Sahil Lavingia has published a diary that talks about her time as a member of the workforce at Elon Musk's Doge. It's a short read – Lavingia's Doge Stint lasted just 55 days, but offers new details of a temporary government organisation formed by President Trump's executive order.
Lavingia is a well-known name in Silicon Valley, from her early days as Pinterest's employees to her current gig as the founder of Gumroad, a platform where creators can sell products. He is also a famous species and angel investor.
He joined Doge in mid-March as a software engineer for the Veterans Affairs Bureau (VA), he writes. What stands out from his account is his surprise that 473,000 employee government agencies had strict rules about who could be targeted in layoffs, and he quickly learned that it wasn't as inefficient as everything in the VA imagined. He also lamented that Doge itself is not an oiled machine.
As a $0 salary volunteer, he was soon tasked with identifying “wasteful” contracts and people the VA should be fired, he wrote. However, he was surprised to discover aspects like seniority and the status of a person's veteran (this was, after all, a VA). Performance can be factored into lower listings, in Lavingia's view.
He also described Doge's advisory role as McKinsey Management Consultant, saying Doge is not responsible for the actions taken by Orgs. “Doge had no direct authority. The actual decision came from the head of the agency appointed by President Trump. They were wise to let Doge act as the 'Autumn Man' due to the unpopular decision,” he says.
This is similar to what Musk was dying to the Washington Post this week. Musk denounced all the unpopular decisions, describing Doge as a “whip boy” in Washington, D.C.
Lavingia said she joined Doge in 2016 after Bernie Sanders' campaign. His Doge Missives didn't take much time, so he said he was working on projects that interest him, such as overhauling the UX of the VA's already used LLM-based chatbot.
He wrote a fairly long list within two months, but said he hadn't had the opportunity to do huge projects, such as “improving the submission of veteran disability claims or automating/fastering claim processing.”
He then wrote, “I couldn't approve of shipping anything to production that would actually improve American life, but I also couldn't save money for American taxpayers.”
However, he was given open source permission for much of his work. His work included tools to scan the terms “related to DEI, gender identity, community policy, partnership initiatives, and partnerships.” He explained on the Tools page, and used tools to build contracts and organizational charts using LLMS.
He also observed the lack of organization in Doge itself. “I wondered why there was no intensive software engineering playbook with all learning. Overall, I was surprised by the lack of knowledge sharing within Doge. It seemed like every engineer started from scratch.”
He was suddenly xed by Doge on the 55th day after discussing his work with a reporter from Fast Company there. “I got my boots from the Doge,” he wrote. “Suddenly after its publication, my access was revoked without warning.”
However, in an interview with that FC, he also said he said he was working nearby with the VA. He told him that it was slow like a huge corporation, but it still “works.”
“I don't think culture shock is primarily a lot of meetings, and not a lot of decisions,” he says. “But honestly, that's kind of okay, because the government is at work. It's not as inefficient as I expected. Honestly, I wanted an easier victory.”
His experience fully captures the dilemma of keeping a huge government institution modern as it remains functional. While all taxpayers will reduce waste and the government will certainly benefit from programmers immersed in the latest technology, perhaps Silicon Valley volunteers have not plummeted like they are building startups from scratch.
Lavingia did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.