Post Updated: Tom Williams responds to David Baines' Vancouver Sun article. David Baines wrote an article in the Vancouver Sun on Saturday about GiveMeaning.
From the quick skim I did and Tom’s response, it sounds like David is raising questions about financial disclosure at GiveMeaning. This is an excerpt from Tom’s response: Nevertheless, his main contention is that GiveMeaning Foundation has spent more money building the GiveMeaning brand and service than it has raised money for its projects. This is not only not in dispute but not surprising to anyone that knows anything about a start-up business.
GiveMeaning launched its re-vamped website in late September of 05. I’ve talked with Tom on several occasions and even met him in person. Update Feb 21, 2008: It’s been almost a month since I wrote this post and as of this moment there are 63 comments on it. A couple weeks ago Tom emailed me privately to express his concern about some of the comments. I stand by freedom of speech. I would like to know if all the questions and criticisms can be answered. Carefully cultivated image masks money woes. David Baines, Vancouver Sun Published: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 'I firmly believe that when it comes to profiling people in the media, there are two binary states: Either the media propels them, or they drag them through the dirt.
" So declared Tom Williams in a 1999 interview with CBC Television. By that time, media coverage had propelled him to near-mythical status: The Victoria "whiz kid" who, at the tender age of 14, had quit school, moved to the Silicon Valley and become Apple's youngest employee. But the whiz-kid persona wasn't entirely a product of the media. "I tried to be the director, the actor, the writer and the audience," he admitted to the CBC. But he said reporters are easily duped: "I can say anything to you [the media]. In 2004, at the age of 25, he resurrected the whiz kid story, this time to promote his new charity business, GiveMeaning. Perhaps unaware of his earlier-admitted duplicity, the media gobbled it up.
Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story. I was recently in Vancouver Canada for a week, considering moving there, when my friend Ariel Hyatt said, “You have to meet this amazing guy Tom Williams.
He got hired by Apple when he was only 14. I think the company had to, like, legally adopt him to do it. He's a go-getter like you. Plus his wife, Jessie is an awesome country artist.” Tom Williams: Hired by Apple at 14. His full story. I'll chime in.
I won't say how I'm involved with Tom, but we've been associated in the past. Let's just say that the impression I had upon meeting him was that he's basically a tax-dodging former child star with an ongoing microfinance scandal (covered by apparent nemesis David Baines): I wouldn't go as far as Baines (he gets petty and tedious after a while) but I do think he's got some validity to his arguments about accountability and trust. Specifically the lack thereof as regards Tom. Let's recap the story: a 14 year old kid's paid summer internship was deemed to be good PR for Apple. Youthfully ignorant entrepreneurial drive win, personal growth and development fail. 2009 - “Tom Williams, The Kid” 2013 : Tom Williams Reviews. Tom Williams Complaints.