This Biden official wants to root out waste. She says DOGE is doing it all wrong.

Summary

POLITICO Tech Episode Summary: "This Biden Official Wants to Root Out Waste. She Says DOGE is Doing it All Wrong."

Release Date: February 27, 2025

In this insightful episode of the POLITICO Tech podcast, host Stephen Overleigh engages in a critical conversation with Anne Lewis, the former Director of Technology Transformation Services (TTS) under the Biden administration. The discussion centers around Lewis's concerns regarding Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its approaches to modernizing government technology. Lewis offers a comprehensive analysis of DOGE's strategies, highlighting significant challenges and proposing alternative methods to effectively root out waste within government technology initiatives.

1. Introduction to Anne Lewis and DOGE

[00:32] Stephen Overleigh introduces Anne Lewis, emphasizing her extensive experience in the federal government, particularly her role in TTS. Lewis's tenure involved overseeing the modernization of government technology, hiring over 300 technologists from the private sector through competitive processes. This background sets the stage for her informed critique of DOGE's recent actions within the government’s tech landscape.

2. Initial Optimism Turned Dismay

[02:28] Anne Lewis begins by sharing her initial optimism about DOGE's mission to eliminate fraud and waste using technology. She expresses support for integrating private sector expertise into government roles, reflecting her own experience in fostering such collaborations within TTS.

However, her enthusiasm wanes as she observes DOGE's recent mass layoffs and the departure of 21 engineers and designers from the US Digital Service (USDS). [03:18] Lewis remarks, "Over the last couple of weeks, honestly, I've been a little confused and dismayed just to see the ways in which the DOGE engineers have been going about trying to gain access and what they've done with their access."

3. Critique of DOGE’s Approach to Modernization

Lewis criticizes DOGE for its approach to addressing government inefficiencies. She argues that instead of fostering a collaborative environment where private sector technologists work alongside government managers to identify and solve specific problems, DOGE has opted for broad and arbitrary cuts. [04:19] She states, "The cuts feel pretty arbitrary in people and contracts. This, to me, is a big risk from an organizational leadership and also technology perspective."

4. Examples of Waste in Government Technology Projects

One of the most compelling segments features Lewis detailing specific instances of governmental waste due to poor technology decisions. [06:20] She recounts a scenario where a benefits program's call center overwhelmed its system during the pandemic, leading to a misguided $400 million custom software solution instead of a cost-effective $4 million alternative. Lewis explains how USDS intervened to rectify the situation, highlighting the potential for substantial savings if similar issues are systematically addressed. [08:43] "I think if we were able to focus on those kinds of problems, we could actually save the government a trillion dollars."

5. Policymaking vs. Implementation Challenges

Lewis delves into the inherent disconnect between policymaking and implementation within the government. [11:05] She describes how policymakers often lack the technical expertise to draft feasible implementation plans, leading to ineffective policies that fail to address actual needs. Lewis emphasizes the importance of involving implementation leaders in the policymaking process to ensure that policies are both effective and executable.

6. Impact of DOGE’s Workforce Cuts on Government Technology Expertise

Addressing the human cost of DOGE's strategies, Lewis laments the loss of talented technologists who were brought into the government to drive meaningful change. [15:05] She highlights that hundreds of skilled individuals are leaving due to arbitrary cuts, resulting in a significant loss of expertise and hindering the government's ability to modernize effectively. [15:37] "Hundreds of people that I hired in from the tech industry have left or are leaving."

7. Cybersecurity Concerns with DOGE’s Access to Government Data

A critical area of concern raised by Lewis pertains to cybersecurity. She warns against DOGE's broad access to sensitive government data, emphasizing the risks associated with insufficient access management. [16:38] "Every time you open up a new access path, you open up a new vector for fraud." Lewis underscores the principle of least privilege, advocating for minimal access rights to mitigate potential security threats.

8. Recommendations and Final Thoughts

In her concluding remarks, Lewis advocates for a more transparent and collaborative approach. [18:17] She urges DOGE to clearly communicate its goals and work closely with government officials to understand the complexities of governmental operations. Lewis also stresses the necessity of aligning policy objectives with implementation capabilities, ensuring that technological initiatives are both strategic and sustainable.

