Diary of a love affair: Obama and Google

The president begins hiring staffers from his favorite tech company.

Katie Stanton, a Google business development manager, is named director of citizen participation, a role in which she will be responsible for giving citizens online access to government procedure. Sonal Shah is appointed head of social innovation, overseeing federal funding for nonprofits, after heading Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org. And top Google policy exec McLaughlin becomes deputy technology czar.

Google's presence in the administration raises concerns from critics that the tech behemoth will take over government, too, but Google doesn't flinch: "We understand that in order to be successful in Washington we need relationships on both sides of the aisle," the company says in a statement, "and we have worked over the past few years to strengthen those relationships."

More galleries