Moving on from 18F | Hacker News Reader

Moving on from 18F

ethanmarcotte.com

362 pointsmkeeter192 comments

For anyone (like me) who doesn’t know what 18F is:

> 18F is a digital services agency within the Technology Transformation Services department of the General Services Administration (GSA) of the United States Government. 18F helps other government agencies build, buy, and share technology products. The team consists of designers, software engineers, strategists, and product managers who collaborate with other agencies to fix technical problems, build products, and improve public service through technology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F

18F - and its sibling the US Digital Service, before it was eviscerated to become the host for the DOGE parasite - is exactly the sort of thing you would create if you want government to run efficiently. Creating room for well-meaning technical experts to offer their expertise across the government, without being locked into a lifelong public-sector career path, is a fantastic idea. Even at its worst, it's taking work that could otherwise go to beltway-bandit contractors, but in-house, with all the cost and friction reduction that that implies. At its best, it's able to spot cross-agency opportunities that no other agency would see on its own.

If you're still on the fence about giving the current administration the benefit of the doubt, dismantling these agencies based on zero analysis is perhaps the clearest possible evidence that "efficiency" is not the primary goal, or in fact a goal at all.

Qft. USDS/18F was the correct answer to "Many US government departments have similar needs, but insufficient IT expertise (or authority) to deliver well."

To which the obvious solution was to create a center of excellence for those skills, then offer them across the government. Most critically, including paved roads of the "right" way to do things (but which no individual agency was willing to fight to get approved).

PS: Fuck DOGE/Elon for having enough hubris so as to think they can do better. Although my guess is Hanlon's razor, with addendum, applies.

>> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. (or ego)

To repeat my previous framing of this: it's easy to sell younger technologists on a two step plan to make things better. (1) Destroy the old (2) Build the new. Unfortunately, they don't yet understand the latter is orders of magnitude more difficult than the former.

I worked for the USDS in the early days and I am very familiar with 18F, and I don't think your comment tracks. There were lots of issues with agencies using 18F, and not much of the federal IT spend migrated to 18F during its 10 year history, even though most of the products they launched were good.

Even USDS teams didn't always take up 18F on its products, and instead would utilize outside contracts for a majority of their projects. Realistically the government needs to do better then 18F was doing and there are many reforms needed to actually have a paved road agencies can drive on.

Appreciate the comment! If you had a magic wand, what are the main problems you would unblock to create better/cheaper/faster government IT outcomes, based on your experience?

The way funding was allocated is entirely broken, and it was the biggest problem with doing anything in the government. Our budget process at the federal level is entirely broken. Congress tries to micro-manage the budget to get their cut of funds to their sponsors, and their is no political appetite to have a more reasonable budget process ( like Congress approve top line budget, and lets the agency choose how to spend the money ). The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) doesn't work for inter agency procurement, and IMO is not a good system for any kind of procurement. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) should be thrown out, as it has proven its self to be worse then having literally no rules at all. All the rules about Veteran Owned, and Small Disadvantaged Businesses are just mechanisms for fraud. Companies would "dissolve" and then new companies would form that could win those bids, and then they would hire everyone from the large company that just dissolved.

We are seeing right now why a high-level budget process like that wouldn't work: there is no guarantee of ongoing alignment in the executive branch, and it creates enormous opportunities for procurement capture.

Bringing things in house with things like 18F is the most promising solution we've seen to those procurement problems, but has been fought tooth & nail by the same people currently dismantling the roadblocks between them & taking taxpayer money without even delivering results.

I’ve never worked in the federal space, but I have extensive experience in state and local.

One the fundamental issues with government vs. private sector is accounting. Governments are often exempted from following GAAP, and the rules are inverse - the government’s cost to borrow is cheap and the government doesn’t pay taxes, so capex is usually smarter than opex. Capex is locked in, while opex is subject to the whims of the legislature.

The other core issue with government is separation of powers. You cannot have an efficient process to make decisions because fundamentally the system is designed to do what’s right from a legal perspective, which is often in opposition to what is efficient.

Setting expectations is important too. The government at all levels is excellent at operations. When I setup a housing authority system, that authority delivered 50,000 rent checks on the 1st of the month, every month. You know what I want the treasury to do? Pay bond coupons every month and audit clean.

Moving fast isn’t necessarily what you want. In fact, the system of government was designed to be slow. For people who attest to idol worship of the Constitution, they sure missed the boat there.

FWIW, the head of USDS under Obama (Jennifer Pahlka) wrote a whole book about it:

https://www.recodingamerica.us

Interview with the author:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...

Recent opinion piece by the author:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/opinion/democrats-elon-mu...

(Those may be paywalled and I'm out of gift links.)

The model of 18F changed a lot, none of those products including Login.gov or Cloud.gov were part of 18F, they're all spinfoffs that live within TTS.

> Fuck DOGE/Elon for having enough hubris so as to think they can do better.

I wonder if he truly believes he's got a giga-brain. In that respect I dare say I'm better than him because I know my limitations.