[19:07] "There are more ways to earn loyalty or get alignment than just through use of force. And as far as I can tell from reading articles in the media, it seems like they're just only using use of force to get things, and at some point that button is going to stop working."

Lewis concludes by highlighting the cultural clash between tech and government, suggesting that DOGE's current tactics may undermine long-term collaboration and effectiveness.

Conclusion

Anne Lewis's critique offers a sobering perspective on DOGE's initiatives within the federal government. Her analysis underscores the importance of strategic, collaborative approaches to technology modernization and the dangers of arbitrary workforce and contractual decisions. By advocating for greater transparency, aligned policymaking, and adherence to cybersecurity best practices, Lewis provides a roadmap for how government technology efforts can be more effective and sustainable. This episode serves as a crucial examination of the intersection between technology and government policy, emphasizing the need for informed and thoughtful approaches to public sector innovation.

Notable Quotes:

• Anne Lewis [04:25]: "This is a big risk from an organizational leadership and also technology perspective."

• Anne Lewis [08:43]: "I think if we were able to focus on those kinds of problems, we could actually save the government a trillion dollars."

• Anne Lewis [15:37]: "Hundreds of people that I hired in from the tech industry have left or are leaving."

• Anne Lewis [16:38]: "Every time you open up a new access path, you open up a new vector for fraud."

• Anne Lewis [18:17]: "I would be curious as to whether or not they plan to be more transparent about their goals and their actions."

• Anne Lewis [19:07]: "There are more ways to earn loyalty or get alignment than just through use of force."

This episode provides a valuable examination of the complexities involved in integrating private sector technology expertise into government frameworks and the potential pitfalls to avoid in the pursuit of efficiency and modernization.

Transcript

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[Stephen Overleigh]

Hey, welcome to Politico tech. Today's Thursday, February 27th. I'm Stephen Overle. Sometimes on this podcast I hear things.

[Anne Lewis]

That make me go what everyone who.

Has ever worked in government has heard of or knows about a project that accidentally wasted a billion dollars.

[Stephen Overleigh]

This is Anne Lewis. Ann used to work in the federal government and she's seen lots of money wasted, especially on bad technology. During the last two years of the Biden administration, Ann was the director of Technology Transformation Services, an office tasked with revamping and updating government technology. Now, if that sounds familiar, it's because Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has a similar eliminate fraud and waste and use tech to make the government function better. But in recent weeks, DOGE has fired a bunch of employees from Ann's old office, along with workers from the U.S. digital Service, another part of government focused on tech modernization. And then earlier this week, A group of 21 engineers and designers from the US Digital Services resigned on their own, telling the White House in a letter that, quote, we will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems. Ann has been watching all of this play out, and she tells me there's a version of DOGE that could have been bipartisan and that tackled government waste without all the mass layoffs and controversy. But Ann sees this version of DOGE doing more damage than good. And on the show today, she tells me how Musk and his crew could do things differently. Here's our conversation.

[Anne Lewis]

Ann, welcome to Politico Tech.

Thanks, Steven.

It's great to be here.

So you were the director of Technology transformation services from 2022 until last November. You've been watching like all of us, all the controversy and the headlines around Doge play out what's been most on your mind.

Initially, I was optimistic. I was curious what the goals and.

Plans were of this new team.

And of course I wholeheartedly support bringing.

In folks from the private sector tech.

World to try and help make government better. And in fact, that's what I spent the last two years at TTS doing, I think we hired more than 300 technologists into technology transformation service, mostly from the private sector in these really, like.

Incredibly competitive hiring processes, because there were.

So many people who really see the issues with government and they want to help. But over the last couple of weeks.

Honestly, I've been a little confused and dismayed just to see the ways in which the DOGE engineers have been going.

About trying to gain access and what they've done with their access, and so.

Really waiting to see here.

But it seems like there's a.

There's a risk here of wasting a.

Huge opportunity that the Trump administration has, and this is a real shame. There was a real bipartisan opportunity. Everyone who's ever managed someone in government wants civil service reform. They want to be able to hire and fire and performance manage. Every single manager wants this. But instead of working with managers or.

Trying to find ways of empowering managers.

To take management actions more like you would in the private sector, we're just seeing firings of people that are easy to fire, who are not without regard to what skill sets and people are needed to perform particular tasks or government functions or even who the highest performers are.

It's really sad.

