Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#321

Post by throw0101c » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

Somehow I doubt that external consultants will be cheaper than in-house government employees. There's a reasonable argument to be made that the US needs more bureaucracy:

* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-...

As to waste, Reagan tried to find it, bringing in the private sector:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Commission

* https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/topic-guide/president...

* https://www.gao.gov/products/123531

* https://www.pgpf.org/programs-and-projects/convening-experts...

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42463355

* As did Bush (43): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_the_Inspectors_Gene...

* FDR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownlow_Committee

* Truman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Commission

* Clinton/Gore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinv...

There's an entire agency whose job is auditing:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Accountability_Offi...

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#322

Post by dcow » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

scintill76 wrote: post #313

dcow wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you’re interpreting the article’s wording correctly.

Well, why don’t you write your interpretation, and explain how that quote from TFA means that the email came before any layoffs.

18F was let go yesterday morning, 1 March.

2nd “what did you do” email came Friday, 28, Feb.

1st “what did you do” email came Saturday 22 Feb.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#323

Post by gnz11 » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:33 PM UTC

readyplayernull wrote: post #166

1970-01-01 wrote: post #94

D+ grade headline. His full offer and message: “If you worked for 18F and got fired, Group together to start a consulting company,” wrote Cuban. “It’s just a matter of time before DOGE needs you to fix the mess they inevitably created. They will have to hire your company as a contractor to fix it. But on your terms. I’m happy to invest and/or help.”

Something tells that's an intended feature not a bug, that they will re-hire personel, re-buy assets like all those EVs, re-rent offices, but next time it will be with gov-aligned providers, and the cost will be the same for less.

The cost won’t be the same but 2-3x more.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#324

Post by arcanemachiner » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:34 PM UTC

sensanaty wrote: post #208

modeless wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is private companies that accumulate too much waste and useless things can fail and be replaced. The exception is companies propped up by government regulation. The problem with modern big companies is that the exception has become the rule. Regulation is so pervasive it's become a "what the hell is water" situation. People don't even recognize that the dysfunctional companies are protected from failur…

> The difference is private companies that accumulate too much waste and useless things can fail and be replaced. Have we really already forgotten "Too big to fail"? It wasn't that long ago that those words were uttered and the US gov't bailed out failing private companies with taxpayer money. And on the topic of profitability that pops up in these discussions, what about public transport? Healhcare? Power plants? Nu…

> Have we really already forgotten "Too big to fail"?

The entirety of the GP's post (other than the part you quoted) addresses that exact point.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#325

Post by chmorgan_ » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:36 PM UTC

jay-barronville wrote: post #201

It’s so interesting that here on HN, on virtually any political topic, virtually the entire commentary is one-sided, and virtually all comments providing dissenting views are simply downvoted and/or flagged out of existence (often with no actual counter-arguments). On technical topics, this place tends to be so awesome—I learn so much by just reading the comments—due to the intellectual diversity of the viewpoints, b…

Happens to me here all of the time. If it doesn't align with the HN groupthink it gets hammered out of view.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#326

Post by cmrdporcupine » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:36 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #308

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For the first time in a long time the GOP has control over all branches of gov't.

So if there were policy and organizational changes they wanted to make, they now have the power to do it, through passing laws.

But they're not doing that. Which really draws attention to the fact that it's not the manner in which government is being run that is a problem to them. It's government itself.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#327

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

jay-barronville wrote: post #201

It’s so interesting that here on HN, on virtually any political topic, virtually the entire commentary is one-sided, and virtually all comments providing dissenting views are simply downvoted and/or flagged out of existence (often with no actual counter-arguments). On technical topics, this place tends to be so awesome—I learn so much by just reading the comments—due to the intellectual diversity of the viewpoints, b…

[deleted]

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#328

Post by chmorgan_ » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:38 PM UTC

This is Cuban putting his money where his mouth is. He wasn't willing to do it when it came to applying DEI to his basketball team, but I'm glad he is here.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#329

Post by asimpletune » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:38 PM UTC

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…

Yeah, I have to say, I heard so much growing up, from adults, always saying stuff about how they want the government “run like a business”. Now that I’m grown, and I’ve seen the various pathologies of businesses first hand, I question whether any of those people really understood their meaning.

Just off the top of my head here’s a list of what that it means to run something like a business: enshitification, make everything a subscription, policies implemented by bots that can not be appealed, dark pattern UI, force people to give up their data by saying it’s necessary and then sell their data, train AI on copyrighted data if it means a snowball’s chance in hell that you can fire your employees, but do this only after spending decades harassing people who think there should essentially be a global library (call it “piracy!”), customer’s don’t own or control their devices, make healthcare about profit, give bailouts to businesses that simply were bad at their core competencies, and I could go on… so could anyone else on HN.

The truth is there is simply more to life than the bottom line, but that no longer stands to be the case when you run the country like a business… because that is the point of the business (the bottom line). Regardless, even if you believe the contrary, that there is nothing else in life beyond the bottom line, then the question remains at how many businesses are simply awful at what they purport to do.

Why anyone would want to exchange the system that has created the most prosperous nation in history for the likes of those who can only compete by not charging for their product is beyond my comprehension. Something tells me though that the issue at hand is not that we, as in the USA, are lacking in prosperity but something deeper and that’s the real reason why everyone’s searching for change.

I won’t be the one to say what it is, as I’d much rather hear what other people think, but I do want to beg the question. Perhaps there is a deeper problem, and perhaps we’re being guided to embrace a solution that will actually make things much worse for most.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#330

Post by stuckindoors » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 5:39 PM UTC

Bill Clinton ended up cutting staff throughout his time in office. Despite the cuts in government staff driven by the narrative that a smaller government is better by years of Reagan and Bush1. Despite these cuts, the sum effect was that costs significantly rose as they had to hire contractors to do the things that internal staff was doing.

Things are more complicated than they appear.

https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2025/02/26/fresh-air-...