Padmasree Warrior is so obviously suited for this job. After all, she was one of those incompetent, political executives who ruined Motorola, then exited with golden parachutes into the arms of new companies (which, of course, extended a warm and hearty "golden hello" to them). People like her are part of what is utterly wrong with our economy - there's an entire group of people running large portions of government and industry in America whose only talent is in manipulating people and assets; they don't actually create ANYTHING.
And of course, we have the business press more than happy to engage in a round of brown nosing, as they are always in need of "sources familiar with the matter" and "unidentified executives" for their gossipy insider stories (how do you think all of those articles come to fruition? Looking through garbage?).
As thbe CTO of America is likely to continue the grand tradition of Corporate America wherein people make lofty public statements, issue press releases, and then hope someone else will take care of that oh-so-difficult task of actually getting something done, I wholeheartedly support Padmasree Warrior for this job.
If you Google for my name + Motorola, you will see where I am coming from on this matter.
Interesting stuff. But saying one of isn't saying anything specific. As the CTO of Motorola immediately prior to and during the launch and success of the RAZR, you don't think she helped to make the product a success? Seems like she left before the fallout but I guess it's possible to spin that as either cowardice or wisdom.
Do you have anything specific to criticize her for? Lumping someone in with a negative peer group, especially one who voluntary left for greener pastures, isn't a strong knock against them.
You just reminded me that, during her tenure, she was one of the people responsible for cutting back on American engineering talent (or whatever there was left after the 90s) and moving nearly everything to Chindia.
Yeah, AWESOME choice for the US CTO, Obama! That's change I can believe in!
Seems like she left before the fallout but I guess it's possible to spin that as either cowardice or wisdom.
I wonder if you would love to call it wisdom if warrior does the same as CTO of a whole nation - hopping into a golden parachute just before it slides down.
Come on, you need a founder's spirit and loyalty in all the top executives at least the CEO, COO, CMO and CTO if you need a company to exist and survive.
On a more serious note tho' you have to be real careful about giving entrenched industry people political power by appointment. Here in the UK we are still feeling the aftereffects of Beeching, a lifelong auto-industry man appointed by the UK government to look after transport. His plan was to tear up railway tracks, who needed them after all, when there were cars? Only now public mass transit is "in" and it's too late, the tracks are gone, the land has been sold off, what's left of the system is overloaded. You want to be real careful she doesn't start tearing out bits of physical infrastructure, it's hard to replace.
Wow, I did some quick research on Padmasree Warrior, and she's incredibly smart. From the Mobilize '08 keynote:
"We have this question today, this question of where mobile devices will go in the future. So the question at hand is, 'What is mobility, really?' And in my view, mobility is not the device. It's not the network. It is the mobile experience.
Mobility as a term has existed for quite some time, and for most of the time it has been synonymous with 'cellular network' and 'device'. This is because cellular networks were the first time we were truly free of wires. I think this has changed though, mostly because of the massive, enormous scale of adoption. More than three billion people on earth use a cellular device to communicate. Every second, four babies are born. In that same second, thirty mobile devices are sold. And we're just now starting to see the innovation beyond mere two-way communication in mobility."
I was a fan of warrior till the day she made a blog post on her first day at cisco, with her heart swaying the other way within hours. How can any passionate individual swing their strong opinions in hours, ofcourse it is just projected and fake. I lost the respect for her that day.
Her blog on motorola was extremely popular. Motorola took it down when she quit. Why would any large company do that unless there was huge amount of disconnect and disharmony with the leader who quit.
I was a fan but it all fell like a landslide, guess in reality she had captured many in a charm. I feel she is an impressive self promoter, probably a strong techie but weak at strategy. My cousin worked at Motorola and from what I hear, she probably was one of the key reasons why motorala doomed in the mobile run. She apparently predicted iPhone would be a massive failure when moto let the popular Razr phones die.
"How can any passionate individual swing their strong opinions in hours"
Umm, most smart, passionate people can swing their strong opinions within minutes, when presented with the appropriate data. George Soros is legendary for this; he's been known to back out of billion dollar investments the next day. Most good managers are like this too.
The crucial part is data, and how they evaluate that data. And not having read the blog post, I can't say whether Warrior's thought process makes sense. But I really hate the idea that "Passionate people cling to their ideas at all costs" - that's responsible for most of the failures and wasted effort in the world today.
not really. They were usually idiots, that were good at politiking. At least in my country, this was the case. If you came from a rural/villager family, you had a greater chance to move up, as long as you didn't step in the wrong toes, no regardless of your skills.
