Digitizing the federal retirement system seems like a great project that could benefit from private sector expertise. If DOGE focused on stuff like this, they could do a lot of good. Instead they're playing chaos monkey with the federal government and breaking all sorts of critically important things.
> I've been working on healthcare.gov for the last few months alongside a bunch of other Google, Facebook, and Y Combinator alums.
> I'll always remember what Mikey told us in December, after the site was back up, could handle a non-trivial amount of traffic, and people who wanted health insurance could finally get it:
"1 in 1000 uninsured people die each year. It's not an exaggeration to say that due to the work we're doing here, 5,000-10,000 people will live to see the end of 2014. You should be proud of what you've done, but we should also all be grateful to have this opportunity."
> We're all grateful to be here, but there's a hell of a lot more work to be done.
> If any of you out there are an amazing software engineer or SRE, and want to help make our government work better, please shoot me an email.
What is taking place today isn’t about efficiency, it is about tyranny, dressed in technocratic efficiency performance art. DOGE is attempting to cut whatever can be cut to convince the bond market to push US government debt yields down, making room for tax cuts (because it’s the only place that can be cut). But Musk has met his match, he cannot bully the bond market, nor will it believe his lies.
Long term rates will remain high (because there is nothing material to cut), but the damage will be done, and no one in DOGE will be held accountable for any harm they caused. Truly in the spirit of the startup world. “Move fast, break things.”
> My first project at DOGE is improving the slow and paper-based retirement process.
What does that mean, I wonder?
I’m sure there’s some streamlining of social security paperwork that could be done... but looking at the Trump / Musk / Republican playbook, I can only assume this means massive cuts to SS.
Digitizing the federal retirement system seems like a great project that could benefit from private sector expertise. If DOGE focused on stuff like this, they could do a lot of good. Instead they're playing chaos monkey with the federal government and breaking all sorts of critically important things.
The USDS had private sector experience. That’s where they hired talent from. That’s how the USDS was started.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7312442
> I've been working on healthcare.gov for the last few months alongside a bunch of other Google, Facebook, and Y Combinator alums.
> I'll always remember what Mikey told us in December, after the site was back up, could handle a non-trivial amount of traffic, and people who wanted health insurance could finally get it: "1 in 1000 uninsured people die each year. It's not an exaggeration to say that due to the work we're doing here, 5,000-10,000 people will live to see the end of 2014. You should be proud of what you've done, but we should also all be grateful to have this opportunity."
> We're all grateful to be here, but there's a hell of a lot more work to be done.
> If any of you out there are an amazing software engineer or SRE, and want to help make our government work better, please shoot me an email.
What is taking place today isn’t about efficiency, it is about tyranny, dressed in technocratic efficiency performance art. DOGE is attempting to cut whatever can be cut to convince the bond market to push US government debt yields down, making room for tax cuts (because it’s the only place that can be cut). But Musk has met his match, he cannot bully the bond market, nor will it believe his lies.
Long term rates will remain high (because there is nothing material to cut), but the damage will be done, and no one in DOGE will be held accountable for any harm they caused. Truly in the spirit of the startup world. “Move fast, break things.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-02-24/elon-musk... | https://archive.today/i45t0
> My first project at DOGE is improving the slow and paper-based retirement process.
What does that mean, I wonder?
I’m sure there’s some streamlining of social security paperwork that could be done... but looking at the Trump / Musk / Republican playbook, I can only assume this means massive cuts to SS.
I think he's referring to the retirement system for federal workers, not social security.