John Doerr’s Advice for Barack Obama: Hire Bill Joy | Hacker News Reader

John Doerr’s Advice for Barack Obama: Hire Bill Joy

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23 pointsksvs13 comments

Regardless of Bill Joy's qualifications, this is difficult to accept considering Bill Joy is a partner at John Doerr's firm. I'm not at all opposed to the idea of a national CTO, but this article appears to be a blatant attempt on the part of this firm to cozy up to a new administration. Any advice that primarily benefits the one giving the advice should be taken with a grain of salt. That's not to say Bill Joy is not qualified, but I have no doubt there are other equally qualified candidates available. I'm surprised this would even be posted here.

If Bill Joy is indeed the most qualified, why does it matter who recommended him? It seems natural that Doerr would make Joy a partner since Doerr thinks so highly of him.

We don't know if Bill Joy is the most qualified. My point is that we should question Doerr's agenda. If Bill Joy did become a part of the new administration Doerr's firm would likely reap huge benefits similar to the way Halliburton did when Cheney took office.

Maybe Bill Joy is such a swell guy that not only does Doerr want him as a partner but also playing a large role in our country's government. Maybe Doerr's unsolicited advice is completely impartial and in the country's best interest. I, for one, believe that to be a very unlikely scenario.

In any case, the fact is we can't take this sort of thing at face value.

Or it could be that Kleiner hired Bill Joy because John Doerr thinks he's a swell guy, and that John Doerr is recommending him for national CTO because he's a swell guy. Given that Joy only recently joined Kleiner (2005), I think this is more likely.

The reason we can't take Doerr's word at face value is just another application of Buchheit's Law: "Advice = Limited Life Experience + Overgeneralization". John Doerr does not know every highly-qualified technopreneur in the country. He knows a lot of them, but remember Joy's Law: "No matter who you are, the majority of smart people do not work for you." Personally, I think Bill Gates or Marc Andreesen may have a more relevant, feet-on-the-ground perspective, while being just as qualified technically.

I like the idea of a CTO advisory position and Bill Joy should be on the short list.

As to Chief Security Officer, I can't think of anyone that belongs on the list besides Bruce Schneier. In fact, can we just give the FTA and Homeland Security positions to Schneier for a few months to let him write sensible rules for security? He already has most of the rational documented.

I do not like the idea of a CIO under-secretary, or whatever. A CIO trying to pull together "cost-saving" across government agencies would be a bureaucratic nightmare. Best to have gov agencies start to operate more agile on their own.

As a side note, Kleiner's flying a Turkish flag on his new sailing toy may raise awareness about how the rich offshore money and avoid taxes (yes, I do understand how high luxury yacht taxes are and that this is standard practice). Doerr may want to be careful about not attracting too much attention to his friends that make most their income on capital gains ;).

Burt Rutan is the CTO America needs. He's a true Renaissance man. And he knows about working with government.

I think the CTO of the US should sell off any shares / stakes in technology companies to avoid conflict of interest.

Can someone substantiate the rumor that our beloved Treasury Secretary, Paulson, received tax exclusion when he was anointed to the position? I've read snips about this but don't know if its true or to what extent.

Yes.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/06/01/paulson-tax-loophole-cx_jh_...

By accepting the Treasury post, Paulson is poised to take advantage of a tax loophole that allows government officials to defer capital gains taxes on assets they have to sell to avoid a conflict of interest, as long as the proceeds are reinvested in government securities or a broad array of mutual funds approved by the government within 60 days.

It is hard to name good candidates for such a position unless/until the job description is known. Does technology = computers? If so, Bill Joy is a great choice. But what if it emphasizes engineering, or science, or medicine (or sub-disciplines of them)? Or all of them - how many polymaths are in the market right now? And how many of them want to work for the Govt?

Paul Graham recommended Peter Norvig. That surprised me.

If the CTO delegates projects and money, then the job is ill-suited for Norvig; The problems he'd be solving aren't abstract enough.

Besides, Peter is smart enough to come up with his own projects. And you shouldn't be recommending jobs to anybody smarter than you.

But it depends on the job description. And I realize this is just in jest and speculation. :)

Only 30,000 engineers graduate from US universities each year?! That seems low to me, but I guess I've never really thought about it.

I think it is low. I found this chart on Nation Center for Education Statistics' website that suggests its more like ~75k: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d06/figures/fig_15.asp?re... .

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