Peter Thiel's former chief of staff, Michael Kratsios, to join Trump as Deputy CTO.
I was not aware that the US Government had a CTO. In fact, I am not sure what a CTO is , or what one does [Ed-Really, aristarchus? CTO]. But the fact that this one is a former chief of staff of Peter Thiel, well, that brings pause. In fact, I don't believe it. So we look for verification!
OK, Techcrunch says yes.
Also along for the ride: Michael Kratsios, Thiel's chief of staff, and Charlie Kirk, a 23-year-old wunderkind who blew off college to start a grass-roots organization dedicated to training young conservatives in the art of persuasion — and plugging them into the right networks.
Well, I guess at least one gets plugged, according to Politico.
And, according to "The Street", it is reported in Politico. I love how the news we aggregate is so self-referential and recursive, it is almost like an actual Unix file directory.
takyon: The Chief Technology Officer of the United States is a position within the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The positon was created under President Obama and requires Senate confirmation. The current U.S. CTO is Megan Smith.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Uncle_Al on Monday March 06 2017, @09:37PM (4 children)
self-referential == 'unverifiable'
this is not a good thing
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Monday March 06 2017, @11:18PM (3 children)
There's been a few sites that pop up from both sides of the spectrum that make me cringe a little when I see them being taken seriously here. Thankfully, those are usually in journals, but I've seen a few leak out as actual "stories".
So I'm on board. What do you propose to do about it? Cause I got nothing.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 07 2017, @03:20AM (2 children)
I've looked at seen both sides closely. The most radical left leaning sites are usually satire, such as the Onion. Good for a laugh but everyone knows it is all in good sport.
The far-right sites though take their fake news really really seriously. Using dubya's mantra of "If you repeat a lie enough times it becomes true".
Such as trump being wiretapped by obama. Some wanna-be alt-right shock jock (Mark Levin) threw that shit out on the waves to hopefully boost ratings.
No, the alt-right news medias are there purely to mislead anyone they can. Trump fell for it and now looks like a complete psychopath and an idiot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dyingtolive on Tuesday March 07 2017, @04:47AM
Usually satire, yeah. I can get lost in the Onion for quite a while, laughing my ass off. I'm more talking about things I enjoyed reading that have just lost all credibility lately, such as HuffPo and even WaPo. There's plenty of op-ed dressed up as fact, even on the left. They're just less bold about their statements. Meanwhile, the right has just spiraled into this bizarre pit where the most reasonable sounding news source they offer is Fox News, which is saying something (bad).
But I burned myself out pretty hard on news during the "election process" (read: monstrous clusterfuck) so I tend to restrict my own personal reading to Reuters and CSPAN, and then google to see if I can find sources that corroborate those stories. I'll also poke in on the occasional European right leaning tabloid and glace at National Review, but I treat those like the right version of the Onion.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by https on Tuesday March 07 2017, @08:52PM
That was not dubya's mantra - it was Goebbel's long before. Dubya's mantra was, "do my friends make a profit".
Does no one study history any more?
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @09:47PM (3 children)
Megan Smith is smart and well connected -- ex-Google before Obama named her Chief Technology Officer. Undergrad and grad school at MIT, no doubt she will land on her feet after this gig is over. Lots more, I don't have time to dig up a bio.
What are the qualifications of Michael Kratsios?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @10:10PM (1 child)
http://michaelkratsios.com/about [michaelkratsios.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday March 06 2017, @10:28PM
Lots of political bullshit there, but does he know anything about technology?
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 07 2017, @03:24AM
"What are the qualifications of Michael Kratsios?"
Does this really matter with this group?
Nobody else is. Why requite qualifications now?
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday March 06 2017, @09:50PM (3 children)
To be more generous to Aristarchus, I know what CTO stands for and implies at a tech company, but I'm not sure what the U.S. government CTO is, nor what he/she does. The better link may be this one [wikipedia.org], which is specific to that position. Technically, the CTO's actually title is as "associate director" within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and apparently it was only made into an official permanent position within the U.S. government earlier in 2017.
