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 :

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 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 sansri88 :

Or the person in charge of the bailout money distribution, who also happens to be from Goldman Sachs.