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Vivek Kundra Quits As Federal CIO

Posted by timothy on from the depart-for-cooler-climes dept.

CWmike writes "The first person ever appointed as the CIO of the federal government, Vivek Kundra, is resigning after two and a half years on the job, the White House said Thursday. There was no hint in the announcement made by Jack Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget, that Kundra's exit was prompted by a shift in the White House's view on IT. Lew, who praised the CIO's work, said Kundra was leaving to take a fellowship at Harvard. Kundra was appointed CIO a few months after President Barack Obama took office. He immediately outlined an agenda that emphasized cloud adoption, use of consumer technologies, and making data available to the public on new sites, such as data.gov. He was critical of big IT contracts that moved too slowly and were at risk of failing."

13 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Good by jhoegl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If he thinks the "cloud" is where the government should be going, he is a moron.
    Likely people started realizing they already had a cloud, like the British Government, and then realized he was talking out of his ass.
    Not to mention the security risks in a distributed, shared resource infrastructure.
    GG dumbass, you lasted 2 and a half years.

  2. That's just great by Shade+Everdark · · Score: 2

    What are Almalexia and Sotha Sil going to do now? Who's going to hang on to the Wraithguard? What does the Nerevarine think about all this?

  3. Re:shoplifter by Bobfrankly1 · · Score: 2

    Shoplifting? Big deal -- he was (and is) a total fraud.

    He's a politician. Isn't being a total fraud implied?

  4. Skip Logic Rocks! by 0p7imu5_P2im3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    His speeches about how IT should be handled were some of the worst. He was most likely looking for buzz words on Wikipedia an hour before each of his speeches. No Agenda covered one of them and had some fun at his expense... but they never covered another one of his speeches IIRC. Not really surprised that Harvard took him.

    --
    Resistance is futile. Your technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will become one with the morgue
    1. Re:Skip Logic Rocks! by Global-Lightning · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Over the last two years I've had the opportunity to work with him and his staff. Some personal observations:
      1. No, he didn't understand technology. He understood marketing. Indeed there where times when he would remind me of Frank Abagnale Jr impersonating a doctor or lawyer. When the discussion would turn technical he would get this deer-in-the-headlights expression. Perhaps most troubling was his lack of even a basic understanding of IT security concepts; as the Federal CIO you would have at least expected someone who would try to understand the legal obligations involved.
      2. He couldn't take criticism. When government reps raised security issues with his cloud plan, he would turn to his industry reps who would reassure him everything would be OK. He surrounded himself with yes-men, creating an echo chamber where anything that would contradict his 'brilliant' ideas would be promptly excised.
      3. Outside OMB, he had no support in the federal government. Federal CIOs treated him respectfully, but they knew he had no legal or fiscal authority for any of his plans; most decided to play along and wait for his term to expire. His relationship with Congress was even worst; the Hill would usually outright ignore him.

      I already know of several Federal CIOs who are now revising thier 2012 budgets to write out Kundra's pet programs. His legacy would go past this October.

    2. Re:Skip Logic Rocks! by Seumas · · Score: 2

      Indeed. And I never saw any media outlet actually question anything about him or his role or his background. They just reported the appointment with glee and moved on.

      The transcript of Vivek Kundra's infamous speech to the FCC (I think it was in 2010?).

      “And think about this, I know there are people on Second Life right now, but imagine a Universe where you have the Star-Trek holodeck where you could literally ask the computer, err, to act or ask questions to get answers. In the same way, if you look at some of these software companies they’ve made it sooo complicated to interact with their technologies. Ah and, err, at the same time the underlying architecture and the platform, it’s almost a chicken and egg question because a lot of it was built and architected around bandwidth constraints therefore you had to deploy technologies that were much more complicated in terms of interacting and communicating. Now, as broadband deployment, and more importantly, err, if you look at the megabits-per-second, err, how much, err, how much information can we get through the pipeline is going to be so important and, as new and new software and techologies are being introduced, what you going to see is huuuge-change from how applications are architected from skip-logic to video and much more human ways of interacting with these applications rather than, err, binary or COBOL ways of interacting.”

  5. Re:Next step, consulting by mcmonkey · · Score: 3, Informative

    Watch him start a "consulting" business that counts among its clients some very high profile tech companies.

    That wouldn't be unusual for someone leaving a high profile government position, but...

