are now all dealing with gov't regulations and bureaucracies (think Uber or Airbnb). Here's how New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg put it in the Aug. 2011 issue of Fast Company:
"The public," Bloomberg says, "insists, and arguably has a right to insist, that it knows where its money's going. [They] have a very high expectation of results." He is talking about how the government spends its funds. "That is not the way innovation works. Innovation--the essence of innovation--is you don't know what you're going to build, what it's going to be called, how much it's going to cost. You cannot use public monies unless you can answer virtually every one of those questions, which is why government tends not to innovate. The public wants that accountability in advance, that justification in advance. But that's not going to work for certain things."
Zuckerberg didn't give this money to another corporation or a private charity, he gave it to public schools. The money belongs to the people of Newark after that. For parents and teachers who work in the schools there, isn't it expected that they should be concerned about what this amount of money is going to be used for, and whether there are strings attached? If Zuckerberg had something else in mind he could have set up a foundation to create separate, private programs that support public schools (this is what the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation often does).
It is noteworthy that Newark delayed releasing these records for two years, and then finally did so on Christmas Eve. If they had nothing to hide, why not just hand them over a long time ago?
And I'm confused about why you think this article is making the story look like a scandal. The headline says it's about how $100 million gets donated, and goes on to say it's a glimpse at what happens behind the scenes of such a large donation. At the very end it does say: "If there is a smoking gun" - that's pretty far from editorializing or sensationalism.
In this article he is reverse-engineering official Twitter apps. So there is an inconsistency even within Twitter's use of its own APIs. That, to me, is the mystery.
Also, I don't see how that statement implies the existence of something that no one has ever said existed. If the government says there are no aliens at Area 51 does that imply aliens do in fact exist at some other secret location? Uh-oh, maybe that was a bad example!
The NYC rental market is brutal, getting out of a lease is rarely the best option. If you're lucky enough to find an affordable spot in a good neighborhood with decent space, you hold onto it with white knuckles.
Those aren't criteria, but the fact that they have designed so-called cloud storage in a useful way that is accessible to the masses is why they were included on the list. I also think that it is important that a cloud company be included in the list. So I wonder why you think there shouldn't have been anyone from the cloud?
The first thing to note is that Reddit was not on the main list of the 50 Most Innovative. It was included in list of top 10 for Media, which is where we recognize innovators in a more general way within different industries. The main focus of Reddit's entry, after explaining the site to someone who might never have heard of it before, were the "Ask Me Anything" Q&As. Those interviews were far more social and newsworthy than most Q&As that appeared in msm. Although the series didn't start last year, it began gaining traction and became more newsworthy during 2011. Many innovations are slow to mature, or even fail despite their unique approach. The Reddit entry recognized that those Q&As have come into their own.
Occupy has lots of things in common with startups, which we talk specifically about in the story. "Disruptive. Small-d democratic. Transparent. Tech savvy. Design savvy. Local and global."
The IPO part is a joke, sorry the humor was lost on you.
Companies that have existed for years can still do innovative things. We've highlighted those new efforts in the entries. Jawbone, for example, has been around for ages but last year had a huge hit with the Jambox. In that entry Farhad Manjoo also writes about the Up, which was flying off shelves until they found a defect and pulled it.