Or does he have the world's biggest impostor syndrome, which he treats with drugs? Although I can imagine he feels pretty smart, because he can do anything and he still have a legion of followers (similar to Zuck's "They trust me. Dumb fucks.").

I’ve worked with mini-Elons. They think they’re Jesus. He’s a gambler with good instincts, but eventually your number comes up.

It's astounding that this is crystal clear, and yet you still have people like the sibling commenter trying to find ways of defending Musk. It reminds me of the quote comparing Libertarians to cats:

> Libertarians are like house cats in that they are convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand

People like that shouldn't be allowed to vote. I don't actually believe that, but it's hard to watch Idiocracy happen in real time and watch low-information people cheer it on.

While a lot of us both relate and agree, I’m not sure the rhetoric is helpful here. If the flame wars are kept to a minimum, the submission keeps trending, and awareness rises. This one in particular is very important for the tech community.

I think the crux is that too many people are taking what’s being said at face value. The banner of cost cutting and lean government was chosen because it’s hard to argue with, assuming it’s true and done responsibly - which it isn’t. Randomly firing 200 people that worked at NNSA is one of the most profound examples of this, let alone gutting 18F.

For anyone paying attention, it’s indeed crystal clear the move is being used to install loyalists while “saving” an amount of money that’s order(s) of magnitude less than the grift they’ve granted themselves, after cutting the very watchdogs setup to stop that kind of grift. Heck, even the word grift is charitable when it’s more like outright brazen corruption.

However, convincing everyone of this difficult insofar that it requires them to a) not take these people at face value, and b) swallow the pill that not only were they wrong for trusting said persons in the first place, but they potentially even voted in the administration that’s doing the damage.

Getting people to admit that they were wrong, even to themselves, is pretty hard these days. Hopefully it becomes too obvious to ignore, and that process becomes easier when it’s replaced by a feeling of betrayal. Because if there’s one things American love on either side of the aisle, it’s getting angry.

18F was one of the finest examples of a non-partisan agile tech organization that was highly efficient and effective. It was just trashed it for no good reason at all.

It's telling that all the cost cutting is happening in the 1% slice of the pie, not the defense slice of the pie. There be dragons most likely.

Supposedly, the DoD is next. I like to believe they'll end up kicking the proverbial hornets nest by angering the Northrop Grumman/Lockheed/PE firms owning defense contractors, but I'm not optimistic that will deter them.

Exactly. It's like declaring you're going to lose weight and then just trimming your fingernails.

The fact that such an obviously false pretext is being used and accepted by so many followers is one of the most depressing parts of all of this. It is incredibly clear that this is not about saving money or balancing the governments finances, but so many people blindly believe whatever Elon or Trump tells them. At this point I'm not sure there's any limit to what their followers will believe and support, which is extremely chilling.

You have to purge the people that are actually mission-oriented because they are not sufficiently subservient. Also, the voting base seems to hate the fact that federal workers tend to enjoy a lot more stability in their job than private sector workers do.

What boggles my mind is that the feds were made into political enemies so quickly and the public had zero empathy for the callous method that they were fired in. Meanwhile, in Dec 2024, you didn't see the level of bile aimed at the feds like you see it today. And worse, very few people seem to realize that they've been politically hoodwinked. They'll simply retcon their belief that they've always disliked the feds that much, and their guy is finally giving them their just rewards.

Ethan literally wrote "a far-right President" won, so I wouldn't consider 18F non-partisan.

One employee uses a phrase, thus the entire organization is biased. That does seem to be what passes for critical thinking these days.

>Ethan literally wrote "a far-right President" won, so I wouldn't consider 18F non-partisan

a) That’s a fair way to describe it regardless of political leanings, and moreover even if it wasn’t, I fail to see how that’s somehow able to be extrapolated to the entire org.

b) Last I checked government employees are allowed to express their opinions, which would be relevant had the man not resigned - meaning what you’ve read is a personal take. Like the vast majority of people, I doubt he took politics to work.

c) Consider 18F was started under the Obama administration and continued through the first Trump administration.

The federal government is being actively dismantled right now in ways that are unprecedented - even for every Republican administration in recent history.

I think it’s reasonable to say “far-right” isn’t partisan in that context. It’s accurate.

Do you contend that he is not one? If not, why not?

To use an example from the other end, it’s not particularly partisan to claim that a communist is on the far left of the political spectrum.

It all depends on what one means by ‘right’ vs. ‘left.’ I don’t think that those labels — which I believe originate in seating conventions in peri-revolutionary France — are particularly relevant to American politics. Is free trade right-coded or left-coded? Tariffs? Drug policy?

Far right is reactionary, going back to previous systems/time. MAGA is definitely a reactionary (I.e: far right) movement, it's in the title. There is also a hierarchical component to far right movements, which MAGA didn't completely had the first time around, so it is more complex, but you can do with that definition.

Sorry, what is your point? The subject here is whether it is partisan to describe someone as having a far-right ideology, and whether that appellation is generally accurate. This term is well understood.

That's a factual statement.

Trump is very obviously a far-right president. That's an incontrovertible fact that even he wouldn't disagree with. It is also a blatantly true fact - as evidenced by their words and actions over the last several decades, and especially since 2016 - that the right wing is hostile to competent, professional civil service. Pointing out that such people are going to make it impossible for a place like 18F to do its job isn't partisan. Failing to point it out, or equivocating over "well both sides have their points", is in fact obscenely biased toward the far right. That's what "sane-washing" is: describing the clearly insane in the same legitimizing language you'd use for normal disagreement.

If a neutral observer calls you a fascist, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're biased or compromised. You might just be a fucking fascist.

Perhaps more widely known very recently for being the subject of an Elon tweet saying "that group has been deleted," though whether he was referring to 18F as a whole or just those working on the free filing system for the IRS was unclear.

18F has been discussed on HN quite a few times, though not too much recently:

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=18f

Here's its GitHub org:

https://github.com/18F

Are there any metrics to show 18F or USDS are strong successes?

My impression has always been that it is a well-intended but low-impact effort.

One of the big wins was login.gov which is modern, easy to use, more secure, and less expensive than the crazy array of ancient agency-specific login systems it was in the process of replacing.

What happens to it now, I have no idea. It’s probably going to be scrapped in favor of “login with X”.

If login.gov is scrapped, I would imagine the guys who are best positioned to take over would be id.me (who already have the irs.gov contract and more).

ID.me might be in the worst position. There was already a big public backlash against it, so previous IRS leadership was working to replace it. And it doesn’t send any money back to Elon Musk, so future IRS leadership won’t want to save it either.

(Only half joking…)

Fascinating. I didn't know people even knew they existed.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/07/tech/facial-recognition-activ...

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-announces-transition-away-f...

You could always read one of USDS’s reports to Congress to get an idea on what they’ve done:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22report+to+congress%22+%2B...

Hard to say who's responsibility it is but federal websites have gotten noticeably less shitty over time and I always feel more at ease on a website that obviously had their input.

Like when a state considers itself a global superpower but hasn't had any notable impact on an unremarkably sized rock orbiting an average sized star in a barely noticeable galaxy?

For those not familiar with the author, Ethan Marcotte literally wrote the book on responsive web design (and coined the phrase). I point that out about because I think it is (or was) relevant that someone with such a place in digital design history had chosen public service.

There are very few people that would be better suited for a role like this than Ethan, any major web company would be fortunate to have him on staff... and the fact that he chose to work at 18F speaks volumes about the work they were doing there.

He didn’t pick “public service” because when an administration didn’t match his political preferences he bashed that admin in this post. That’s not a public servant but a partisan servant.

Setting aside the politics of the issue(which is very polarizing) this is the part which troubled me the most

> "Instead, they found themselves on a call with people who wouldn’t say where they worked in government; in a few cases, some people wouldn’t disclose their last names, or any part of their names"

This is terrifying if this is true. Forget this happening in a Government department, if I were in a meeting to discuss the details of my work with people I didn't know and refused to provide basic identification, the standard response would be to call security.

Whether you agree or disagree with the goals of DOGE, I think we can all agree that the approach chosen is incorrect.

Edit: - Fix formatting

Yep. And there are established processes to handle reduction in force (RIF) directives and performance issues.

None of that was followed. No attempt was even made.

Drastic cost cuts are usually not simply performance issues and usually the mistake of top management (usually overhiring), but of course it hurts most the employees.

This is irrelevant to what DOGE is doing. They aren’t cutting costs; they are (1) enacting the “retribution” that Trump spoke of in the campaign and (2) creating an organization that has fealty to a single person.

This is a massive insider or outsider threat risk. Anyone with knowledge of this interview process and access to 18F's calendar could schedule one of these meetings and probe the scared employee on the call for sensitive information about the org.

I do work for a US company from outside the US and if I can't identify the people I'm talking to I have to hang up. We have yearly training on the importance of not sharing internals if not authorized.

In that case I'd ask them for the full name so I can look them up and call them back. But I also wouldn't be scared of getting fired for that, quite the opposite I'd also happily resign if they ask me to talk to random people about internals.

Why set aside the politics? Everybody that is not high drinking Xitter punch can see that this is a national tragedy. I'm a libertarian. I actually believe in many of these ideals that are being used as a smoke screen for this fascist coup. Am I happy they are at least finally getting some attention? Fuck no! In the least worst case their political capital will have been burnt for the next several decades. In the likely case, these looting vandals will have destroyed much of the wealth and culture of this country that made it possible to ponder the possibility of lofty ideas like widespread individual freedom.

Mandatory service for the government would go a long way to educating the public just want these organizations do and building empathy for the problems they face.

There is a significant risk of civil unrest as the competent employees are pushed out and government ceases to be able to function while private companies take advantage of lack of regulation to try and further extract value from captured markets.

> Mandatory service for [...] building empathy

I understand your thought-process here, but I'll say it really doesn't work out like that in-practice.

E.g. mandatory schooling certainly didn't make me build-up empathy for teachers and institutions, it had quite the opposite effect in my case.

I wonder how one can experience public schooling (20 years ago or now) and not have sympathy for the struggles of teachers.

