Google CEO in line for Obama tech guru role

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Dan Warne06 November 2008, 10:15 AM

Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who campaigned for US President Elect Barack Obama, may be in line for the tech chief spot on Obama's team.


President Barack Obama has created the position of Chief Technology Officer in his newly formed US government, but has not yet announced who will take the spot up.

However, it's telling that the position was created just before Obama made his first official visit to Google's headquarters while on the campaign trail.

Although Google as a company is officially politically neutral (and carried plenty of advertising for John McCain's Republican campaign), CEO Eric Schmidt personally endorsed Obama.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google employees contributed $487,355 to Senator Obama's campaign but a mere $20,600 to Senator McCain's (though Schmidt has not contributed to either.)

Obama's plans for the technology industry are also closely aligned with what Google has been arguing.

For example, Obama's #1 point in his 43 page tech policy is devoted to opposing internet providers interfering in the flow of traffic through their networks. Obama supports mandated net-neutrality, where ISPs are legally prohibited from disadvantaging traffic flow to competitors' services, for example.

Google has been the largest proponent of net-neutrality, after large US telcos starting demanding supplementary payments for carrying its vast quantities of traffic to end-users.

In Australia, because all data usage is metered, the net-neutrality debate is largely irrelevant, however, having the issue locked down in the US would help to ensure traffic-fiddling doesn't spread in popularity elsewhere in the world.

Obama has also shown that he sees the internet as a huge driver of economic growth — like how railways fuelled a boom in early America.

Wireless broadband over TV airwaves approved in US

Obama's ascendency to government coincides with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approving the use of massive tracts of analogue television spectrum to be used for wireless broadband once TV is switched to digital in the US.

This also augurs well for Australia's wireless broadband future: the valuable 700MHz analogue television spectrum will be freed up by 2013 when all analogue TV services are switched off in Australia.

Telstra Chief Technology Officer Hugh Bradlow told APC earlier this month that it is considering building a Long-Term Evolution (LTE) mobile network in the 700MHz frequency, which could have faster throughput than ADSL2+ and slightly better in-building penetration than the current Next G network.

The fact that the US is going ahead with broadband over analogue TV airwaves will also make it easier for Australian communication regulators to move ahead with the plan, after they've observed how well it works in the US.


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Tin (Regular user):

If Analog is turning off in 2013, NBN (that's the TV station, not the Rudd network) had better get their arse in gear and put their digital transmitters up!

Is it called irony when a PBL owned publication keeps mentioning something another PBL company is too lazy/tight-arse to do?

06 November 2008, 11:03 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Dan Warne (Administrator):

???

06 November 2008, 11:05 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tin (Regular user):

APC is published by ACP, who are owned by PBL. PBL also own NBN, who basically can't be bothered doing digital...

06 November 2008, 11:20 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Dan Warne (Administrator):

Well they're going to have to before 2013 :->

06 November 2008, 11:58 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

agami (User):

Every government should have a CTO.

If I were in Eric Schmidt's position I would gladly sell all my Google stock, and resign as CEO to take on this role. Nothing else in my short existence would ever come close to the honour and challenge this position would represent.

06 November 2008, 12:22 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Dan Warne (Administrator):

Absolutely. You'd (a) be supersonically rich, WITH a good excuse for flooding the market with your stock and (b) be able to make even greater change in the world than where you can in your position as head of Google.

06 November 2008, 12:27 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

djsflynn (APC staff):

Agreed. I really hope Schmidt takes up this post. Surely few things could compare to the honour and opportunity of working in the White House, serving a visionary and game-changing President and having in turn the ability to effect such positive change oneself... and not that Schmidt would need a single penny once he offloads his Google stock, but what a bloody great 'inside story' book (and series of lecture circuit speaks) it would make when it's all over.

06 November 2008, 2:20 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Tin (Regular user):

Quoting djsflynn:
serving a visionary and game-changing President

Blackness doesn't equal visionary. And he hasn't changed the game either... The people of the USA did that.

06 November 2008, 2:31 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

djsflynn (APC staff):

I didn't say blackness = visionary, but I'd say that Obama enunciated a clearer and more positive vision for America and its people than McCain, which was a deciding factor in his election.

