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Resistance, as they say, is futile. According to the Google Transparency Project, and reported by watchdog.org "More than 250 people have moved from Google and related firms to the federal government or vice versa since President Barack Obama took office."
22 former White House officials went to work for Google and 31 executives from Google and related firms went to work at the White House or were appointed to federal advisory boards by Obama. Those boards include the President's Council on Science and Technology and the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
Of additional interest, besides revolving doors between Google and the FCC, 25 officials in national security, intelligence or the Department of Defense joined Google, and three Google executives went to work for the DOD.
I think ordinary discussion of market forces, laissez-faire and the role of Government is irrelevant in regards to a system in which this is normal and institutionalized practice.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday August 11 2016, @01:11PM
Suffice to say that some of the people at Google are good at their jobs. Why shouldn't government be trying to hire some of them to fix their many IT problems? Also, what did they find when they asked a similar question about the other IT giants, like Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle?
There might indeed be something nefarious going on, but 250 people in government who have worked for Google does not qualify as something nefarious.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by n1 on Thursday August 11 2016, @01:41PM
You get the most experienced people from the industry to guide the government moving forward, this is especially important in technology to make sure they don't stifle the innovations in social media manipulation and advertising/marketing.
It's the same reason we hire ex-bankers to regulate the financial services industry, or investigate their previous employers actions (sometimes even covering the periods they were employed there), and people from military contractors and think-tanks sponsored by weapons manufacturers find their way as national security advisers or the like. They're the most qualified and have the most nuanced understanding of the industry they are dealing with.
We need more unelected technocrats not less!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @02:20PM
Obama hired away senior people from Google, and those people in turn hired some of their favorite staffers. What's the big deal? If Obama hadn't been hiring from Silicon Valley, the story would've been "Obama keeps hidebound bureaucrats with mainframe backgrounds to manage complex systems and technological issues".