Lenovo Want Ashton Kutcher As More Than Just a Pretty Face

Nerval's Lobster writes "It's not clear whether managers at Lenovo were too starstruck to say 'no,' or whether the once-respected PC maker is having so much trouble hiring technical help it genuinely intends to allow lowbrow-sitcom staple Ashton Kutcher serve as both celebrity spokesman and full-on product engineer. Lenovo announced that it had hired Kutcher as a product engineer who will 'work with the company's engineering teams around the world to develop and market the Yoga line of tablets by providing input and decision-making into design, specifications, software and usage scenarios.' Kutcher – former Calvin Klein underwear model, star of such quality entertainment as That '70s Show, Punk'd, current star of Two-and-a-Half Men and, most recently, portrayer of Steve Jobs in the biopic Jobs – has a successful track record of investing in tech companies, Lenovo's announcement said as partial explanation for the arrangement. Kutcher also studied biomechanical engineering as an undergraduate at the University of Iowa, which USA Today and other news outlets used to help bolster the idea that the star of Dude, Where's My Car? could function effectively as part of an engineering product-development team. Kutcher did list his planned major at the university as biomechanical engineering when he enrolled in 1996, but he dropped out during the 1997-98 school year. He did found A-Grade Investments, which has been involved in or funded tech companies including Spotify, Path, Airbnb and Uber, according to Lenovo."

Someone isn't a fan..

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone isn't a fan.. I detect a little bit of bias.

Hollywood has helped before

[turkeydance]

Hedy Lamarr (/hdi/; 9 November 1914 – 19 January 2000)[1] was an American actress and inventor, celebrated for her great beauty, who was a contract star of MGM's "Golden Age."[2] Mathematically talented, she and composer George Antheil invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary for wireless communication from the pre-computer age to the present day.[3][4]

So What?

[brunes69]

Giving celebrities fake jobs at companies that they do nothing for except sell product as a PR stunt is all the rage right now.

Will.I.Am is a "Creative Director" at Intel

Alicia Keys is a "Creative Director" at Blackberry

Justin Timberlake is a "Creative Curator" for Anheuser-Busch

Lady Gaga is a "Creative Director" for Polaroid

The only "news" in this story is that Slashdot editors don't keep up to speed on social norms.