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Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

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Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#301

Post by dcow »

ceejayoz wrote: post #260
dcow wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the individuals working for this agency could provide a list of 5 things they did the prior week, either. The subthread here was talking about waste generally I wasn’t intending to move any goalposts. Ignore fraud. I still think it’s unacceptable for government workers to be insubordinate or absent to the point where they can't provide a weekly standup update when asked. That’s inefficient waste in my book.

If someone entirely outside my chain of command demands I give them a status update, “no” is often an appropriate answer. It doesn’t mean I can’t. It means I shouldn’t.

And now they’re facing the consequences (the existence of which clearly refutes your chain of command argument). Maybe they are virtuous. Maybe they got bad advice from leadership. Either way the chapter is finished and the outcome doesn't seem positive for the insubordinate individuals.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#302

Post by rglullis »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #19

Privatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle age…

I've gotten used to say that Capitalism is not the problem, but Corporatism.

We "just" need to switch from monolithic institutions and switch to limited-scale "microservices".

Limit the size of any corporation to at most 150 employees and and forbid any single individual to own/manage/take a seat in the board of directors for more than one company.

Even if inefficiencies might even still be there (because large corporations are able to optimize some process and they can have loss leaders), I can bet the net result will be more transparency, less waste and (most importantly) less chances of billionaires using their wealth to disrupt governments.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#303

Post by tchock23 »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #19

Privatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle age…

This is exactly the issue. The minute a group of humans gets too large you face the same challenges, regardless of whether it is public or private.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#304

Post by surgical_fire »

luckylion wrote: post #60
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #19

Privatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle age…

My experience as a consultant with both (local) administrations (in Germany) and much larger corporations is that the corporations weren't even close to being as dysfunctional. I'm certain there are great parts of government, but I've never experienced it, and all I'm hearing from friends who work at the federal level is that it's no different there.

My experience of working in corporations in more than 2 decades, from startups to FAANG, is that those are riddled with mismanagement and poor decision making, be it for incompetence, egocentrism, ignorance, etc and so forth. The only difference is that corporations tend to be optimized for generating profits, all else be damned.

I certainly wouldn't trust corporations with government functions.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#305

Post by tchock23 »

trentnix wrote: post #122
blactuary wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this exactly. Reflexive "ugh govt" is a result of decades of Reagan-ite propaganda. Govt is just people, and people are flawed and have competing incentives. I've worked in massive companies that have incredibly dumb inefficiencies.

> Reflexive "ugh govt" is a result of decades of Reagan-ite propaganda I (and many others) have worked for, contracted for, interacted with, and/or closely observed government for decades. The only “reflexive” thing here is your argument that people who disagree with the you are the victims of propaganda. You can certainly quibble with the details on how to deliver government efficiency (and I highly encourage people…

What ‘broad support’ are you referring to? https://www.newsweek.com/doge-support-collapsing-poll-elon-m...

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#306

Post by jghn »

trainsarebetter wrote: post #249
Volundr wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue the difference between private companies and government is that in government that spending is public. Spend a few mil on something of marginal utility, politicaly controversial, or funding a study for something that seems obvious? Congratulations! Fox News found it on USASpending.gov (maybe not now that 18F is dead), and is drumming up outrage. Now your fielding phone calls from senators who are looking to…

In theory I guess, but hasn’t all this gov spending essentially been hidden? If doge finding are true? (And in which now I guess it is public)

One could argue that things were *more* transparent pre-DOGE. Just because people didn't know where to look doesn't mean the information didn't exist.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#307

Post by ericjmorey »

rorylawless wrote: post #113

Had DOGE been more than 2 brain cells fighting for 3rd place, they would have spun out 18F as an independent organization. They could have taken inspiration from how the British government did something similar with the Behavioural Insights Team. The US government could have even secured favorable rates for a period of time so it could continue to benefit from the 18F expertise.

If DOGE made sense it wouldn't exist.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#308

Post by s1artibartfast »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #139
alephnerd wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no denying that there's bloat, but going in with a chainsaw is not a conducive or efficient way to reduce bloat in an organization. If you want to use the "private sector lense" (which I do not think is valid for a govenenent bureaucracy), there's a reason why when I've participated in M&A events, we would spend a year doing due diligence and understanding the organizational and financial structure before ini…

Indeed. The chainsaw approach will only produce an even less effective civil service, and one in constant crisis. If you want to actually improve governance (and we really should because it is in fact often quite dysfunctional), you don't come in with the notion that it is intrinsically rotten to the core and the very idea of governance is flawed by nature. You start by motivating people to improve. Which you don't d…

>If you want to actually improve governance (and we really should because it is in fact often quite dysfunctional), you don't come in with the notion that it is intrinsically rotten to the core and the very idea of governance is flawed by nature.

There are really two type if inefficiencies being conflated here. That of the workers, and that of the organizations.

For the organization, firing does nothing. You have to start by reducing the scope and simplifying the legislation of those organizations. E.g fix the tax code, eliminate the department of education, streamline EPA objectives.

For the worker incentive, this is really a classic public sector union debate, and should be treated as such.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#309

Post by sjsdaiuasgdia »

dcow wrote: post #274
sgarland wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a random person joined your company’s Slack and said “tell me what you do, or I will fire you,” and your CEO then said to ignore it, which one would you go with?

If the board of my company (my CEO’s boss) showed up in Slack and asked, I would probably listen to my CEO’s boss. And what a poor CEO for risking his entire workforce and his own position on a political squabble.

I think it's a great moment for the CEO to have a spine and show the stupidity of the board in that moment.

"To the board: if you have this level of distrust for my management, you should fire me immediately. This request is out of line, and shows great disrespect for our employees as well as myself. If you are dissatisfied with the information you receive about the company's operations and performance, you can talk to me and my staff about that. I will not allow you to display such callous disregard for the people under my leadership."

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#310

Post by ericjmorey »

austin-cheney wrote: post #169

Is there any evidence that government teams are more wasteful or less productive than commercial alternatives? How does spinning a government team into a government contract of a commercial vendor save the government money?

No evidence at all. Just feelings.
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