The follwoing is her first Cisco post - a tad too rabid for a CTO.
It is an exciting time to join Cisco.
Cisco is the company whose leadership legacy defines “The Network” in many ways. Today, it is a company driving many new paradigms in communications and information technology. In the future, it will be a company poised to lead the industry to the next phase of Internet evolution.
What are some of the characteristics of solutions driving the next wave of Internet evolution? We already see many precursors for this such as, Collaboration, Web 2.0, and Always-on Demand. Cisco has been at the forefront of this shift, where the network becomes the platform to deliver the next wave of applications and services.
Throughout its history, Cisco has demonstrated the ability to anticipate changes with a proven record of accomplishments for capturing market transitions. The company’s customer centric culture, unwavering commitment to technology, and passion for innovation, mark the platform for leadership. Leveraging the reality of globalization, integrating outside and inside ideation through well-executed acquisitions, a relentless focus on financials and flawless delivery of results, delineate Cisco’s platform for talent.
I'm surprised more people don't realize how short sighted it is to increase the power of government
Even if you think that Obama's ideas will be absolutely brilliant, and think he be able to increase the power of government to cause change which you want, it is still short sighted to increase the power of government. The reason is, your guy won't always be in charge, and when he isn't, someone you disagree with will be able to use these newly expanded powers in ways you don't want.
Everytime someone says, well we need a CTO to do this, because otherwise, the other party will do that, that person is setting themselves up for extreme disappointment. When the other party comes into power, these new found powers will be used against you, and you will be worse off than you were to begin with.
I want a small effective government and I vote Democrat. From what I can tell Democrats are more focused on actually reducing government spending than Republicans. As to the effects of "large government" look at how many freedoms each side wants to remove and Democrats win again. Limiting how old you need to be to buy video games pales in comparison to the loss of due process etc.
National Heath care might seem like bad voodoo, but the government is already pay for over 1/2 of all medical spending in the US yet medical bills are still the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. Most countries with a national heath care system spend less money per person and relative to their GDP than we do now and we still have a crappy patchwork. When a hobo shows up at a hospital he is going to get treatment and we are going to pay his bill but I still need to buy expensive medical insurance.
PS: I am a consultant working for the DoD and I have saved the US taxpayer millions. If you had any idea what games where being played you would probably also vote Democrat because it saves you money.
Perhaps I'm more cynical than most, but I don't think that having a CTO is increasing the size of government. Rather, they'd continue to make technology decisions (remember Ted "The Internet is a series of tubes" Stevens? Or Joe "Impetus for PGP" Biden?) yet be even more incompetent at it. Lack of expertise has never been a government roadblock before. I don't really like Obama's picks, but at least they have some technology background. I tend to believe that the government will try to legislate technology anyway; might as well focus on harm mitigation.
You're too young to remember ARPA - it is possible for government to make sane technology investments, but it does require taking them out of the hands of politicians.
Well said and this is a super hard choice too given the complexities of combining a nation, technology and politics.
A team of advisors would have sufficed but I guess the president needs someone more accountabile and of course lesser headache while ensuring this sector and its value spread across the rest is taken care of.
I've worked with Vivek Kundra a bit with his very revolutionary "Apps for Democracy" contest. The guy really gets it. He's smart and understands the power of openness and involving the outside for helping Government.
An interesting thing about him: when coming into power here in DC one of his first mandates was "District Government will operate off of the same data we make available to the public."
As such, remarkably, public data feeds coming out of the district got significantly better, more organized and more available.
Sounds obvious, but it was a big step for even a municipal Government to take.
Why does even business week get nailed with a bunch of jingoistic nonsense in their comments. I was hoping to read some interesting and informed thoughts, instead the comments read like Digg.
And of course, we have the business press more than happy to engage in a round of brown nosing, as they are always in need of "sources familiar with the matter" and "unidentified executives" for their gossipy insider stories (how do you think all of those articles come to fruition? Looking through garbage?).
As thbe CTO of America is likely to continue the grand tradition of Corporate America wherein people make lofty public statements, issue press releases, and then hope someone else will take care of that oh-so-difficult task of actually getting something done, I wholeheartedly support Padmasree Warrior for this job.
If you Google for my name + Motorola, you will see where I am coming from on this matter.