Even after reading that page and some of the accompanying links, I'm still not quite sure what all the U.S. CTO actually does. Clearly they aren't tasked with really overseeing "technology" for the whole U.S. government (e.g., previous CTO Todd Park apparently wasn't directly involved with the rollout of Obamacare's infamous marketplace website until after it became a disaster, despite even serving previously as CTO within Health and Human Services), and the description seems to imply some sort of advocacy position more than management.
But it's unclear. Maybe someone else here knows what the U.S. CTO does?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday March 06 2017, @10:20PM (1 child)
Maybe someone else here knows what the U.S. CTO does?
They retire in place and/or take credit for other peoples success and/or are fall guys. They don't appear to have responsibilities or direct reports. Its kinda like when one of my kids gets appointed "president of the back seat", which is especially meaningless when there's only one kid sitting there.
The first one is mostly famous for taking credit for the VA doing some EMR work. The second one was the obamacare dude who pushed a minimum viable product that actually worked when he was in HHS, then was appointed to CTO, then it crumbled a few years later, then he sorta kinda got stuck with it again and it eventually worked, although I'm unclear how he left the administration. The third one had a super promising career until the last couple years then stalled out and retired in place accomplishing nothing but collecting a salary.
I'm sure the 4th guy will just post memes on /pol/ all day, I mean what else is there to do?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @10:25PM
>I'm sure the 4th guy will just post memes on /pol/ all day, I mean what else is there to do?
damn my nigga VLM is sooo woke
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 07 2017, @07:49PM
Nomsg
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @09:50PM
Great - news is now recursive
Great - news is now recursive
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @10:04PM (1 child)
Peter Thiel's "chief of staff", meaning his secretary?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 07 2017, @03:28AM
Which begs a question to be asked: If Kratsios, Thiel's former chief of staff, is being appointed to the position of Deputy CTO, are we or are we not being paranoid in thinking this is to pave the way for the ultimate Senate-confirmed appointment of Peter Thiel as the real CTO? Could it be that Michael if Renfield to Peter's Dracula? I would be on the look out for a crate of "native soil" in the Office of Technology. Of course, Bannon is already there. (And I have to admit, the parallels are closer than I would like!)
(Score: 5, Informative) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday March 06 2017, @10:07PM (4 children)
This is a bad editing job. Let's see what a good editing job would have.
The USA CTO position is a presidential appointed position below the cabinet level (but still Senate-confirmed) "created" in 2009. The word "created" is used in quotations, as it was created out of a combination of previous positions regarding the technology of healthcare, education, and energy (DOE), and serves under the existing Office of Science and Technology Policy. Initially, the position was created as a technical adviser to those issues, but the position quickly morphed to support a role in establishing technology policy, limitations, and suggestions for presidential agenda. In the Obama administration, the role became how to shape data and Government, more than anything else.
While the CTO position is a Senate-confirmed position, the Deputy CTO position is *not*. President Trump is using his power as head of the executive branch to bring in Michael Kratsios to assist *whoever* the new CTO will be. Kratsios, as a previous Chief Compliance Officer and Chief Financial Officer for a silicon valley hedge fund has background in emerging technologies, and making investments in them. As the Chief of Staff for Thiel Capital, it is reasonable to assume that he has experience in the direction of an agency, management of people/resources, etc. Despite his apparent technical qualifications, Kratsios majored in Politics at Princeton, and started his career as an investment banker for Barclays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 06 2017, @10:11PM (1 child)
Very nice work, thank you (seriously, not sarcastic).
I assume your inbox now has an invitation from SN staff to join the editing ranks! Just think, glory will be yours!!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday March 06 2017, @10:35PM
More than just editing, actual information! Now I understand what a CTO is in this context. Thank you as well.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday March 06 2017, @10:56PM
Thanks -- I figured some of this out while writing my post above, but it required me to skim a half dozen webpages to do so.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday March 07 2017, @05:26AM
FTFY.
Seriously: "Chief Compliance Officer and Chief Financial Officer". The former is a position most suited to a lawyer and the latter to a business type. I see no technical ability there.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday March 07 2017, @12:25AM
Wasn't Obama's CTO Morris Moss?
;)
At least he can't lie... OH WAIT, Michelle's dead!!!!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday March 07 2017, @08:35AM
[Ed-Really, aristarchus? CTO].
[aristarchus-Really, eds, sincerely really.]