

Who would you want as CTO of the US? - danw

Who would you nominate to take the new position of the CTO of the USA that will be created?
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SwellJoe
Jonathan Schwartz, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt. Not necessarily in
that order...and all of them would have to take a _massive_ pay cut to take
the position. But, then again, all of them are already fantastically wealthy.
The fact that I doubt any of them would accept the position is just more
reason to like them for the position--they don't strike me as being in it for
the power (or the money).

Some other possibilities: Tim Berners-Lee, Marc Andreesen, and the previously
mentioned Lawrence Lessig.

There are quite a few old UNIX guys who I'd trust in the position, but I doubt
they're high profile enough in the world at large to get tapped. Ken Thompson
and Dennis Ritchie, in particular (you don't get any more "old UNIX" than
those two guys). They received some sort of national award a few years
back...but don't have a lot of administrative or management experience. But I
dunno what a CTO of the USA would be doing. Since it's a cabinet position, I
would guess it would be an advisory position rather than an actual
administrative or managerial role, despite the use of "CTO".

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rms
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=338507>

Lessig is my pick

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gojomo
Do any corporations have a lawyer as their CTO?

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rms
I like him for his pro-freedom stance; that's all. It's an unrealistic pick.

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kqr2
Is the CTO supposed to be IT focused? If not, then we would want someone who
has a broad strategic view of technology.

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danw
Part of the difficulty is that there is no definition of what the CTO role
will entail. Decisions on legislation that affects technology? Choosing
technology strategy for government agencies?

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known
Who would you want as CIO of the US?

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vparikh
Alan Kay

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gruseom
Great suggestion, but I wonder how good he is as an administrator.

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MaysonL
Amory Lovins.