Are you in touch with any of your former colleagues from tts? I mean, what do you hear from them about how these cuts feel on the inside?

I've been hearing that the cuts feel.

Pretty arbitrary in people and contracts.

This, to me, is a big risk.

From a organizational leadership and also technology perspective. Cutting random bits of systems or cutting random groups of people don't necessarily save you money because you're not closing down.

A whole program or making a key.

Strategic decision and then aligning your workforce around that. Sometimes when you cut parts of systems and not the whole system, you actually end up spending more money because there's.

Some amount of damage that's caused, and.

Then a smaller team has to carry the work forward and the expectations of.

Users or the needs of government.

And a lot of these needs are in legislation.

Those don't go away.

So what I would like to see if I was in charge is understanding and articulating the problems that need to get solved and then plans that try to solve those problems. If you've ever been to a chief technology officer conference, you'll hear this term, Conway's Law. Like, it's always some speech that mentions.

It'S a little bit of a cliche.

What is that? What is that?

So Conway's Law in the private sector.

Can be summarized as you ship your org chart so the structure of how.

People are formed up in teams and.

How these teams interrelate and how personalities.

Interrelate often shows up in the structure of your consumer product. So I think one of the big.

Problems in government is Conway's law at.

Government scale, which is that the way that budget and decision making, authority and expertise get distributed out across government creates.

A lot of these silos and structures.

That make everything cost more, that make everything feel more efficient, and then deliver these kind of disjointed digital experiences of.

Government to the public. I would love to see anybody care.

About that and try to engage with that problem, because that might actually fix.

The root cause of some of the.

Issues that government has.

You know, a lot of what Elon Musk and other Doge enthusiasts talk about is identifying waste in the areas where the government is spending money it doesn't need to be spending. Did you see examples of that? Is there waste to actually root out here if Doge kind of aims its arrows in the right place?

Oh, definitely.

I don't think they found it yet. Everyone who has ever worked in government.

Has heard of or knows about a project that accidentally wasted a billion dollars.

Not because of fraud, not because people were stupid, not this was intentional, but because non technical workers don't necessarily understand, and we can't expect them to understand.

How much things should cost in the.

Private sector if they're managing budgets that in the private sector typically only like.

A CTO would manage. So one example of this that comes.

To mind for me is a major benefits program that millions of Americans rely on in the pandemic started getting so many calls into their call center that their call center software fell over. They didn't have the right system, it wasn't scaling. And so they decided, oh, we have to modernize our call center.

And as those of us who've worked.

In the tech industry and perhaps had to manage a consumer product know, contact center software is a mature ecosystem.

You can just go and get yourself.

A contact center, upload your own scripts, plug people into it, and it will just work. And the billing is typically metered.

In this particular case, the group of.

Program managers and contract officers weren't sure what this was. And so they asked a vendor to help them construct the requirements for the.

Procurement action they were going to take.

And the vendor was eager to help. The vendor asked them lots of questions like, well, would you need this or would you like this?

Or how about these?

And so the requirements document behind the procurement was very long and very specific. When they bid out this contract. Not surprisingly, the the vendor that helped them write the contract proposal language won the contract and set about building this agency a call center.

And the price tag on this massive custom build effort was $400 million a.

Year for something that shouldn't cost more than $4 million a year and wouldn't if it were a private company doing the same work. And so this custom $400 million call.

Center that involved custom hardware and custom.

Software didn't work all that well. Eventually, a USDS team went in and worked with the contract officers and program.

Managers and filled in those missing skill sets.

Software architecture, software engineering, product management.

To just better understand, here's actually what you need. Here's the size and cost of what that thing is.

Here's how to describe it in a way that the tech industry can understand and are reducing the overall cost of.

That call center by a factor of 100.

But there are stories like that all over the place. I know it's more complicated. You have to get into the details. It's not easy to decide what or who to cut. But I think if we were able.

To focus on those kinds of problems, the places where government accidentally spends a billion dollars on something that should cost a million, we could actually save the.

Government a trillion dollars.

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[Anne Lewis]

Is there an argument to be made that because all of these government processes are so institutionalized, the fact that a lot of these agencies are so big that like, the only way to effectively make change is to kind of blow it up, to like, take big bold action and, you know, then take the pieces and reform it in terms of something more efficient.

