I wouldn't want Robert Rubin to be the CIO of my startup either, even though I know he's as smart and dedicated as anyone.

While I have to agree that it would be hard to find such versatile people, the argument is not logical. If a implies b, it doesn't mean that b implies a. If it did work that way, then it would mean any CIO could never make a great expert on finance and economy, and vice versa, and that's not qualifiable (or realistic.)

I just think that you should get the best man for the job.

It is not qualifiable that Obama has found the best man (or woman) for the job. Therefore, it is not qualifiable that entrepreneurs should not feel they should be represented by some economist or expert in finance who has entrepreneurial experience.

Somebody who has their money tied to their business, as Cuban said, and depends on their business for all of their income, is the kind of entrepreneur who should be represented. I believe Mark's point is that the economists advising Obama make money as government employees, company executives, book publishers, researches, faculty, or similar--I made this up, but if they're not entrepreneurs, they must be getting paid some other way.

(In fact, to add my own thoughts, many high-ranking economists and high-ranking finance experts could have been a part of the problem in the first place, while at the same time, entrepreneurs spent the same years trying to create value for their customers. They: create value in order to make money, actually have contact with real, "regular" people, try to solve people's existing and future problems after listening to these "regular" people, and do so because they've chosen to bet almost all of their income and quality of life on solving problems. This is completely different from being a professor or book author, tv personality, and, in some way, having a hand in creating the problem in the first place.)

My point is that making economic policy, especially in the current environment, is a difficult and specialised task. The people that have the best shot at getting it right are the ones that have the experience, connections and know-how of how to do it. And entrepreneurs don't - they are in a completely different business.

I think my points about how an entrepreneurial perspective could be beneficial as well as that entrepreneurs could definitely be experts on the economy argue your point, but I also want to note that Cuban mentions having one experienced entrepreneur representing one person on the committee, not necessarily a committee full of entrepreneurs (never mind all without experience in finance, and all relatively young, and all from Silicon Valley, to boot.) So, of course you need many experts as well as those with political connections on the committee. But at least one expert should have entrepreneurial experience. He even goes out of his way to point out several times that Buffett isn't an entrepreneur in the same sense that most entrepreneurs are small mom-and-pop shops and independent contractors.

Of course, I could be mistaken--maybe Mark Cuban did imply that he wants a great entrepreneur advising on the economy, whether or not they have economic experience--but I just did not read it that way, and it would be hard to argue that a sane person would want any random entrepreneur. I've heard Cuban has an ego, but I don't think it's that big. :)

(And again, such people exist, like the economic advisor to Ron Paul, as well as likely hundreds of other great choices. I think that Obama and the existing committee would not mind having an entrepreneur on board, and Cuban's post is a great way to point out this missing piece.)

I think we (the News.YC users) saw items in the blog post that made us want to discuss it, but of course, we saw different things. In my view, I didn't see anything wrong in his post, therefore causing me to think that it's a good idea for him to try to get a search for an entrepreneur started, and I wanted to provide what I thought. Thanks!