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POLL

Ballmer or Bezos as Obama CTO?

By John Cook, Todd Bishop on November 6, 2008 at 7:51 AM PST

Comments (13) | Permalink

Technology | Bill Gates | Eric Schmidt | Jeff Bezos | Steve Ballmer

OK, so both of those guys have their hands full with big companies, but you never know what might happen. President-elect Barack Obama has started assembling his cabinet, and there's already been considerable buzz about Obama's plan to name the country's first chief technology officer.

So who should be the country's top geek?

We've seen speculation ranging from Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos to Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy. Why not Microsoft's CEO? Or as a bipartisan wild card, how about former eBay CEO Meg Whitman?

If you don't like the choices in the poll below, feel free to make a write-in vote in the comments. No matter who is chosen, he or she will have a lot of work to do, from improving the country's broadband infrastructure to tackling new energy initiatives. Which issues should the CTO tackle first?

Matt S. said:

on November 6, 2008 at 8:41 AM

I really hope Obama any of the above. They all business driven and not technology driven . . . not to mention the headaches of being biased. For example, if Obama picks Bill Gates the tech sector would explode! Gates our flood the government with Microsoft products, etc...

He needs to pick someone that isn't a CEO has no alignment. Someone who really understands technology and the ability to point all our infrastructures in the right direction - with the right product for the job!

We need someone that worked in the field, not business driven person who directed the field.

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Brent S. said:

on November 6, 2008 at 9:11 AM

How about Tim O'Reilly?

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Bill said:

on November 6, 2008 at 9:49 AM

None of these candidates makes any sense.

Ballmer and Bezos aren't technologists, they're business people (and Ballmer is a terrible business person). Bill Joy is a whack-job.

Vint Cerf and Eric Schmidt are the only credible choices here, but they both work at Google now.

The rest of the candidates are a joke.

I'm sure Obama's smarter than to pick any of these guys with the possible exception of Vint Cerf.

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Anonymous said:

on November 6, 2008 at 10:59 AM

How would people feel about Marc Benioff? What that guy's done with salesforce.com is pretty amazing and with recent cloud announcements it's right on par with the Amazon's, Google's and Microsoft's.

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Bob said:

on November 6, 2008 at 11:05 AM

As others have mentioned, he'd be smarter to take someone less obviously aligned with a particular business interest.

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Robert B. said:

on November 6, 2008 at 11:47 AM

An outstanding choice, someone who could promote a sound basis for real US leadership in technology in the future, is Dr. Ed Felten, of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy.

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David Geller said:

on November 6, 2008 at 11:59 AM

I'm confused why people are even considering non technology people for the position in this straw poll. Balmer, Bezos, Elison, Benioff? These guys understand technology as components of their respective businesses but don't know it very deep. They're not CTO/CIO thinkers. Cerf is the closest. Joy is certainly brilliant but way too wonkish.

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Cocoa said:

on November 6, 2008 at 1:05 PM

Steve Jobs.

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jcricket said:

on November 6, 2008 at 6:43 PM

Definitely none of the people in the for-profit, public, business world. I'm not anti-business, but we need someone who at their core is not trying to make a profit, or driven by the latest trends.

The last thing we need is someone trying to implement Windows uber-alles (or Mac uber-alles, if you prefer) across the government. Or short-sitedly doing massive cost cutting or whatever to please their "shareholders" (whomever that might be). Just the wrong mindset for the position.

Someone with an academic and/or consulting background (esp. successfully implementing technology in state agencies) would be better - from Princeton, MIT or Stanford's grad schools.

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Will Hill said:

on November 7, 2008 at 7:30 AM

David Reed or Bose Jr. would be good choices if you want to see good use made of spectrum. Bruce Perens, ESR and many others are good candidates if you care about software freedom and want some business background. The last thing needed is someone that represents intellectual monopolies and the non free legacy of the 1980s. They have made money for themselves at the expense of everyone else.

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dk1 said:

on November 7, 2008 at 8:25 AM

I cannot believe that anyone in their right mind would even consider putting Larry Elison or Steve Balmer on that list. Two tyrants and not very tech savvy.

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gaetano marano - NewSpaceAgency.com said:

on November 19, 2008 at 2:11 PM

.

you miss two of the best names in the poll!

- Bill Gates

- Nicholas Negroponte

however, if the CTO staff want to read some good advices about Spacecrafts and Spaceflights they can take a look at my Space blog:

http://www.ghostNASA.com/

and my articles about Space and Energy:

http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/articles.html

with very innovative ideas like the more ENERGY DENSE "Wind Energy Skyscrapers" power plants:

http://www.gaetanomarano.it/articles/028energy.html

.

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Sam said:

on November 20, 2008 at 2:16 PM

Lawrence Lessig?
http://lessig.org/info/bio/

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