How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist | Hacker News Reader

How I Became U.S. Chief Data Scientist

whitehouse.gov

40 pointsdanso18 comments

The nugget was this:

> But then I took a calculus class — and it rocked my world. The lecturer really took the time to explain deep concepts and helped me see the intrinsic beauty. Today, when I explain some of the concepts I learned back then, I still call upon the way it was explained to me all those years ago.

We say we want kids to find their passion and interest. But, in many cases, the passion / interest is created by accident or serendipity. You can love a lot of topics if they are explained very well and in an interesting manner.

And by accident, you mean, a really great teacher. Had teachers who would move me into learning physics and chemistry. Then I had teachers who'd put me to sleep.

Passion can be kindled, that's for certain, but after a certain point it must come from within.

So I strongly believe in public schooling and the importance of education access for everyone, but I think this piece glosses over a few important links in the chain of events that lead to his success.

1) His father has a phd from MIT and founded a semiconductor manufacturer when DJ was 12, then went on to later become a VC.

2) The community college in question is De Anza College in Cupertino. This isn't just some random school that gave him the education to enter the previously unapproachable world of tech, Steve Wozniak went there.

We're still a long way from decoupling education and class. I think it's good that this case is being made, we just need to be more realistic when we talk about the successes we're seeing.

Wow, yeah, he certainly made it sound like CC got him there in a more significant way.

One thing I think the state of California does very well (where De Anza is located), is the transition from community college to world-leading universities (Ex: UC Berkeley, etc.) is very good (I think much better than other states). I knew many students who attended a community college for 2 years, and then went to UCLA or Berkeley (the college admissions seem very open to this), and they ended up saving money and doing very well after.

click bait title, no real hard information, and more trying to sell universal access to community college.

Am I the only person who doesn’t give a shit about our government having a Chief Data Scientist, a CTO, and every other tech-related position? After what Snowden leaked to the world, the government, including some of these who the government has hired, are trying to convince us to spend a year or two working for the government? They’ve straight up lied to the American people about their capabilities. Why should I want to work for them if scrapping that isn’t within my power?

Also, pushing more people into community college isn’t inherently a good idea. Are people still unaware of the higher education bubble?

Technology, and those who fully understand it, is absolutely vital in not only efficient government, but in efficiently monitoring and regulating it. You'll see the difference when trying to FOIA/FOIL an agency that gets it versus one that doesn't.

There's a lot more to technology and life than spying.

Indeed. A huge push in my agency is to comply with the initiative to make research data publicly available (https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/02/22/expanding-public-...). This isn't lip-service, we have strict local deadlines for getting data online.

The hurdles are entirely technological, almost everyone who works here (scientists anyway) love the principle.

I already posted it somewhere else - government is just like any other type of groups - consist of people. If you decide to withdraw yourself, you essentially let others decide. And if there will be more "bad" guys deciding, it will be worse for everybody. You change it by bringing more "good" guys into government, not other way around.

The higher education bubble only applies to four-year degrees. There's actually a shortage of Americans with a community college degree any nothing more. It's referred to as the "middle skills gap." There are currently 69 million Americans working in middle skills jobs, but the population is gradually aging out of the workforce.

So yes, pushing more people into community college is exactly what we should be doing.

Why would you condemn millions of US gov't employees for the actions of a few. It is short sighted to make this broad statements about people considering you have no idea what they do, the bureaucracy that have to cut through, and finally the half-assed tools they have to use to do their jobs. By the time most are done with their work the last thing on their minds is how they can screw people over.

If you aren't interested in working for the government then fine, thats your prerogative. Also consider that some have joined the federal workforce to help change things as opposed to inaction.

If you work in an agency, you have to deal with the fact that (for example), every separate Intranet web service was built by a separate low bidder.

So I log into one insane and poor system to do travel, a different one for purchases, a different one for HR forms, etc. etc. and they're all ugly, hideous and broken (and let's not get started on the 20 passwords with different complexity rules and change schedules).

Regardless of politics, there are people working for the government doing approved-of things who need better organizational support from the top.

Relentless self-promotion?

Oh, community college.

And? Or perhaps, so?

There are many education pathways to a good career. The traditional 4 year college after high school is only one of them. It's great to see real examples of these different pathways.

Interestingly, he was Chief Product Officer of Color Labs, one of the more buzzy failures of the last few years.

Not knocking his other accomplishments. I'm just surprised I haven't seen it mentioned in any of the recent press he's been getting (even the tech press).

good ol' hustle

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