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Comment by EddieRingle | Hacker News Reader

> FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer

He worked in their legal department for 2-3 years 15 years ago. All of his other time has been spent has a public servant. People need to stop bringing this up, because it only muddies the actual policy debate.

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Let's wait and see where he ends up. If he doesn't immediately go back to telecom after his appointment is over, then I'll agree bringing up his history wasn't warranted.

I'm curious, where would you expect someone with years of experience in a specific industry to go after public office? Besides public office, of course.

A company that didn't benefit from his appointment. Is that crazy to expect? Is it really that hard to find?

Not into the arms of a large company they were regulating. It means they have a massive conflict of interests.

Yeah, it's the obvious choice for him, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't set up perverse incentives.

If I wrote regulations that benefitted Google, I would hope I’d go work at Qualcomm or somewhere unrelated. It gives the appearance of quid pro quo.

If I started selling a product that may have benefited a future employer, should I not work for that employer in the future? Not saying these are at all equivalent situations given the amount of power Pai but curious all the same.

This shouldn't be downvoted. We don't need to make up things about people to attack terrible policy and unethical behavior.

People downvote things that disagree with their biases. I thought Hacker News was better than this though.

It’s relevant regardless of tenure or history because all indications are that he votes for Verizon’s interests, not the public’s.

Most commissioners for all sorts of branches/govmt arms come from the private sector...But-but Verizon!!!

ugh. No one ever bothers to bring up this document either, which isnt going away... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_Open_Internet_Order_2010

It absolutely is going away. The courts ruled that those stipulations aren't enforceable unless ISPs are Title II common carriers.

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