And even if we're to judge by only what he's achieved to date, surely you'd have to agree that his campaign's tapping into and spurring grass-roots involvement, drawing record donations from Main Street rather than Wall Street, embracing technology such as the Net and SMS messages and YouTube in ways no politician in the world has ever done before, driving the largest voter turnout Kennedy in 1960 (and perhaps still to eclipse that once late postals are counted) and redrawing the US electoral map are ALL game-changing in the political game?

06 November 2008, 2:37 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Raindog (Senior Forumologist):

Quoting djsflynn:
enunciated a clearer and more positive vision for America

Some knob called Keven who'd be better placed in Toastmasters than parliament purported similar vision. And 12 months on same toilet and a few volumes of Hansard fully of wordy nothingness. We can only hope Obama is bigger on action than K07 and that the actions he instigates are the right ones.



06 November 2008, 3:04 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

djsflynn (APC staff):

Well, to keep it on US soil, let's reset the example to Jimmy Carter -- and I'll readily admit that given the number of Carter-era references during the election (cv the many times they cited states that'd not been Democrat since Carter), one of my hopes is that Obama doesn't turn out to be another Carter -- someone the US people turn to for hope but who eventually proves insufficient to the task and the difficult times, only to be turfed out after a single term when faced with a very different Republican challenger (Reagan, who was really the anti-Carter in the same way that Bob Hawke was the anti-Fraser). As for Kevin 07, even if progress in some fronts has been slower than I'd like, I'd not want to swap his first year for _another_ year of John Howard (or Peter Costello, if it came to that).

06 November 2008, 3:36 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

Raindog (Senior Forumologist):

Quoting djsflynn:
someone the US people turn to for hope but who eventually proves insufficient to the task

There sure is a lot of that going on, both here and in the US, the problem lies with the way we elect parliaments and with the scandal mongery that associates it. And for that media deserves a big raspberry, we all know media prefers a train wreck to stable and dour management, the former offers lots more to write about.

We have just seen the circus that is the US election system unfold and know all too well that it is a $$$ driven exercise. And in 2008 we find that surprise, surprise the leaders of the major AU parties both end up being the wealthiest participants. Work it out people.

Quoting djsflynn:
As for Kevin 07, even if progress in some fronts has been slower than I'd like

er what progress was this? There has been feel good ceremonies, lots of wordy rhetoric, but where did this actual progress occur? Health? Economically? Workplace relations? In science & technology? The last one irks particularly. The record so far on technology is to decimate the CSIRO, can a wimax network (which would firing up for regional Australia about now) and to waste millions on a plain stupid and innefectual laptops in schools project which labour state governments are unable to properly fund or implement. Progress?



Quoting djsflynn:
I'd not want to swap his first year for _another_ year of John Howard (or Peter Costello

it probably was time for the Howard years to end but simply for the reason that government had become stale and ineffectual and a government that became preoccupied with a noisy opposition rather than getting on with running the country. history has shown the Howard years to offer a stable economy and some innovation, even if delivery of the latter was too few for my liking.

I'll continue to judge K07 on its actual performance and not it's wordy rhetoric, thus far it's looking like 1973 revisited.

Obama has clearly won the wordcraft, in these difficult times, and with much worse to come, we can only hope that Obama has the actual skill, desire, and sense of fair play to back up the promises.


07 November 2008, 10:25 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

agami (User):

As far as the 700 MHz band made vacant by switching-off analogue TV transmissions, certainly the wavelength is more suited for extended range and obstacle penetration, though the longer the wavelength the less the data density and higher latency between error correction re-transmission.

A new data packing method will no doubt emerge to increase data density and consistency. 700 MHz may represent the sweet spot. At these frequencies I wonder what shape the antenna will take. It will not be the little nub currently on the Unwired modem.

06 November 2008, 12:34 PM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

pmx (User):

I wouldn't put Eric Schmidt in this job. There is a lot more to technology than IT or search engines.

Say what you like about the telco's. Providing that type of infrastructure requires serious experience and knowledge of the physical world rather than bean bags and nap machines.


17 November 2008, 11:04 AM (1 year ago)report abuse Send to a friend reply

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