Zuckerberg's political advocacy group adds several important names to the list

Apr 26, 2013 12:47 GMT  ·  By

Mark Zuckerberg’s political advocacy group adds several important names to the roster, such as Bill Gates, Brad Smith, Steve Ballmer, and Sean Parker.

FWD.us is an organization that was built by key leaders in the tech community to promote policies that keep the US and its citizens competitive in a global economy. Among other themes, the reforms they’re rooting for regard immigration and education.

“We’re thrilled that Bill Gates (Microsoft), Brad Smith (Microsoft), Steve Ballmer (Microsoft) and Sean Parker (Facebook) – longtime advocates for vital policies like comprehensive immigration reform will grow our economy – are joining FWD.us’ efforts to organize and engage the tech community,” Joe Green, president of the group, said in a statement, quoted by AllThingsD.

The political advocacy group was launched earlier this month and has already attracted several other important names in the business.

With founders such as Mark Zuckerberg (founder and CEO of Facebook), Aditya Agarwal (VP of engineering at Dropbox), Drew Houston (founder and CEO of Dropbox) and Reid Hoffman (co-founder and executive chairman at LinkedIn), it is not surprising how fast the group is growing.

Even Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer has joined the effort and is listed as an important contributor at FWD.us. The same can be said about Eric Schmidt, executive chairman at Google.

However, while Zuckerberg might be the one the group’s image is immediately linked to, the FWD.us is not a Facebook affair.

However, many of the problems the group takes an interest in can be found on his agenda. For instance, legislative issues have prevented him from hiring talent from outside the U.S. Thus, immigration laws are on the group’s list of interests.

Now, with so many prominent names in the group (most leading Fortune 500 companies), it is expected that their political influence in Washington is to increase.