[Stephen Overleigh]

Is there an argument to be made.

[Anne Lewis]

For that, you think?

I don't think so.

I've never seen that work.

I mean, the majority of my work experience has been in the private sector. And startups try that. Large companies try that when they're trying to do a turnaround. I mean, I get that it's exciting.

And it feels like change.

And if you're a senior leader, you can message that as change. But at the end of the day, does that help you better understand what.

Problems you're solving and better right. Size your solutions to those problem spaces.

And then get the right skill sets and resources you need to solve those problems? I don't think dramatic chaos tactics do that for you, but that's just me.

I don't think you're the only one who feels that way. It's probably not just you. You know, I will say we had Satya Thalem on the podcast recently. He was an official in the Office of Management and Budget during Trump's first term.

[Stephen Overleigh]

He basically said that offices like TTS.

[Anne Lewis]

Or the U.S. digital Service did make improvements on the margin, but in his view, ultimately were ineffective and that many agencies found them too difficult to work with. When you hear criticism like that, how do you respond?

Yeah, so I'm familiar with this argument. I've had many friendly versions of this argument with colleagues at the Office of Management and Budget. And I think what the issue here ultimately is is there's a gap between an understanding of the like roles and.

Responsibilities of policymaking and implementation.

So in government, policymaking is like where the real intellectual work is. There's this feeling that if you just write down an English language paragraph of here's what we want, and then you just, you let that memo or that policy memo or the legislation go out into the world, you're done. It's an exercise to the reader or the agencies to just get it done somehow. And from my perspective, as someone who's.

Worked in the tech world for her.

Whole career, I don't really think that the $20 trillion tech industry and all.

The work it does is just implementation.

I think that's where all the interesting hard problems are. So I think some of those conflicts have to do with a lack of understanding of what it takes to build real capacity and in particular get those missing skill sets into those interfaces between public and private in public private partnerships. But also, how would policymakers understand when they write down a paragraph that starts with Dell Shelt to do this? How are they going to know whether they're mandating something that costs $2,000 or $2 billion? I think that policymakers write more effective.

Policy when implementation leaders are at the table. And implementation is actually successful when implement.

Mentors work closely with policymakers to frame and constrain complexity in the right ways. And I really think that's possible.

Why is that so hard, though, to do in practice? Because to play devil's advocate, I mean, I think most People who know someone working in government have heard some type of horror story about the technology or there is a feeling that like the commercial sector gets technology just far faster than the government does. And so is there a challenge in terms of actually making that happen? Actually kind of aligning like these top level policy objectives with like the people on the ground who actually have to carry it out?

Oh, yeah, definitely. And that, that's the hard and I think virtuous work of government technology leadership. I'm never talking about tech industry out of the picture. I don't think government at any level can function without critically important public private partnerships. I'm just advocating for policymakers defining clear.

Goals that can become implementable and that.

The right people with the right skill sets are in the right places to be able to work effectively with vendors. Which is sometimes just as simple as making it clear how we're prioritizing.

If you have a list of 1500.

Features, you need to start somewhere. You can't boil the ocean.

Someone needs to decide this is the most important thing to do.

Now, here's what done means, here's what success looks like. Implementation leads will sometimes read policy documents and infer goals like the website needs to be good and not bad. And then they'll hand that to the vendor and be like, my work is done. The vendor's like, what is this like? We can get more specific if we.

Just have the right people in the.

Right rooms together, clearly defining what's critical to start with and thinking about big implementation projects and big technology projects, not as a thing that has a start and an end date, but as a.

Continual investment in capabilities. That is a living, breathing thing.

It's not. You buy an airplane and then 10.

Years later you need to buy a new airplane.

And if you continue to invest in that over time, you can get bug fixes and features and you can adapt with the user base as user needs change.

You can adapt with the technology ecosystem.

And all of the surrounding companies as the ecosystem itself changes.

That's what's critical to get right. And that's a culture shift and a philosophy shift to bring into government.

Do you fear that there are fewer of those people now at the table as a result of DOGE cuts? I mean, the fact that a lot of these initial cuts have targeted folks who are probationary, meaning they were hired in the last year or two, and folks who are temporary, like fellows, for instance, who have come in from the private sector to government, are there now fewer voices inside government who understand the language of tech and the challenges of implementation, there absolutely are.

