
White House Names Google’s Megan Smith the Next CTO of the US - llamataboot
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/09/04/white-house-names-googles-megan-smith-the-next-chief-technology-officer-of-the-united-states/
======
Someone1234
My first reaction was "I didn't know the US had a CTO" and after a quick
Wikipedia search it appears as they didn't until 2009 under Obama who
appointed the first one.

The article nor Wikipedia make it clear exactly what a CTO's job in the White
House would really entail. It sounds like a bunch of random stuff which
utilise technology in some way or another.

But at least, for now, they have a technologist with decent technology
credentials. I wonder how long until those role gets given to someone with the
right political connections (or someone with good relationships with
technology contractors/lobbyists)?

Because, to me, this role's primary job should be to wrangle in the technology
contractors who are near constantly ripping off the US Government and under-
performing/failing to deliver.

They can try to spread technology in schools and such, but then they run into
the limits of the White House's powers and or the states right's dilemma
(although this could definitely promote third party educational resources,
like Coursera or Khan Academy).

~~~
chton
Considering they took a Google executive, this could already be "someone with
the right political connections". Google is one of the biggest lobbyists, I
wouldn't be surprised if this had something to do with their efforts.

Still, at least it's somebody with proper qualifications. A techie, not a
politician, so I'm hopeful either way.

~~~
ape4
Seems like their would be a conflict of interest when making decisions about
search, web-based mail, self-driving cars, mobile phones,... (Google stuff).
But I agree a techie is better than anything else.

~~~
deathhand
Would you rather have an exec from an ISP instead?(Comcast, Verizon, etc)

~~~
citizens
[https://fiber.google.com](https://fiber.google.com)

------
khc
"Macgillivray, though, also does a bit of engineering of his own. After
leaving Twitter, he hand-coded a script for resurfacing old Gmail messages to
which he hadn't yet replied."

The article links to
[https://gist.githubusercontent.com/amac0/6b17b0ca497e9cb1f37...](https://gist.githubusercontent.com/amac0/6b17b0ca497e9cb1f375/raw/awaitingresponse.js)
, which has a comment that says:

* This script is based on and is nearly identical to: * [http://jonathan-kim.com/2013/Gmail-No-Response/](http://jonathan-kim.com/2013/Gmail-No-Response/)

I don't think modifying an existing script counts as "hand-coded". Anyway, I
still find it interesting that WashingtonPost links to a javascript file
directly.

~~~
Someone1234
If you remove the top comments from both, there are only four lines changed
and one additional line (var searchLabel = 'inbox') added.

2 of the 4 lines changed simply alter the labels from "AR" (awaiting response)
to "No Response."

So really is is two lines of actual logic different and some labels.

~~~
ceejayoz
I think the takeaway here is not "he didn't change much" but "the new deputy
CTO for the US uses Github and knows enough about coding to adjust scripts to
his liking".

~~~
scintill76
Well, that just takes the wind out of our hate-sails. That's the charitable
(and probably objective) interpretation. I guess people are taking issue with
"hand-coded", which is an odd term that may imply things that aren't really
true. It's possible it did indeed mean "customized" though.

------
miles932
Megan Smith is a complete package. Hyper brilliant. Very excited to see her
make a substantial impact!

------
sadfaceunread
Having briefly met with Megan a couple years ago, I'm pleased with this
appointment. She asked good questions and seemed to think through the
consequences of rough conceptual ideas diligently.

------
DanielBMarkham
Just to give some idea of the scale of things we're talking about, there's a
Federal CIO council[1], with scores of memebers. The Feds have tons of
agencies spending hundreds of billions on IT. Most all of these agencies were
created by _Congress_ , not the president, and although they report up the
executive branch, they're also accountable to various and sundry legislative
committees. Many times the decisions around tech and contracting have been
legislated in some fashion. They just aren't made off-the-cuff.

The CTO is truly a stupendous job, even for someone working at Google scale. I
would be very surprised if this turned into an operational role. I imagine it
would be advisory and policy-based only. There's simply too much to get your
head around and not a lot of levers to pull to make things happen like it does
in the commercial world.

Still, I am very optimistic that there is much goodness to be done here. It's
just not a CTO job in the way most of us would understand.

[1] [https://cio.gov/](https://cio.gov/)

------
ksk
On the surface of it, I don't mind that they recruited from the industry.

However, if the CTO is in a position to influence government contracts or
other spending towards Google, then I would be against this - same principle
applies to ex-Goldman Sachs execs taking up key finance related Government
positions.

~~~
tinalumfoil
What other choice do they have? They're not going to hire someone right out of
college and there aren't a ton of people already in government that have the
qualifications for that job. It's difficult to blacklist people who have
former employment at a company when that company hires the best in the
industry.

