Opinion: How about teaming Google and Will.i.am to tackle the deficit?
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Bob Dylan once sang, memorably, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Let’s rephrase that: “You don’t need a [your job here]” because it has seemed, for so long, that no one in California, or America, is hiring.
Which is why it was nice to find some good news on the employment front this week.
The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Google planned to hire 6,000 workers in 2011, increasing the company’s payroll to more than 30,000 by year’s end.
Now, as someone who remembers going to the library card catalog to do research for my homework, I’m still somewhat mystified by what exactly Google does to make money.
In China, they make money from building iPhones and Blu-ray disc players and TVs and lots of stuff. In America, we make money out of cyberspace.
Recall how your mom or dad told you they couldn’t make $20 appear out of thin air? That’s no problem for Google, I guess -- its stock is trading at more than $600 a share.
President Obama mentioned in his State of the Union address Tuesday night that government needs to invest in innovation. How about hiring Google to tackle that deficit? A touch of cyberspace, a dash of innovation, some algorithms and, poof, no more debt.
Google’s news, though big, couldn’t compete cachet-wise with an announcement from another tech giant, Intel: It has hired Will.i.am to be its director of creative innovation.
Intel said the music producer and Black Eyed Peas frontman has “a multiyear contract and will be hands-on with technology.” He “will contribute to the company by way of music and input in developing smart phones, tablets and laptops.”
Mr. Innovation, naturally, tweeted the news: “Its official. I just became the director of creative innovation for Intel. Every beat I make is made with intel. And now were partners.”
I wish Will.i.am well in his new profession. I’m certain that Intel’s karaoke night just got a whole lot more interesting.
But I’d like to suggest -- and I’m only spit-balling here -- that one of his first innovations might be to hire a copy editor to go over his tweets.
Those folks could use a job too.
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-- Paul Whitefield
