[IP] 2 on rumors re Obama's CTO

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Sarah Lai Stirland" <stirland@gmail.com>
Date: January 5, 2009 10:35:58 AM EST
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] Any rumors re Obama's CTO

yes, there's been a lot of speculation for weeks that it could be
Vivek Kundra, DC's CTO:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/04/AR2009010401235.html?hpid=moreheadlines

His blog: http://vivekkundra.blogspot.com/

On Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 6:26 AM, David Farber <dave@farber.net> wrote:
> NY Times says will be announced Wednesday. Any good rumors?
>
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Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Date: January 5, 2009 11:41:12 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Any rumors re Obama's CTO


On 01/05 09:26, David Farber wrote:
> NY Times says will be announced Wednesday. Any good rumors?

Media has been ramping up on this one.  Here is a UK Guardian article
from a couple of days ago where Vint Cerf discusses his thoughts on
what sort of person might be best suited to fill the job (and includes
the statement by Vint that he had not discussed such a position with the
Obama team):

http://guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jan/02/politics-obama-white-house

Here's the BBC's speculative take, with an older list of proposed
names, but including the now current addition of Steve Jobs to the
list.  They also note that the top interest of Web posters on the
Obama CTO Website is Internet access and neutrality (of course, that's
a self-selected survey). Second top topic was privacy and repeal of
PATRIOT Act:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/01/obamas_cto.html

However, Steve Job's current health is now admitted to be problematic:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7811857.stm

I do agree with observers who have speculated that such a role might
perhaps best be filled by someone who has significant high-level  
business
operations experience, rather than someone more strictly from
the academic or engineering realms.  But the calculus in such
decisions is complex, so it's anyone's guess at this point.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800


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