Google and Twitter veteran Jason Goldman heads to White House as first-ever chief digital officer
Barack Obama names two new top aides — Murray is currently Vice President Joe Biden's deputy chief of staff and communications director; Jason Goldman will take over and expand the White House's digital outreach. Tweets: @sacca , @aunder and @mikeisaac Tweets: Chris Sacca / @sacca : Incredibly proud of @goldman who is becoming the nation's first ever Chief Digital Officer. http://www.politico.com/... April Underwood / @aunder : Congrats @Goldman!! So excited to know he's manning the digital ship for, you know, the country. http://www.politico.com/... @mikeisaac : Beltway folks land tech Comms jobs as Second careers. Now tech peeps heading to beltway. I smell a trend story
Context & Ripple Effects
Goldman's appointment is the marquee personnel move in the Obama White House's push to import Silicon Valley operating talent directly into government — a project whose other half is the USDS and 18F digital corps Fast Company profiled three months later, drawing from the same pool of engineers and product people.
The hire also deepens the Google–White House circuit that runs in both directions: a year on, Google would hire a former Obama adviser to lead its global public policy, showing the same alumni pipeline feeding back into the private sector.
First-order effects
- The White House gets its first dedicated digital executive, with Goldman charged with expanding outreach beyond the comms operation Murray ran for Biden — a structural upgrade, not a staff reshuffle.
- Tech-industry insiders like Chris Sacca and April Underwood now have a former Google/Twitter colleague manning 'the digital ship' inside the West Wing, giving platform companies an unusually direct line to presidential communications.
Second-order effects
- Government and Big Tech begin competing for the same scarce talent: the White House's expanded digital shop overlaps with USDS and 18F recruiting from the identical Silicon Valley pool, at government pay scales.
- Goldman's title creates a copyable template — a named, senior digital role — that later administrations fill with their own industry picks rather than career staff, entrenching the revolving door Google's policy hire exemplifies.
Third-order effects
- The staffing pattern proves durable across parties: Trump later nominates Michael Kratsios as his first US CTO, Biden appoints USDS veteran Clare Martorana as US CIO, and by late 2024 Trump taps a16z's Scott Kupor for OPM and Kratsios for OSTP.
- Durability still hinges on each transition: Obama's tech teams publicly stayed optimistic while quietly fearing for their programs' survival heading into 2017, so the institutional layer these roles form is only as permanent as the next administration chooses to make it.
The trend: Silicon Valley operators rotating into senior White House technology roles has hardened into a bipartisan staffing model that outlasts any single administration.