Our Mysterious Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra
I wasn't really paying attention to the U.S. CIO, Vivek Kundra, who handles, um, I dunno, the IRS blogs and stuff? Oh wait… he is the one building the government a website that costs $18 million. Is it made of Internet platinum, and does it shoot rainbows? And so now folks are wondering who he is and does he know what he's talking about at all.
John Dvorak writes:
But, to be honest about it, and despite the possible fraudulent bios and non-existent degrees, the kicker for me was that even if he was squeaky clean he has no business being the USA CIO controlling billions and billions of dollars in government contracts.
He hasn't done anything to warrant this appointment. There are no great policy papers. There are no books. There is no invention. There is nothing but vague tech positions in city and state governments. How does this make him a "techno-whiz" as he was portrayed by the New York Times? It took him six years to get a simple undergrad degree in psychology! Was it just because he uses Facebook and likes Twitter?
So what have we got so far from this person? Well, for starters we are looking at the Recovery.gov website that will cost the taxpayers around $18 million.
Yeah bit I loved Where the Wild Things Are. Best children's book ever!
It's worth pointing out Choire that Dvorak got some key details wrong in his story.
No, no, no, no, no. It's not surprising at all that Dvorak is trolling with misinformation in order to get attention. It's not surprising he's taken his bizarro right-wing rantings against the most prominent Indians in the government (since his readership loves to blame every problem in the tech industry on Indian people), but what is surprising is that people are taking his easily-disproven ideas seriously.
The farce is that someone with less than stopped-clock levels of accuracy has a platform for getting these cockamamie theories out at all.
Is 18 million the website equivalent of one meeeellion beeeeellion dollars or is it like, Tina Brown's email listserv costs? Thx
Memo to the US Government: I can build you a sweet-ass Wordpress site for UNDER A GRAND. Srsly.