US CTO Choice Down To a Two-Horse Race 284
theodp writes "Barack Obama apparently didn't return CmdrTaco's call. BusinessWeek reports that the choices for the first US CTO have narrowed, and it's now a two-horse race between Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's CTO, and Vivek Kundra, who holds the same title for the Government of the District of Columbia. Two very different resumes — which would you advise Obama to pick?" I just know I was #3 on the list.
I vote other (Score:1, Insightful)
No Cisco, no gov't hack.
we need credible change
Cisco Guvmint (Score:3, Insightful)
Didn't know either existed.
On the basis that Cisco functions and makes money, while DC is a disaster, Cisco_guy++.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Answer is obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
If I had to choose between the two, which apparently I would (not that my decision makes ANY difference whatsoever), I'd have to go with the dude from Cisco. He at least has his roots, however good they may be, in a business and not a "cushy government job."
Re:Answer is obvious? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yea but he will make those federal employees actually work hard. They already think they are working hard, But when a guy from the private sector comes in. They run straight to the union... vs. actually just doing the work.
Re:Cisco vs. Wash DC? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, the government sucks, so by no means should you consider working for the government, even if the point of the particular job they're offering you is to make the government less sucky. I guess the suckiness of government is somebody else's problem.
You know, your attitude sucks.
Ungrateful twat (Score:5, Insightful)
You leeches, you scrimp on your taxes, never thank the government, and then have the gall to tar all public servents - people who spend their best years serving YOU - with the same, tired accusations. Tell me, how to you square the 'public service = cushy' claim with the 'US = most powerful country' circle? Do you think the infrastructure, social safety net, military, judiciary, etc., all just run on automatic?
Re:Doesn't matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless Obama delegates some serious executive power over the federal bureaucracy, this will just be a cushy job for the next several years.
I completely agree. But, at the risk of suffering a crisis of cynicism, perhaps you could explain why you're so certain that Obama won't delegate serious power to this position?
Re:Cisco vs. Wash DC? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up. Never understood this particular American obsession with tearing down the government and then proudly claiming it sucks. Sounds insane to me.
Blame Ronnie Raygun. He popularized the idea that "government is the problem" [reaganlibrary.com], while blowing enormous quantities of money on militarization, possibly in hopes of bankrupting the federal government [thenation.com]. Never trust someone to run something when they believe it's a stupid idea to begin with, they'll usually just mess it up [nytimes.com].
what happened to bill joy as a possible choice? (Score:4, Insightful)
there's gonna be some oldtime hardliners who'll remember "a time when there wasn't a fancy-pants US CTO, and don't really see a need for one..." once the prejudice and ignorance are washed away, then the CTO will actually make a difference.
on a side note, what happened with talk of Bill Joy becoming CTO? not to taut nativism, but he is an American(born and bred), author of vi, backbone of the original BSD rollout and co-founder of Sun.
whats up with that?
Re:China (Score:3, Insightful)
Given that Cisco is the company that provided China with most of its network solutions for the so-called "Great Firewall"
And you don't think that somewhere, some agency is looking at that as a positive? Especially considering the wiretapping/network monitoring in recent years...
Re:Answer is obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I vote other (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying Obama will be terrible, but it's not really a challenge to be better than Bush, so if that's your only hope for the next decade I'd suggest you consider raising the bar.
Kobayashi Maru (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you want to die by way of eaten by sharks, or would you rather have wolves?
I honestly don't think either candidate is qualified for the position. We already know that Cisco is willfully ignorant, even hostile, towards FOSS and I imagine quite a lot of that mindset is endorsed by the CTO's office.
Is it too late to clean the slate and start over?
Padmasree is forward thinking, and the best pick (Score:3, Insightful)
As Cisco's CTO Padmasree Warrior has led many changes inside of Cisco.
1. Green DataCenter initiatives - She has led the charge in lowering power consumption of existing DataCenters by utilizing new technologies, as well as consolidating sites. This has a direct financial impact, as well as being good for the environment.
2. Focus on collaborative tools and teams - she has really pushed to break down the silo's between teams by providing the tools and technologies to seamlessly share information between teams.
Most importantly, she is a forward thinking technologist, not a bureaucrat. If I am going to trust anybody to drive the technical vision of the federal government, I am going to trust Padmasree.
Re:Cisco vs. Wash DC? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cisco vs. Wash DC? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll accept the idea that the government is the problem, only if it means getting rid of government-sanctioned monopolies (IP) and government-sanctioned non-existent individuals (corporations).
If a government exists, it has to do its job regulating, taxing, and doling out benefits. If it doesn't exist, then it should not be doing anything. Following any intermediate path is just a method for the powerful to remain in power.
Re:Answer is obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're reading what are essentially press releases and deciding that they're qualified from that? One or both might well be the best person for the job, but I can write some pretty glowing words about myself that make me sound like the best fit for the job, too.