    Lew said Kundra will move to Harvard in mid-August to serve as a joint fellow at the Kennedy School and at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

  6. Suprise? Maybe that he lasted so long by Eol1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The only surprise here is he lasted so long. The Federal CIO has zero authority hence it's a thankless exercise in futility. Under both FISMA and CCA all IT authority is with the Agency Head, OMB Director, and NIST. The Mr. Kundra had no authority, no control, no budget, no nothing my guess is the only reason he took the job was he was a former private sector employee and most likely had buyers regret within the week. No sane civil servant would take this position short of as a temp position to a backroom deal which ended with a lateral transfer promotion somewhere else or a high three with the expectation of doing nothing and accomplishing nothing (the only realistic goal under the existing legal/regulatory framework which governs that position) .

    --
    De Oppresso Liber
    1. Re:Suprise? Maybe that he lasted so long by geekmux · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...The Mr. Kundra had no authority, no control, no budget, no nothing my guess is the only reason he took the job was he was a former private sector employee and most likely had buyers regret within the week...

      Quite frankly, if anyone above the title of "Manager" takes a position within IT without knowing their actual level of authority to effect real change or wield power, then they should probably rethink a new career field...or add "idiot" to their title.

  7. Re:He had no credibility to the job of CIO of US by jvkjvk · · Score: 2

    You fail.

    That FA you cite is basic hit piece, full of innuendo and supposition, including the first fucking line:

    Is US Chief Information Officer (CIO) Vivek Kundra a Phony?

    and such gems as:

    The emergence of Kundra is something that needs more research.

    I have not verified it, but itâ(TM)s probably true.

    I first suspected something was fishy about this fellow by listening to him on CSPAN where he simply did not sound like someone who studied computers or technology.

    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.

    I think that's enough of that shit.

    Now, as far as what has actually happened during his term:

    From Wikipedia:

    Mr. Kundra published a 25-point implementation plan [32]to reform how the Federal government manages information technology. The execution plan follows his decision to reevaluate some of the government's most troubled IT projects.[33] Of 38 projects reviewed, four have been canceled,[34] 11 have been rescoped and 12 have cut the time for delivery of functionality down by more than half, from two to three years down to an average of 8 months, achieving a total of $3 billion in lifecycle budget reductions.

    Regards.

  8. Re:Job-killing automation by jvkjvk · · Score: 2

    I have to agree with you. Leaving aside every other issue from the RIAA to telecom immunity to the Patriot Act, etc., he is merely stating the truth here.

    Every piece of automation that replaces a person puts that person out of work at that job. It remains to be sen if there will exist enough "jobs" to sustain capitalism once a bunch more is automated. I think that Obama is merely foreshadowing that, although he is blind as to it's end point.

    He only sees the possibility of every one continuing to work! when the end goal is no one should need to work.

    Regards.

  9. Informationweek sucks up to Kundra by walterbyrd · · Score: 2

    As Fed CIO Kundra Departs, Will Progress Stall?

    Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has put the wheels in motion for federal IT reform, throwing his weight behind open government, cloud computing, data center consolidation, rigorous project management, and improved customer service. Now that Kundra has announced plans to leave his position in August, the trick will be to keep the momentum behind what he started.

    http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/leadership/230800088

    As I remember, Kundra was considered a complete fraud. He had no worthwhile credentials. He never did anything worthwhile. He was even caught shop-lifting. He was only appointed because Obama was obeying India.

    But that does not stop Informationweek from sucking up to Kundra: "Oh how will live without such an extraordinary talent! How can he leave when we so desperately need the best and brightest in DC!? How awful to such amazing "progress" stall."

  10. Re:Job-killing automation by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

    Ultimately, human beings are capitol too. But in the business world, we often forget that we are still human and not simply drones milling out another paycheck. This spans everyone from the stressed out CEO to the local landscaping worker whom is self-employed. The problem isn't automation, but the pace of it. Technology, work flow processes, and culture changes all the time. Blacksmithing lead to the industrialization of materials. Farming lead to massive industrialized agriculture. Radio technology (tubes) lead to the development of the computer. When any one of us lose our job because of obsolescence, we are expected to adapt and pick another occupation. Unfortunately, rapid progression is outstripping our natural ability to maintain a manageable pace of life. The average human being can only change career paths so many times before the stress of unemployment kills us (and it does).

    My advice. Don't strive for the money, but for a *reasonable* quality of life. If you find yourself happy, any extra money to save is just gravy. Our American culture of consumption needs to change. Not because we don't deserve it, but in fact we deserve it so so much that it's killing us in the process. A change in our personal priorities is needed.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.