But the tech czar would almost certainly be deeply involved in overseeing a federally-backed $50 billion venture capital fund that Obama has proposed to develop more environmentally friendly technology.

As the WSJ notes, Google is increasingly coming under the regulatory scrutiny of the feds, and it seems like there would be all sorts of conflict of interest issues for Schmidt as CTO.

Of course, there are ways to mitigate that conflict: require him to sell all his Google stock, prohibit Schmidt from working at Google for at least 10 years after he leaves government, and require him to recuse himself from any policy discussions that could affect Google's business.

But Google is so big and influential now that it seems like half the issues a federal CTO would be addressing would touch on Google's business in one form or another. The same would likely hold true for bigwigs from, say, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, the Linux community or wherever.

Overall, picking a retired exec or perhaps an independent university researcher might be a better bet, with less potential conflict of interest. Maybe someone like Tim Berners-Lee (invented the Web, you know).

But we already have an FCC chairman who handles some of that (and BusinessWeek notes the potential for conflict between that position and the CTO), an assistant secretary for cyber security at Homeland Security, and a presidential science adviser. Does the president really need another technical adviser?

said by TKJunkMail :

Given the state of the economy and the already horrendous budget deficit expected to reach over $500 billion in the coming fiscal year...

said by TKJunkMail :

There are all sorts of conflict of issues involved if an exec from a large technology company would be asked to fill the position.

said by bent :

Since this is a overtly political thread, I'd just like to remind everyone that there was a budget surplus at the end of the Clinton years.

said by bent :

This the technological direction of this country needs to be more Google-like and less M$-like.

said by pnh102 :

How are the two companies any different? Both seek to make maximum profit for their shareholders.

said by rdmiller :

Sorry. I'm an Obama supporter and I never heard of this.

said by bent :

The philosophies of how they go about doing that are vastly different.

said by TKJunkMail :

They are 2 sides of the same coin separated by ten years of history.

said by bent :

I'm not so sure... who exactly did Google steal the search engine from?

said by pnh102 :

People and companies should be free to innovate and create new technologies as they see fit.

said by rdmiller :

Sorry. I'm an Obama supporter and I never heard of this.

Bring Government into the 21st Century: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will use technology to reform government and improve the exchange of information between the federal government and citizens while ensuring the security of our networks. Obama and Biden believe in the American people and in their intelligence, expertise, and ability and willingness to give and to give back to make government work better. Obama will appoint the nation's first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an interagency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.

Provide $50 billion to Jumpstart the Economy and Prevent 1 Million Americans from Losing Their Jobs: This relief would include a $25 billion State Growth Fund to prevent state and local cuts in health, education, housing, and heating assistance or counterproductive increases in property taxes, tolls or fees. The Obama-Biden relief plan will also include $25 billion in a Jobs and Growth Fund to prevent cutbacks in road and bridge maintenance and fund school re­pair - all to save more than 1 million jobs in danger of being cut.

Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we can get broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation's wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives.