Comment by morgante
1 day ago
The efficiency comparison is interesting, since it starts relatively evenly but quickly dismisses the value of the DOGE approach. Everyone I know who worked at USDS has been talented and well-meaning, but I can't help but feel they've been hamstrung specifically by
1. Methodical improvements mostly work to improve processes as they are. They don't delete processes that shouldn't exist.
2. Agency "empowerment" often means working with a lot of incumbent teams that are simply not suited to digital work and sinks way too much time/energy into stakeholder management.
USDS has done good work, but could have done a lot more if they were actually empowered.
[1] https://www.wethebuilders.org/posts/a-tale-of-two-effiencies...
This is true based on the conversations I’ve had with my USDS friends too, but I’m under no illusion that DOGE will actually empower people to do the right things.
Like, as someone who is generally fairly process averse, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a huge middle ground between too much process that hampers getting things done and no process that leads to decisions that either break things, or worse, set disastrous acts in motion because basic checks or conversations with people who have more context didn’t happen.
I think if there was a good-faith attempt from the DOGE folks to audit and understand certain systems and processes, instead of gleefully dismantling and freezing programs, firing people, gleefully announcing how much money was “saved” (and often with incorrect amounts) and reflexively ripping on how terrible everything is, you’d probably get some cooperation from the people who have had to deal with bullshit bureaucracy. But that isn’t what happened.
What’s happened is akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water, all real security issues being completely ignored, under the guise that 19 year old crypto bros have the work experience, social skills, or common sense to foresee what is happening.
Governments are inefficient. That’s as much a feature as it is a bug. But with USDS in particular, you had people who left high paying jobs to work for the government because they wanted to make things better for democracy and the country. That is decidedly not the goal of DOGE employees, who want to out McKinsey McKinsey when it comes to just slashing and burning.
Unfortunately nuance is dead. I too wish Musk had tried to empower USDS instead of immediately alienating many of the people best positioned to improve things.
It is not a lack of nuance. You are assigning goals that are not this administration's goals. They have said as such.
"We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/books/review/administrati...
A lot of budgets were canceled because diversity or transition is included in the title.
> out McKinsey McKinsey when it comes to just slashing and burning
That's more of a Bain & Co speciality.
You bring in Bain to layoff the BUs McKinsey recommended your company build /s (kinda)
But DoGE is more like a PE firm that fires a bunch of people. It is less like a careful founder who hand crafts tough microdecisions that make everyone more efficient. DoGE cares about the balance sheet not the operations.
Yeah I’d say it is PE crossed with the worst management consultants. The actual health of the programs and the food to humanity doesn’t matter. It’s all about some perceived balance sheet as you say with zero care about the fallout from those decisions.
It’s easy to be efficient when you’re no longer providing any programs or services.
PE firm, crossed with the worst management consultants, crossed with an attention-seeking coked-up narcissist?
This is not what they are doing and you know it because they have vocally expressed their goals. None of them include improving government.
"We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/books/review/administrati...
Are sweeping layoffs without any serious attempt to retain critical talent going to empower the remaining staff to do their best work? We've seen lots of examples of DOGE cutting loose important people and then flailing to hire them back. What happens when that one person who makes the whole team able to do their jobs gets cut loose? Are you empowered and productive then suddenly?
If DOGE were serious about increasing efficiency they'd be focused on process reforms. Instead they're randomly cancelling contracts, cancelling leases, and letting people go without doing the hard work of analyzing processes or analyzing organizations to figure out where the problems actually are.
It's like their philosophy is "if we cut one of the dog's legs off it'll suddenly become a more efficient runner".
I'm not here to defend DOGE, but you're making the same mistake as the article of assuming the DOGE approach has no merit.
Deleting processes somewhat randomly, then listening for the pain, is a pretty well-known technique for understanding and cleaning up legacy systems. Of course, it should only be used on systems where (temporary) failures are tolerable.
There are parts of the government where that is true, and parts where it is dangerous. The problem on both sides is assuming the same techniques should be applied across the entire government, when some services are indeed life-and-death and others absolutely should be deleted.
The pain you're listening for here is dead veterans, dead trans kids, dead disabled people, starving seniors, people dying from preventable viruses because of vaccine program cuts. The pain you're listening for here is toxic water and food-borne illnesses.
We know we need most of these programs and services! You can make them more efficient, you can identify and cut waste. You don't do that by just making blanket, massive cuts to staff and services and then trying to cobble the pieces back together over the next few years. It doesn't make sense. No sensible person would run a business that way.
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No, that is definitely not well known or time tested technique in anything that actually affects things that matter. You do that when you don't care about consequences. And in this context, not caring about consequences is sociopaths.
Second, you can't just turn on institutions or checks and balances again. Which is who DOGE does it - to cause permanent destruction they will blame on someone else and to cement oligarchy power.
> It's like their philosophy is "if we cut one of the dog's legs off it'll suddenly become a more efficient runner".
I think their philosophy is to replace the dog's legs with ones that run (only) where they want it to run.
No replacement has happened yet. No improvement has happened yet. They're just firing people, cancelling contracts, and cancelling leases.
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To me, what's happening in the US now looks very much like the wave of hostile-takeovers that destroyed British industry through the 70s and 80s. Adam Curtis "Mayfair Set" documents it well [0].
"Efficiency", which is an empty and practically meaningless word if you really examine it [1], was the cause celebre then too. And many of the perpetrators were charismatic and quite loved (Stirling was an archetypal British hero) up until the damage had been done and the trickery exposed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mayfair_Set
[1] https://cybershow.uk/blog/posts/efficiency/
[flagged]
> 1. Question every requirement:
> In short, the idea is to spend time on the floor with your returns team, observing the current process and asking questions to map exactly how you handle returns today. The result is a process map of how you handle different types of returns from end to end.
> 2. Delete any part or process you can
> So look at all the actions you take, question each of them: Question every step: can we remove this? What would happen if we removed this? Would the outcome still be the same? What would be the impact on our KPIs (e.g. customer satisfaction, handling time, and profits)?
I only got as far as step 2 and it's pretty clear DOGE isn't following the steps.
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