Oh, in retrospect/hindsight, absolutely.

But in-person, when you’re on the spectrum, in the 1990s, when the senior staff put their stock in discipline - not understanding - does not build empathy on either side.

Fair.

Heh, I remember being a distraction and being put in the back of the class. And when I finished tasks quicker than others, I couldn't be quiet. I was put in the hallway to do base 5 math in 3rd grade.

Until you finish highschool teachers and school staff are your jailers not to put too fine a point on it… so that doesn’t exactly foster empathy.

Being friends with educators as an adult has made me a lot more sympathetic to school teachers than my own public school experience ever did. College helped too

I think exactly this has been the deliberate strategy of a part of the US' political class for a long time - "starve the beast" and all. This seems like the final culmination of those plans.

Tell the people the government is inefficient and cannot work as intended. Defund said government so it doesn't work as intended. Privatize the work and profit. A playbook as old as time. Except they are doing it bigger and more brazenly than ever.

Question for lawyers.

I can understand and respect someone leaving on principle, or someone simply unable to tolerate an immediate situation.

But if a government employee is feeling under occupation by a destructive invader, and possibly expecting to be terminated, do they keep significant legal options open by waiting it out, rather than resigning, if they can tolerate to do so?

For example, let's say that significant elements of legislative or judicial branches decide not to play along with the current maneuvers, and take corrective action. Or let's say that employees are able to sue for reinstatement, with damages? Or to sue rogue individuals personally, in some way that pierces whatever immunity the rogues might think they enjoy. Does the wronged person have a better case if they don't resign?

Not a lawyer, but by resigning voluntarily, you basically relinquish all options regarding keeping the job that you would otherwise have had. You can’t later invoke that you didn’t really mean to resign.

It’s also often more advantageous to wait to be let go in order to collect severance pay. (Though likely not for the OP due to his probationary status, and there is also a big question mark regarding pay for the current government layoffs.)

Not a lawyer, but I wonder about this as well though more from the standpoint of trying to stay in there to be a witness to the destruction and to try to do what you can to slow it down. Though in this case, as he was still probationary he wouldn't have had that option. They (DOGE) found out that it's hard to fire federal government employees, but they found the loophole with probationary employees.

When you have due process rights, it’s always better to wait it out. Eventually the law will catch up, and even if you don’t get your job back, you’ll likely get money.

This situation is unpredictable, there’s likely to be civil unrest when one of these idiots makes a truly destructive move. The more plausible options you have, the better.

All your questions presuppose an executive branch that is bound by the decisions of the judicial branch. This one isn't, or certainly doesn't feel that it is. So the answer is practical, not legal. The control they can exert is the control they can get away with exerting without undue cost. That might involve accepting the results of law suits from disgruntled employees, or it might not. Certainly right now they seem disinclined.

There is a point about timescales.

The judicial is, by design, retroactive: transgressions are made, cases are litigated, decisions come down, and then redresses are made [0]

The executive is, by design, immediate: decisions are made and implemented, then can be legally challenged

The gray area between the two is judicial restraining orders, where the facts of the case and/or the possibility of unredressable outcomes support the immediate nullification of an order, while the case is being litigated.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5293078/a-constitutiona...

Again this presupposes compliance by the executive. So far they haven't, maybe they won't. But I can all but guarantee that at some point this administration is going to start, likely with great fanfare and applause from its partisan media and the libertarian set here on HN, simply ignoring restraining orders it dislikes. And then where will we be?

There was an SF office of 18F -- IIRC it was in the building to the right of the Civic Center park as you looked at it from the Bart stop. They were great folks from every encounter I had with them.

I still don't understand what getting rid of 18F accomplished. Someone on HN said they were "openly partisan"[0] but neglected to explain how.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43059187

Anything that prevents government contractors from extracting maximal taxpayer dollars for their shareholders is in opposition to current partisan goals.

As a result, simply being nerds committed to principles like "software should work" or "government information should be accessible, as required by law" is now considered "openly partisan": https://technical.ly/civic-news/18f-profile/

According to a GSA forensic audit, 18F was losing money, had billing issues, and spent too much time on non-billable activities (52% versus 48% billable). One of the partisan activities referred to was a pronoun replacing slack bot referenced in this GSA report...

https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/OIG%20...

The GSA conclusion was...

  1. Establish a viable plan to ensure full cost recovery of ASF funds expended by 18F. 
  2. Ensure that internal 18F projects have appropriate supervisory review.  
  3. Implement controls over 18F’s reimbursable agreement process to ensure that work is not performed outside of a fully executed agreement.  
  4. Ensure that GSA CIO reviews and approves, in writing, all 18F IT-related work performed for GSA internal organizations. 
  5. Implement a comprehensive review of 18F’s past work to ensure accuracy of all billings.   
  6. Establish reliable internal controls to ensure that 18F’s future billings are accurate.  
  7. Ensure that 18F’s billing records are retained in accordance with GSA records management standards.

"losing money" is a canard when it's a self-producing government entity that was using not public dollars but instead user fees from a GSA Fund. There were lots of folks who had incentive for that thing not to work: https://insider.govtech.com/california/www-techwire-net/form...

