'Fund it, not run it': big tech's universal basic income project has its skeptics

Y Combinator will give up to 100 people money for basic needs but tech incubator with deep pockets leaves some in Oakland questioning leadership

The Black Panther party began experimenting with "survival programs" in its hometown of Oakland, California, nearly 50 years ago. Programs like Free Breakfast for Children side-stepped government bureaucracy and directly provided people with food, clothing, healthcare and schooling.

Fast forward to 2016, and the wealthy capitalists behind Y Combinator could not be more different than the Marxist-Leninist black revolutionaries. But on 31 May, Silicon Valley's premier startup incubator announced a project that in some ways recalls the radical experiments of the 1960s and 70s.