US CTO on network neutrality critics: ‘Are you supposed to argue with physics?’

A Q&A with Megan Smith, the country's newly-appointed chief technology officer, and Alex Macgillivray, deputy US CTO. It wasn't long ago that they were Silicon Valley stars known for pushing boundaries. Now they're working side-by-side in an Eisenhower Executive Office Building bullpen next to the White House tasked with equipping President Obama and his team with a deep understanding of how technology works.

Smith says, “It's an incredibly important thing to make sure we preserve net neutrality. Candidate Obama before he was president spent the time to understand that because of its huge impact on our economy, and to understand from these innovators what was important. He became early on a huge supporter of net neutrality, and he understood it. Now, I think, he can see, the [Federal Communications Commission] is an independent agency, but they're about to weigh in, and there's been a huge groundswell of input from the public. As it got close, I think the president felt that it was pretty important as they were about to deliberate to weigh in.” Macgillivray adds, “The coverage of it has been a little bit weird, in that every time President Obama has said the same thing. His position has been that it is very important, the whole way through. But every time, there's surprise, which is a little weird.”