Also, that IG report is a comedy show compared to the last 3 weeks of chaos from these people doing what they're doing flouting laws, rules and the common order.

None of this justifies getting rid of the team entirely. The GSA's plan is reasonable and 18F facilitated projects that saved more money than they spent. IRS Free File is a great example of that.

18F was staffed by a bunch of young tech folks who lean left. That makes them enemies subject to persecution. I really don't think there's any more complexity than that. Expect this kind of thing to be the norm in the future.

Not young people at all, actually. Mostly mid-to-senior people.

Unfortunately things like accessibility (which 18F provides guidance on) has been rolled into 'DEI' by the current administration, and is therefore a partisan issue.

18F was also designed for remote work, which oddly has become another partisan issue.

They promoted things like "accessibility", which is woke of course.

Free tax filing software is "anti-establishment" because it robs huge corporations (who lobby extensively!) of their profits. Ergo, leftist/Marxist/woke/etc.

Expecting this article to get flag-killed, as all politically-inclined submissions critical of Elon seem to be these days.

All politically-inclined submissions supportive of Elon are also quickly flag-killed. Perhaps it's for the best.

It's definitely very political.

But also very relevant to us, because Elon is applying tech business practices to the federal government. Move fast & break things (great for R&D, awful for organizations that are supposed to be stable), mass-layoffs (and subsequently re-hiring after you figure out what broke), thinking that there's no value in the legacy systems (and not keeping anyone around who might have known that), etc.

It's important for us to realize that while tech has been an economic powerhouse, our culture and management practices aren't all good. Esp when it comes to tech CEOs who have been very successful, have a big ego, and think they can do better at anything.

Especially technology CEOs of long term unprofitable companies that were propped up to succeed by government programs favoring research and development.

Now that they have a place in the market, it is time to remove those programs for everyone else who may attempt to compete.

> Perhaps it's for the best.

It is not. We bear a lot of the responsibility for creating this situation, we shouldn't be able to just turn away from it now that it ended up where it was always going to.

> All politically-inclined submissions supportive of Elon are also quickly flag-killed.

Funny, I haven't seen anything remotely commendable about Elon get submitted in months. Doesn't seem like a real issue.

I just saw a thread of several comments here completely disappear - I was in the middle of replying to one of them.

You can turn on showdead in your account settings. You still can’t reply to dead comments, but you can see what disappeared.

turn on show dead in your profile

The vast majority of politically-inclined submissions get killed in general. A lot of people just flag politics.

Most articles about politics are boring or repetitive, and should be flag killed and discussed elsewhere. I have plenty of other places where I can read the regular news.

Know a good alternate platform? I’m all ears.

There was an article a while back about using HN as an IdP. I've thought about setting up a society-politics forum using HN as identity.

You could go to reddit or the fediverse.

Reddit is definitely a better place for the overly emotional/political comments that come up here, but it’s very one-sided. A good or bad thing depending on your side.

> fediverse

Is that suggestion ever made unironically?

I use Lemmy which is a halfway decent Reddit drop in these days.

It is not politically diverse though.

For everyone talking about why things are being done like they are, take a look at this article linked to in the post:

Understanding DOGE as Procurement Capture

https://www.anildash.com/2025/01/04/DOGE-procurement-capture...

Musk tweet on 18F: "That group has been deleted" - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1886498750052327520

Among other things, it frustrates me that Elon's work here has echoes of "what happens if we bring in experts from the tech world to help make government IT more efficient" while ignoring that that's what 18F did, and it worked really well.

Also, he was quote-tweeting something that referred to slashing IRS Direct File, which is probably one of the most no-brainer efficiency improvements the government could make. The main reason it's been opposed for so long is just because filing taxes for people is a big industry and they have lobbying dollars.

he doesn’t want experts, he wants people who will be subservient to him. expertise would get in the way of that, because experts would likely understand that he has no idea what he’s talking about, and not respect his dictates. see: everyone who knew how things worked at twitter.

Speaking of twitter, things were looking pretty grim right after the takeover, with users and advertisers dropping left and right and it seemed like its days are numbered. What happened? It looks like it's still chugging along.

>It looks like it's still chugging along.

To this day, it remains rate-limited for people who don't have an account. Also, that fact that you (and most people) keep calling it "Twitter" is proof that the name change was an absolutely horrible idea.

> is proof that the name change was an absolutely horrible idea

For me I can't stand that the new name usurps the oldschool X windows logo and name.

Musk shrank Twitter until its load (technical and financial) was small enough to be carried by the resources it had available. Revenue is way down but so is traffic, staff, and technical expenses. There’s still a website and app that loads, but it’s not what Musk bought.

Basically, Twitter is sustainable now because so much of its user base migrated away.

Do you have a source?

I have been unable to locate anything even remotely reliable other than the AMARS[0] report that shows that between August 2023 (two months before Musk) and July 2024 the EU user base dropped from 111M to 106M. That hardly seems like load shedding to reach sustainability.

I would like to see global and up to date data, but it does not seem to exist in public.

