10 ms·

White House Names Google’s Megan Smith the Next CTO of the US

217 points by llamataboot 12y ago

khc 12y ago
"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/amac0/6b17b0ca497e9cb1f375/raw/awaitingresponse.js https://gist.githubusercontent.com/amac0/6b17b0ca497e9cb1f37... , 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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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 12y ago
      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.
- teachingaway 12y ago
  >> ... really it's two lines of actual logic different... Still awesome. We got a guy in the White House who has written two lines of code!!
Someone1234 12y ago
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).
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  "Because, to me, this role's primary job should be to rangle in the technology contractors who are near constantly ripping off the US Government and under-performing/failing to deliver." Not a bug, WONTFIX.
- Amezarak 12y ago
  > 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)? Why do you think Megan Smith was chosen? Google has lobbyists and the right political connections. Fortunately the candidate has good credentials as well.
- chton 12y ago
  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.
worklogin 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.
  - api 12y ago
    Very good point. DC should be reaching outside its toxic beltway bandit ecosystem in general any time it wants anyone talented at anything other than milking the Federal cow.
  - worklogin 12y ago
    I suppose you're right: If not Google, then who? But I don't think it's entirely fallacious: The US government is a toxic organization, and I hope Google keeps true to its civic duty to resist government spy agendas. To be fair, their technical wing seems to be trying, with end to end email encryption and PFS.
  - azakai 12y ago
    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.
metacorrector 12y ago
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 12y ago
  Alex Macgillivray has a reputation as a staunch free speech and privacy advocate. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/twitter-alex-macgillivray-free-speech http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/twitter-al...
  - gress 12y ago
    ... who was happy to work for Google.
    - CatMtKing 12y ago
      tbh, if it changes anything, Google ought to hire more privacy advocates.
    - ben336 12y ago
      actually he worked for Twitter :) 2 different people under discussion here.
      - DannyBee 12y ago
        amac worked at Google before Twitter.
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      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.
spindritf 12y ago
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/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formali...
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
  Not the first kook either.
sadfaceunread 12y ago
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.
miles932 12y ago
Megan Smith is a complete package. Hyper brilliant. Very excited to see her make a substantial impact!
nickthemagicman 12y ago
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.
- valarauca1 12y ago
  I'm really happy this position was given to a women. Can we please not use a term like "Chick" to refer to a person who holds a position in the white house?
  - Govannon 12y ago
    I'm really happy this position was given to a woman.
    - valarauca1 12y ago
      As am I! Its the only way we as a society can move past stuff like this.
      - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
        I think we aren't past it until we express delight in credentials and achievements, and not gender. We shouldn't be happy that a woman got the position, we should be happy that a qualified person did.
  - MrZongle2 12y ago
    In the long list of terms used to refer to individuals who are in the White House, "chick" is pretty tame.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  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.
DanielBMarkham 12y ago
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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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.
  - Chronic29 12y ago
    You can select any other company far from becoming a powerful monopoly such as Dropbox or Facebook.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
golemotron 12y ago
I hope that sometime in my lifetime government will stop trying to ape the nomenclature of business.
abhiv 12y ago
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_ 12y ago
  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 12y ago
Wow, I wonder if the Washington posts jaw hurts after writing this fellating sack of courage propaganda horseshit.
scrame 12y ago
Wow, I wonder if the Washington posts jaw hurts after writing this fellating sack of courage propaganda horseshit.
known 12y ago
US need CIO, not CTO

217 points by llamataboot 12y ago

khc 12y ago

"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/amac0/6b17b0ca497e9cb1f375/raw/awaitingresponse.js https://gist.githubusercontent.com/amac0/6b17b0ca497e9cb1f37... , 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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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.
teachingaway 12y ago
>> ... really it's two lines of actual logic different... Still awesome. We got a guy in the White House who has written two lines of code!!

Someone1234 12y ago

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).

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
"Because, to me, this role's primary job should be to rangle in the technology contractors who are near constantly ripping off the US Government and under-performing/failing to deliver." Not a bug, WONTFIX.
Amezarak 12y ago
> 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)? Why do you think Megan Smith was chosen? Google has lobbyists and the right political connections. Fortunately the candidate has good credentials as well.
chton 12y ago
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.

worklogin 12y ago

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 12y ago
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.
- api 12y ago
  Very good point. DC should be reaching outside its toxic beltway bandit ecosystem in general any time it wants anyone talented at anything other than milking the Federal cow.
- worklogin 12y ago
  I suppose you're right: If not Google, then who? But I don't think it's entirely fallacious: The US government is a toxic organization, and I hope Google keeps true to its civic duty to resist government spy agendas. To be fair, their technical wing seems to be trying, with end to end email encryption and PFS.
- azakai 12y ago
  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.

metacorrector 12y ago

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 12y ago
Alex Macgillivray has a reputation as a staunch free speech and privacy advocate. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/twitter-alex-macgillivray-free-speech http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/twitter-al...
- gress 12y ago
  ... who was happy to work for Google.
  - CatMtKing 12y ago
    tbh, if it changes anything, Google ought to hire more privacy advocates.
  - ben336 12y ago
    actually he worked for Twitter :) 2 different people under discussion here.
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      amac worked at Google before Twitter.
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    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.

spindritf 12y ago

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/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted.html http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/04/formali...

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
Not the first kook either.

sadfaceunread 12y ago

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.

miles932 12y ago

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

nickthemagicman 12y ago

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.

valarauca1 12y ago
I'm really happy this position was given to a women. Can we please not use a term like "Chick" to refer to a person who holds a position in the white house?
- Govannon 12y ago
  I'm really happy this position was given to a woman.
  - valarauca1 12y ago
    As am I! Its the only way we as a society can move past stuff like this.
    - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
      I think we aren't past it until we express delight in credentials and achievements, and not gender. We shouldn't be happy that a woman got the position, we should be happy that a qualified person did.
- MrZongle2 12y ago
  In the long list of terms used to refer to individuals who are in the White House, "chick" is pretty tame.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
sergiotapia 12y ago
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.

DanielBMarkham 12y ago

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 12y ago

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 12y ago
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.
- Chronic29 12y ago
  You can select any other company far from becoming a powerful monopoly such as Dropbox or Facebook.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

golemotron 12y ago

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

abhiv 12y ago

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_ 12y ago
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 12y ago

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

scrame 12y ago

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

known 12y ago

US need CIO, not CTO