------
worklogin
If there was any doubt that Google is in the sack with the US government, this
consistent funnel of execs from Google to the White House should quell it.

~~~
cromwellian
If the Whitehouse isn't recruiting top Silicon Valley talent to fill technical
positions, would you rather they fill them with executives from Washington
D.C. area beltway bandit management consulting companies?

They've got to go somewhere for the talent pool and credentials, and that
means tapping Google, Twitter, et al. It helps that Google and many Bay Area
companies lean progressive and helped both Obama's campaign, as well as fixing
ACA Web sites.

If the suggestion is this somehow proves some nefarious NSA connection because
a few employees went to work for the government, that seems pretty fallacious
to me.

~~~
azakai
I think the contrast is to the complaints we often hear when a top financial
position is an ex-Goldman exec. Or in general when a top regulator is
recruited from the industry they will soon regulate.

In those cases too, you could say "well, how else would you rather they fill
those spots?" And yes, it is likely the a Goldman exec would have lots of
expertise in the financial sector, so it's a natural place to recruit from.

Still in both those cases, and with Google here, there are large potential
conflicts of interest. People that complain about Goldman execs in Washington
will also complain about this appointment, and there are valid reasons for
such complaints.

~~~
magicalist
One big difference is that the CTO role is _not_ as regulator, so you don't
have the large concerns you have with putting a cable company exec in charge
of the FCC, or an RIAA lawyer in charge of the DOJ's copyright enforcement
policy.

There may be some instances when a conflict of interest comes up, but as
others point out, that's virtually impossible to avoid for anyone with
expertise. Many here might not object to an academic being appointed to the
role who specializes in open source and advocating for the limitations of
copyright, but of course there's a huge conflict of interest there, too.

~~~
azakai
What would be the "huge conflict of interest" with an academic in this role?

~~~
magicalist
Sorry, I missed your response.

The conflict of interest would be their tendency to see everything from the
lens of their life's work, and of course to actively advocate for their
values, which are already well formed in the relevant domain.

Barring financial conflict of interest (e.g. stock still owned from the
previous job), it's just as much of a conflict of interest as someone
previously at one of these related companies but no longer employed there.

------
abhiv
I find this conflating of the US as a country and the US Government annoying.
Megan Smith is the CTO of the US Federal Government, which is an entity
separate from the US as a country.

It doesn't make sense for a country to have a "CTO". Do all technology
decisions made anywhere in the US have to have her approval?

Logically, if she were the CTO of the US, she would have as direct reports all
the CTOs of all the companies in the US.

~~~
corin_
The President is "of the United States" not "of the US Government", it doesn't
mean everyone in the country reports to him - I think you might be over-
thinking the terminology a little bit.

------
scrame
Wow, I wonder if the Washington posts jaw hurts after writing this fellating
sack of courage propaganda horseshit.

------
golemotron
I hope that sometime in my lifetime government will stop trying to ape the
nomenclature of business.

------
known
US need CIO, not CTO

------
metacorrector
Because US citizens need somebody from Google's business model and school of
thought fighting for us on the inside and helping the gov't formulate our data
and privacy policies?

~~~
llamataboot
Alex Macgillivray has a reputation as a staunch free speech and privacy
advocate.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/twitter-
al...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/twitter-alex-
macgillivray-free-speech)

~~~
gress
... who was happy to work for Google.

~~~
DannyBee
My how history gets rewritten so quickly.

If you want to assault Andrew's credentials as a staunch defender of free
speech, etc, you are going to have to do better than "he worked at Google".

He worked at Google at a time when Google really was on the front lines of
defending this stuff, and _he_ was the one doing it.

If you want to blame Google, blame Google. Amac is pretty much unassailable,
IMHO. He was on the right side of every legal/policy decision I can think of
during his tenure. He eventually left, IMHO, precisely because he saw an
opportunity to be a staunch advocate for these kinds of things at twitter.

~~~
gress
Fair enough. At least you acknowledge that Google no longer stands for these
things.

~~~
DannyBee
I have never claimed Google no longer stands for these things. I just don't
believe Google is on the front lines anymore, because people (like you) damn
them either way.

~~~
tptacek
Their security teams do important work, and largely it seems because they
profoundly give a shit about these issues. They're still the front line
technically.

~~~
gress
On security, yes. On "free speech, etc.", no.

------
nickthemagicman
I'm really happy this position was given to a chick. Hopefully inspire more
girls to enter tech and help to mitigate the sausage fest that is the
technology industry.

~~~
sergiotapia
Her sex has nothing to do with this and I was hoping that for once the HN
thread wouldn't involve either side of the debate.

~~~
MrZongle2
No kidding. I would simply hope that the best PERSON for the job was appointed
to the position, gender (or race, religion or sexual orientation for that
matter) be damned.

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spindritf
US government has a CTO? Moldbug has advocated[1] turning the USG into a
corporation for some time now. Not the first prophet to be called a kook at
first.

[1] [http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formali...](http://unqualified-
reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted.html)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Not the first kook either.