0: https://transparency.x.com/en/reports/amars-in-the-eu

Seems like Twitter is bigger than ever.

That seems overly reductive. Opposition is more effective when we strongman our opponents rather than strawman them.

It's possible (probable?) Elon actually things "his" people are more talented.

It is possible, but not probable. The M.O. of the entire administration has been to replace expertise with loyalty. No reason to believe this group is any different. This was also the case in 2017.

It's not like this is new behavior from him. He wants people who agree with him and will do what he asks. He doesn't want pushback, and he definitely doesn't want to be told he's wrong.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-scientist-resigned-twitter-b...

However, steelman-ing shouldn't imply a lack of object permanence.

If so, he is utterly unqualified to participate in hiring or firing.

Elon isn’t trying to make the government more efficient.

You and I both know this but the amount of people here who drink the kool-aid is astounding. Nothing about this adds up to making the government more efficient.

I think this one is hard to defend but let me tell you a similar story in the UK. Gov uk was redesigned by some of the smartest people and generally I still praise a lot of digital transformation from that era. But after a while people got complacent and not much is happening or improving recently. So in that sense stirring the hive might be a good thing- even if 18F delivered good things in the past. Unfortunately with doge and Musk I don’t really see how something better comes out of the chaos- destroying things just for the sake of it is not good enough plan and basically is missing the second part- what happens after the revolution.

May be an opportunity to find talent for State or City governments that want to create their own digital services agencies?

there are lots of them already, but many more that need them.

It seems a coincidence that today is February 18.

Paraphrasing lines not to cross:

1. Working remotely

2. Killing or surveilling people

3. Discussing work with someone outside work

The resignation stemmed from the possibility of 3.

By contrast, some people stay in their positions or businesses notwithstanding adjudications of fraud, abuse, treachery, etc.

Of those two kinds of people, which will most successfully infiltrate and control an organization?

(As a hint, Stalin was not a leader but a bureaucrat who managed to oust all the actual leaders, and did Putin with the oligarchs.)

I respect the author's choice as the best alternative, and respect his speaking up for the organization. I just wish we could give him a better alternative.

> This is a wholesale attack on the American safety net, led by billionaires and far-right politicians who are frighteningly comfortable with fascism and autocracy. The last month has been called a coup by politicians, researchers, and watchdogs alike.

I find it amusing that many left-wing people are only now getting up in arms about the extent to which our government has been infiltrated by money interests. I understand not wanting to work for Trump's government, but why not just leave it at that? If this person was willing to work for the Biden administration regardless of it's billionaire influences, it betrays that this issue, for them, is a rationalization and not a reason.

Your summary is "both sides" crap. I agree, money has too much influence on both parties. But which party refunded $1T in taxes which were already due and being held aside via accounting tricks (eg, Apple routing all their profits to a tiny subsidiary in Ireland to avoid paying US taxes)? Which party cut the capital gains tax? Which party is going to cut it again? Which party supported Citizens United and which objected?

Finally, there is a matter of changing the laws to be in your favor vs flouting the laws and doing what is in your favor.

And you find this "amusing."

Both sides are bad, that much is obvious. If that's all you gleaned from my comment, you completely missed the point being made.

I'm also not going to argue with you about which party is more controlled or hurting the country more. That is a terribly uninteresting online discussion to have.

I reread your comment. All I got out of it was "both sides are bad" and implied that the guy who wrote the article was being hypocritical for quitting due to what Musk is doing but didn't quit during the previous administration.

You say I completely missed the point you were making. I guess so. Can you state it directly as I can't unearth it by reading between the lines.

> implied that the guy who wrote the article was being hypocritical

So it seems like you did get the point of my comment, and purposely didn't address it the first time you responded. I'll say the same thing again in different terms: the author's ethos when it comes to criticizing corrupt political administrations is significantly harmed by the fact that he has worked for corrupt political administrations with seemingly no issue.

Again, your argument rests on your assertion both administrations are equally bad. It is a claim I reject, and thus I also reject your assertion that the author was hypocritical.

We are at an impasse then because I have no desire to write you an analysis of money interests in American politics.

It certainly seems to me that you, along with the author, are just trying to rationalize a biased viewpoint on the issue. If you don't have any specific criticisms about the various firms and billionaires that influence the Democratic party (you clearly have criticisms for the Republicans), that's a pretty good heuristic that you aught to be more scrupulous in your research.

mightyham, let's look at what is going on.

You made an assertion without supporting it. That is fine, this is a comment thread, not a dissertation thesis. I disagreed and gave a terse summary for some of the reasons I disagreed. You said I missed your point. Rather than assigning stupidity or malice to your intent, I asked you to clarify what you meant. In return, you said you have good reasons for your beliefs but don't want to write them down. Again, that is fine, I can't force you to do anything.

But you go on to ding me for not rebutting the points you haven't made and attribute it to me being unscrupulous in my thinking.

At this point I raise my own heuristic that there is no point talking with you further if you hold me up to a different standard than what applies to you.

