Worried that you’re under-qualified for a promotion? Channel the can-do attitude of recently appointed Japanese minister Yoshitaka Sakurada, who said Wednesday that he wasn’t going to let the minor detail that he’d never once used a computer stand in the way of his new job—heading cybersecurity for Japan.
That’s right. The man who Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe tapped last month to defend the nation against hackers told reporters that he has never used a computer in his life, explaining, “I’ve been independent since I was 25 and have always directed my staff and secretaries to do that kind of thing,” according to a Reuters translation.
Although Sakurada assured press that he had no need for devices to effectively fulfill his tech-heavy role, the New York Timesreports that his confusion over basic questions — he didn’t know if nuclear power plants allow USB drives, and may not know what a USB drive is generally — left other lawmakers concerned.
“I can’t believe that a person who never used a computer is in charge of cybersecurity measures,” opposition lawmaker Masato Imai told the Times.
Granted, Sakurada, who also oversees overall operations for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and the Paralympics, isn’t the only leader who is wary of computers and outsources technological tasks. During his 2017 New Year’s Eve party, Trump warned reporters, “No computer is safe. I don’t care what they say.”
He doesn’t use a computer. Someone is doing the googling but not him. https://t.co/8QAdK7s69t
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) August 28, 2018