Macworld’s “One More Thing”: Steve Jobs to be appointed Obama’s Chief Technical Officer?
Once every 200 years or so a piece of wishful thinking comes along that is so amazingly out there, so obviously pulled from someone’s ass, that you simply have to ask “What if?“. Obviously, 1809‘s wishful thinking (that The Treaty of the Dardanelles be signed at Chanak January 5 by representatives of Britain and the Ottoman Empire to affirm the principle that no warship of any nation may enter the Straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus) came true, so given that Macworld begins exactly 200 years to the day of that important event, I am more willing than usual to entertain this intriguing idea put forth by my good friend Michael Contaxis of Mac Soda…
What if…?
What if Steve’s “One More Thing” this year (or more accurately, Phil Schiller’s “One More Thing”), is to call Steve Jobs on stage and announce that he is leaving Apple not due to health reasons, but because he has been appointed to Barack Obama‘s cabinet with the title of Chief Technology Officer? Obama has sworn to create the new cabinet post to help the government communicate better within its own agencies and with the people in general, and Contaxis thinks Jobs might have landed the gig.
Hmmm…
Well, it would certainly be cool, from a fanboy’s point of view, and if Steve ever were to announce he was leaving Apple for any non-life threatening reason, this is pretty much the only one that would not only NOT get him booed off stage, but may actually earn him a heart-felt standing ovation.
But Back to reality. Why would anyone think Steve has a Zune’s chance in Cupertino of being selected as the new CTO? Well, to support his argument, Contaxis points out that Obama has so far announced his choice for every single other cabinet appointment except the newly created Chief Technology Officer post. So, what is Obama waiting for? Why, obviously Macworld, of course, where he will appear on a giant screen via iChat, and announce that Mr. Jobs is going to Washington. (Oh sure, you might think it’s because Obama needs to actually be President BEFORE he can officially even make the cabinet post, but that would be boring).
Not enough proof for you? Well.. um, tough, because that’s all Contaxis has got so far to back up this whole crazy thing. For the record, while I think it would be a hoot to see Jobs go to Washington and begin throwing digital cameras at thick-headed, unimaginative politicians out of sheer frustration, I think Jobs is perhaps more creative and design oriented than technically knowledgeable, and while Obama has not outlined exactly what the CTO’s duties would be, I’m gonna guess there are about 600,000 fat, Dorito-covered IT guys holed up in server closets across the country right now that might be more qualified for the job. Still, if the government wants a charismatic, democratic figurehead to help glamorize the newly created post, they could certainly do worse.
Do worse? But he created the internet!!!
Ok now that i’ve got the lame joke out of the way, I just want to share my frustration that mobile safari crashed 4 times while I was trying to read this post. Very annoying.
Bill Gates has lots more free time on his hands these days, he’s got more of a Zune’s chance than Steve to be CTO.
Gld, yeah, we’re working on a redesign, so hopefully the crashes will be less frequent. Or way more frequent, who knows?
-The Doc
Steve Jobs would scare everyone out of government service due to their inability to make procedures user friendly.
From what I’ve heard on NPR, the top contender for the nomination to the job would be Google’s current CEO… apparently him and Obama met a while back and hit it off quite well, having a shared vision of technology helping in coming up with a solution to the economic issues we are facing, as well as for social change and the goal of making a more open govt. A govt. in which social networking plays a large role in sharing information, to be a stark contrast to the previous administration. Obama has even announced that future discussions of things taking place (I forgot what specifically kind of things were mentioned) in the white house would be openly posted on the internet for anyone to read.
However, they concluded the story by saying that even if nominated the Google CEO would most likely decline, as his interests are much more in line with continue to run Google. Not to mention that he probably would get much more money in the private sector rather than the govt….
So anyway… that does leave it open for Jobs to take it, if such a thing were to occur, however I am quite skeptical on this one… We shall see, until then I remain a reserved realist with a tiny bit of optimism towards Jobs going after such a venture…
Oh, and another note, I forgot about… While Google’s CEO has said he will most likely decline the nomination… he would still entertain the possibly still continuing to give Obama advice on technology and his input, but on a more informal sort of basis…
Sorry for the double posting Doc, perhaps you can add this to my previous comment… you need a delete feature!
Heh, my captcha words are “voted through” kind of fits with the whole political topic here..
I tried to come up with anything funny to say about that, but besides thinking “yeah, fat chance” I found the prospect of having Jobs in the government both incredibly cool and useful and somewhat frightening. Hmm…
While that is a possibility, I don’t think that there is a higher chance of that happening. There *might* be a chance but not likely in my opinions because… Well, Apple wouldn’t/the stock investors wouldn’t let go of him easily. :\
Well, it would be amazing, buy I don’t think Job himself will look into that!
PS: would be a lost for Apple and Credit to US Government!
lol
I don’t think the CTO would necessarily need to be a nuts and bolts IT guy, and in fact that probably would be the last thing you’d want. This position doesn’t need a “hmm… I wonder how we’ll make this work” mindset. The new CTO position would require vision and proactive thinking. More “This is awesome, make it happen now”. I believe Jobs fits that mold.
I agree with Bitmatt. Jobs’ brilliance is his vision. He has others who make it happen.
Just because he would be CTO, doesn’t mean Apple could not still benefit from his thinking.
PLUS SIDE OF THE NOMINATION
That cabinet department would become “Innovative, creative, far sighted, efficient, cost effective, sharp looking, and something everybody wants.
NEGATIVE SIDE OF THE NOMINATION
The other cabinet heads would be jealous of the stuff mentioned above. They wouldn’t be used to that kind of stuff.
Could Jobs become a politician? Would he be able to go to the other department heads and say “I’ll vote for your project if you’ll vote for mine?” I doubt it.
I don’t think the government needs any more secrecy. Jobs as CTO would be the exact opposite of a more open government like Obama claims to want.
I think Jobs going to work for the federal govt would be like Rush Limbaugh going to work for ESPN. They are both so passionate about what they believe that their personality and drive would end up making them not “fit in.” 🙂