Re:google apps for whole government (Score:1, Insightful)
I think there was a lot of smack thrown around above about Kundra by people who have no situational awareness of what is going on in DC.gov. I am an IT professional and a DC citizen for 15 years. I think this guy is a truly innovative and entrepreneurial thinker - he is a change agent who is demonstrating the creativity, work ethic and balls to make an impact on a hugely change-resistant bureaucracy. He also has experience running effective government IT organizations. My only regret if he gets the nod from Obama will be that DC loses his sorely needed talent.
Re:Cisco vs. Wash DC? (Score:2, Insightful)
As we have seen over the last several months, it is the notion that there truly exists "a free market" (which, by definition, includes a well-informed public) that is the problem. Without governmental oversight, markets are manipulated, the public is cheated, and, just as in the early part of the 20th century, a privileged few were allowed to amass staggering wealth at the expense of everyone else.
RE: Cultural Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Lord knows I am going to get slammed for this...but where is the white guy?
I am afraid that Congress, behind closed doors, is still a racist institution. I'm afraid that either person will not be as succesful in navigating those waters with ties back to India. (Or Russia, or China, etc.)
Re:Cisco vs. Wash DC? (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, he helped bankrupt the Soviet Union. So yeah, I give him credit for helping free millions from oppression.
Re:Oh Boo Hoo (Score:4, Insightful)
Then I hope it starts to get better soon, because there's nothing particularly interesting here.
Actually I think all those are interesting factoids. Mind you, they aren't necessarily representative of Obama's appointees or for that matter as bad as ones Bush made.
So the AG is from the Clinton admin. So he isn't a gun nut. Cry me a river.
It isn't a matter of him being a "gun nut" and trying to paint people who interpret the second amendment sanely as "nuts" does nothing to help your case. Whether they want to admit it or not, the second amendment clearly presents gun ownership as a personal right and there is tons of supporting documentation for that interpretation while pretty much just wishful thinking from the opposing camp. People who claim otherwise are just playing politics and trying to justify unconstitutional actions and laws because they thing it will get them or their party votes (which it often does). If a person is willing to basically lie about what the constitution says and usurp rights it protects (rather than getting the amendment overturned) then they are being unethical. You also have to wonder how they will interpret other very clear subjects in the constitution when it is to their benefit to misinterpret them.
Wake me when they're championing torture, bribing commentators, and making shady business deals in secret.
This is the "we're not as bad as China" defense constantly used by the Bush administration to try to paint their unethical acts as not as bad as others and therefor acceptable. It didn't fly then and it doesn't now.
Re:is this the best they can do? (Score:2, Insightful)
It was never clear what, apart from the silly phrase "Seamless Mobility", she actually contributed.
While it would not be correct to pin the massive failings of this formerly great company solely upon her, it must be considered that she was elevated to the CTO position by a management regime whose combined avarice and comprehensive ineptitude are now undeniable.
Her qualifications are not stellar, and her actual record of performance at anything apart from being hired into high profile positions, is regrettably deficient.
Re:Cisco vs. Wash DC? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's true, one person working alone can't fix anything. Which is precisely why the pervasive cynicism is self-fulfilling.
A certain politician just got himself elected POTUS almost purely because he convinced a lot of people that he knows how to change all that. Maybe he's full of it, maybe not. But if he actually does what he claims he can do, it won't be through any top-down process. It'll be him and a lot of other people working with him, not for him.
Yeah, I drank the Obama koolaid. Still waiting to see if it stays down.
Re:Ungrateful twat (Score:3, Insightful)
As someone who worked in British public sector, a nation that is also very powerful in the world and that arguably has better social safety than the US (free healtcare for one) I can assure you it's nothing to do with hard work in public sector.
Speaking to people from the US and in many other countries about it when I have I get the impression public sector is pretty much the same in large parts of the world.
The reason it does it's job is because it has vast amounts of money thrown at it and 3 people to every job that's actually required. When you throw that much money and that many staff at a problem there's a chance someone's at least going to manage to achieve something, and that's effectively how it works.
If public sector was full of good people like you seem to infer, it could be done with half the budget and quarter of the staff.
The reason I left for private sector was because I and a select few others there who also worked hard got sick of carrying everyone else in the department. Since we all left, the department has been outsourced as it was simply deemed to be failing for a while after we went. Unfortunately, the people that worked in our department weren't sacked, no, they were given equally cushy jobs in other departments. A friend who still works elsewhere in public sector has given up working hard, works at home 2 days a week and classes these as days off, does little when he's there and still gets paid a decent amount- he realised this is the best way to get by in public sector because if you dare work hard or try and improve things you get shot down and made to feel like crap.
So yes, it is a cushy job, because you really don't have to work hard when there's 3 other people doing the same job as you when it only needs one of you. The pay is good and because of unions there's no risk of losing your job no matter how incompetent you are.
Public sector departments run because of quantity not quality. Unfortunately, quantity is horribly inefficient and costly, but no government is going to deal with it because hey, what better way than to create thousands of unneeded jobs to keep unemployment figures down and make your country look great?
Yeah there are good people in public sector, I don't deny that, but they're few and far between, suggesting public sector as a whole is full of good hard working people is completely and utterly ignorant of the reality, and again yes, it seems to be the same in large parts of the world.