18F/TTS repeatedly was cited by the Inspector General for breaking rules and making false statements, often for political reasons. E.g:

March 2023: "GSA Misled Customers on Login.gov’s Compliance with Digital Identity Standards" (refused to use mandatory facial recognition because it believed it was racist) [1]

June 2017: "Investigation of Whistleblower Reprisal Complaint" (finding that an Obama political appointee retaliated against a career official for blowing the whistle on mismanagement) [2]

April 2017: GSA acknowledges "gross mismanagement" [3]

October 2016: "Evaluation of 18F" (finding that it spent thousands of dollars on things like "inclusion bots") [4]

May 2016: "GSA Data Breach" [5]

February 2017: "Evaluation of 18F’s Information Technology Security Compliance" (misrepresented severity of breach) [6]

[1] https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/Alert%...

[2] https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/foia/Investigation...

[3] https://osc.gov/Documents/Public%20Files/FY17/DI-17-0642/DI-...

[4] https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/OIG%20...

[5] https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/Alert%...

[6] https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/OIG%20...

Sorry, I pasted the wrong link for [1], which describes how 18F thought facial recognition was racist, so it simply did not implement it for high-security accounts despite being required by spec, and falsely assured agencies that it was in compliance anyway. It is here:

https://www.gsaig.gov/content/gsa-misled-customers-logingovs...

The executive summary says: "Our evaluation found GSA misled their customer agencies when GSA failed to communicate Login.gov’s known noncompliance with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-63-3, Digital Identity Guidelines. Notwithstanding GSA officials’ assertions that Login.gov met SP 800-63-3 Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL2) requirements, Login.gov has never included a physical or biometric comparison for its customer agencies. Further, GSA continued to mislead customer agencies even after GSA suspended efforts to meet SP 800-63-3. GSA knowingly billed IAL2 customer agencies over $10 million for services, including alleged IAL2 services that did not meet IAL2 standards. Furthermore, GSA used misleading language to secure additional funds for Login.gov."

haa, an insepector general looking at this stuff is quaint in the era of let's just break all the rules.

OK, none of those would be reasons for shutting down the work they're doing.

But yeah, it sounds like they were concerned with racism, inclusion, and all that "bad woke stuff" that we shouldn't be worried about when _designing technology for all citizens_. So long as it works for white males, we're good!

Also all those were during Trump's first term by the way, with the exception of the last one (and facial recognition has been shown to be biased so they have a point there).

An example of highly relevant, yet flagged with political motivation.

We should try and do better than that.

Did you check out the links? They don’t align well with what is claimed (especially the first link). Posts from throwaway accounts should generally be treated with skepticism.

Sorry, I pasted the wrong link for [1] (though you could have easily found it by googling "GSA Misled Customers on Login.gov’s Compliance with Digital Identity Standards"). It is here:

https://www.gsaig.gov/content/gsa-misled-customers-logingovs...

Read the GSA forensic audit yourself...

https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/OIG%20...

>18F’s cumulative net loss from its launch in FY 2014 through the third quarter of FY 2016 is $31.66 million. We found that 18F’s plan to achieve full cost recovery has been unsuccessful because of inaccurate financial projections, increased staffing levels, and the amount of staff time spent on non-billable activities. 18F managers have repeatedly overestimated revenue and, with the support of the Administrator’s office, hired more staff than revenue could support. In addition, 18F staff spent over half of their time on non-billable projects. 18F managers have recently revised their projected breakeven date from 2019 to 2020.

So basically it was a billion-dollar taxpayer funded gravy train. Nobody could predict this, absolutely nobody.

Wow, the first link has absolutely nothing to do with facial recognition or racism. That poster is either outright lying or posting LLM garbage.

That poster knows its target audience. It wants readers like the first response from snvzz who say "look at all those impressive looking links that I'm told support my preconceived notions! Clearly, this is a person of gavitas who I must upvote, defend from criticism and forwarded to my equally uncritical echo chamber!".

The only insight I got from reading this is that the author doesn't like the president or his administration. Big whoop.

I was looking forward to hearing about the DOGE interview process and the offer made to those who were let go. The article didn't even say who the interview was with.

It's odd that it's mostly Europeans talking about how the US is currently collapsing or something. Not very odd, but odd nonetheless.

The general consensus among Americans with a clue is that the Government should serve the people, not the other way around. If a government is "critical" for the people survive then the government has become a Leviathan. Ideally a government should just be another corporation, one buys and sells political services and goods. A failure of a single company shouldn't cause an economic downturn, but that is the situation we find ourselves in.

It's not very odd because implicitly Europeans have realized that the government they care most about, in terms of their economic well being, is the American one. (and of course they bragged about not working so much that we had to cut them off lol)

That’s because Europeans focus on society whilst the US focuses on the individual.

That mostly comes from historical experience and “societal maturity”.

When society decides that only those people that both actively contribute to society and follow a strict set of guidelines as to how people should be, act and express themselves, then those outside that subset are superfluous to society.

Taken to extreme, that subset of superfluous people are just deleted.

In Europe, that deletion was abhorrent and it has left an indelible mark that echoes through its gene pool.

