The following email was sent to Mr. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta (formally Facebook) on Oct. 18th. It was diplomatic and well-intentioned . A paper version was also sent certified, and return receipt requested. 80-20 has received Meta’s signed receipt.

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg and Members of the Board of Directors:

I write to propose a win-win idea. Your splendid achievement in the IT field is of course well-known to me. Allow me to use this opportunity to salute you.

My name is S. B. Woo, former Lt. Governor of Delaware (1985-89) and the current president of 80-20 Initiative, which is by far the largest Asian American (AsAm) political organization.

Meta publishes a “Diversity Report”, which covers a lot of relevant statistics for 5 years from 2018 to 2022. From that report and the research we did, we are aware that

(1) Asians represented more than half of Meta’s tech workers (55.8%) in 2022;
(2) For 9 years in a row, Meta’s (% leadership / % tech employee) ratios ranged from 1 to 3 for all other races, except for Asians whose ratios were 0.51 or less, and
(3) From the brief survey we did, we found that Meta had by far the worst bamboo ceiling for its Asian tech workers. In 2022, the tech industry average (% leadership / % tech employee) ratios for Asians and whites are 0.68 and 1.37 respectively, while those of Meta were 0.51 and 1.7.

The myth that “Asians are good work horses, but not race horses.” is NOT true. You probably know well that East Asians are founders and co-founders of many of the largest tech industries, and South Asians are the CEOs of many of the largest tech companies.

Tech industry experts told us that Meta may have great trouble recruiting good AsAm tech workers henceforth, except for the least motivated and least ambitious, now that the words of your low bamboo ceiling are out in the AsAm community*. True that you pay entry level tech workers higher just like Google. However, Google has a (% leadership / % tech employee) ratio of 0.72 in
contrast to your 0.51.

On behalf of my Board, I’d like to respectfully request that you lead Meta to lift the bamboo ceiling significantly at the earliest possible time. If you will be kind enough to let us know your success in the form of significantly improved (% leadership / % tech employee) ratio for Asians, my organization will energetically praise your enlightened leadership. We have 130,000 valid e-addresses of AsAm families and individuals, whom we can reach within 15 minutes. I’d like to think that we can do a good job for you in spreading words about your good deeds.

I sincerely hope that you see this letter as a win-win proposal. May I expect to hear from you in about 6 weeks or by November 1st, 2023? If you want to talk on the phone, I shall be at your disposal. I am retired. Just give me two time windows to choose from. (emphasis on the date added)

If we have a good-faith agreement, and get positive results in your next two “diversity reports”, we’ll be grateful. Consequently, we’ll prefer to keep this letter and our discussion confidential. We want Meta’s lifting of the bamboo ceiling be the sole focus of the AsAm community, and our praise of your leadership to be most effective. Thanking you in anticipation,

Most sincerely yours,

S.B. Woo
President, 80-20 Educational Foundation, Inc.

• 80-20 may be one of many orgs. which have caused that. We were reaching out widely in the AsAm community to get tech worker’s reactions to the low bamboo ceiling of Meta, before deciding whether to find a win-win idea to approach you. I also contacted Ed Blum whom I worked closely with in our
  lawsuit against Harvard and NC University. To help AsAms become equal citizens of our nation is our mission. We take our mission extremely seriously, which a serious and high achieving individual like you will understand.

Bcc: 80-20 Board