The US will too have its experience, and eventually learn from it.

There’s nothing like watching your disabled or sick child be forcibly removed from your love and care and knowing that they will subsequently be gassed and burnt, simply because your political masters believed they were a burden to their glorious nation.

Please do share your method for identifying who is European here or not.

To recap: OP resigned because he feared what might happen in a meeting with USDS. It might have required him to kill someone, or explain his work to a contractor. Somehow these are presented as equally-odious propositions.

He openly refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of USDS, referring to it as "a so-called 'department'", and neglects even a cursory investigation into whether it may in fact be a legitimate executive agency established by Obama, staffed by government employees with requisite clearances and authority.

It's wild to me that so many smart people think the White House should be boxed out of the day-to-day operations of GSA and OMB, whether by law or tradition, despite being undeniably responsible for their actions.

Being required to meet with private citizens, who won't even admit their own names, and being expected to subject oneself to them in violation of actual laws, is not a "what might happen". It is already potentially a crime. It is certainly a coup against the lawful governance of our nation.

Not wanting to collaborate with a coup is an entirely reasonable line to draw.

DOGE took over USDS and changed its name, so it didn't have to create a new agency.

Given the way they're operating, I would also question their legitimacy if I was working for the government and they came to my office.

But I wouldn't resign. Better to let them fire you and then you have standing for a lawsuit (whether you win or not, that's another story; probably not, but at least you can sue).

Right. I think the real risk here is that even a “positive” outcome at 18F would have still been negative in every other context that matters to him. Why stick around and risk a neutral-to-positive experience that could result in labels like “scab,” “collaborator,” and “traitor” by no other fault of your own?

I meant I wouldn’t resign under the assumption that I’d be fired right away instead. But yes if not fired then certainly leave

Yes people don't want Trump corrupting the government.

Corruption is bad. Power is easy to abuse.

Checks are hard when a president doesn't care about the law or the constituon kr the damage he does to the country.

There's a reason several departments are supposed to be at arms length from the president.

Many of these reforms happened after Nixon. Now assuming the country survives it's clear we need something more. Possibly some administrative agencies need to be placed under the judicial branch to avoid executive corruption. Also impeachment needs to be much easier, arguably we need something like a vote of no confidence where a malcious president can be replaced by the VP. Although even that might not work like a lot of problems relating to the trump disaster era its hard to overcome reflexive partisanship

I went to a USDS recruiting event in the Bay Area a decade ago. The whole pitch was that they were Obama’s elite squad of private-sector tech workers, on brief tours of duty, taking orders directly from the White House about what to work on.

In reality, they were embedded with federal agencies and worked on engagements for them. You gotta read what people actually do in practice, versus just the pitch.

You’ve literally described DOGE. It uses this exact structure.

They were not Obamas army or his personal servants. Sure some might have been excited to work with President Obama but unlike Trump its not like they were being abused to "go after" perceived political enemies and its not like they would have objected to say Trump telling them to make tech to improve rural access to government resources. They were working to try to improve the government for the good of nation

Unlike with "DODGe"which is an attempt to destroy many governmental institutions either to find places to hire loyalists or to remove opposition to corrupt and criminal actions taken by the executive branch or just because someone on one team once said something positive about gay people.

That's too long for me to read, so apologies if the answer was too subtle for "Find in page…"

> I’m not leaving under a “deferred resignation”.

> …

> Instead, I resigned from my position as a product designer, submitting two weeks’ notice…well, two weeks ago.

If they're offering you a buyout and you don't want to work there, why wouldn't you take it?

The part you cut out explains it:

> (Though it’s possible I almost was; more on that later.)

The part from later in the post that explains it:

> In a terrible coda, a large number of probationary employees were summarily let go at my agency just before my last day.

He wasn't offered a buyout. He quit, and then later, a lot of people were let go. He believes it's probable he would have been one of them had he stayed.

Everyone in the federal government received an email from OPM entitled "A Fork in the Road", offering the opportunity to receive a buyout in exchange for their resignation.

I actually forgot that 18F is literally part of the government instead of a contractor. Thank you.

(I also thought that probationary employees were not eligible for the buyout, but now that makes me want to go check on the accuracy of that.)

Applied to probationary employees as well. I know of one who was there for two days and took it.

The tradeoffs from not wanting to read the article: the writer linked to another article explaining that accepting the deferred resignation contains the following risks:

1. Not getting paid: the agreement is written such that the government may rescind it unilaterally. It is also contrary to existing law in US Code that cap severances to $25k. If it is "administrative leave", then that is capped to 10 days per year.

2. Violating non-competes. If a person is still employed by the US government, they may be prohibited from working for a contractor or other employer with conflicts of interest.

Article by American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE): https://www.afge.org/article/afge-cautions-feds-not-to-be-tr...

My understanding is that probationary employees weren't eligible for the deferred resignation offer.

I know of many probationary employees at the DoE that took it.

He was a probationary employee, so if he didn't quit he likely would have been fired anyway (probationary employees don't get the buyout, and it's very possible rank-and-file won't get it either... it's budget that would have to be approved by congress)

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