And I really feel bad about this. Hundreds of people that I hired in from the tech industry have left or are leaving. And these are people who came in.

Through extremely competitive hiring processes.

I think GSA HR made us cap.

Our applications for even junior level individual.

Contributor roles at maximum 400 or maximum 600 applications per role. So everyone who came in over the last year who's technically probationary beat out about 500 other people for the opportunity.

Of taking a significant pay cut compared.

To tech industry salaries.

Because these folks can all get tech.

Industry jobs because they really care about giving back.

They really care about making the social.

Safety net, they really care about making government work better.

Those folks are being driven off in droves.

That's a huge waste of talent, time, opportunity. So I feel really troubled about that. And I know that a lot of.

Other people had worked really hard over.

The last four years to try and.

Bring in this caliber of people too.

And these folks are leaving because the.

Talented highest performers can of course most easily find other jobs.

Why drive those folks off? I just can't understand how that could be cost effective or benefit any mission of government.

The other issue that comes up with regards to DOGE and technology has been access to data. You know, there has been a lot of criticism about what access DOGE has to government data. There have been lawsuits over whether that data is being handled properly. As someone who used to be in government, you know, used to handle kind of sensitive data, how much concern do you have when it comes to that particular issue?

I mean, I'm very concerned. As a former Chief Technology Officer, I know very well the cybersecurity risks that come from getting even something as basic as access management wrong. So I think that having a small number of people with God level access.

To all of these sensitive systems is a huge risk.

Every time you open up a new.

Access path, you open up a new vector for fraud.

And so there are all of these.

Rules and in some cases laws around how to administer access to data and systems that government is supposed to follow. And this isn't new stuff.

These are like 10 plus year old.

Standards that are widely adopted through the private sector.

So there's a cybersecurity best practice called.

The principle of least privilege that states.

That users should only be granted the minimum level of access to be able to perform their job.

So you have these categories or tiers of access and administrators who oversee all of the access.

And you try and prevent having even.

Just a few people with access to.

Everything because Then every hostile nation state in the world knows you want to break into the United states, hack those two or 20 people. So I think this is something that is really worth worrying about. Every hacker in the world right now knows that there are 25 ish inexperienced people new to government with access to.

The most sensitive systems.

And I think that cybersecurity risks like that are also national security risks.

I'm curious, you know, there's so much news right now, the cliche drinking from a fire hose feels kind of like an understatement. But reading all of this from your perspective, I wonder if there are questions about Doge and kind of its use of technology that you haven't seen answers to, but that are on your mind.

Yeah, I mean, I would be curious as to whether or not they plan to be more transparent about their goals and their actions.

I understand that moving quickly is something.

That, you know, happening right now and that they're proud of, but I think a little bit more clear communication and transparency about what they're trying to do would go a long way to being able to get the most accurate stories.

Out to the media.

And also I would ask them to consider learning a little bit about how government works. There's so many language barrier issues between the private sector and government. For example, in the private sector, it's.

The chief technology officer who controls all.

The tech stuff for a company. In government, it's the chief Information officer, and the CTO reports to the cio, and it would be helpful for them to learn about who they need to ask to get the things that they want and be a little bit more transparent about that.

There are more ways to earn loyalty.

Or get alignment than just through use of force. And as far as I can tell from reading articles in the media, it.

Seems like they're just only using use.

Of force to get things, and at some point that button is going to stop working.

Right. As someone who's covered this space a long time, it feels like there is a culture around tech and a culture around government, and those two things have clashed in various ways for a long time. But that clash kind of looks and feels a bit different now to me than it used to. Is that your experience?

It really does to me too. And I'm not seeing a lot of.

What I would consider to be tech.

Culture and how Musk and Doge are behaving right now. I'm seeing a lot of show of power getting access to things by force. I wouldn't necessarily say that has anything to do with tech. Culture. Tech culture is all about different factions of nerds having fights about which rule set they like today versus yesterday. It's a very rule following culture. It's all about intellectual rigor and being able to prove everything that you say and who knows the most facts, you know? So I'm not really seeing a lot.

Of what I would recognize as tech.

Culture showing up right now.

Well, Anne, I appreciate you chatting with us here on Politico Tech.

Thanks so much for having me. It was great to be here.

That's all for today's Politico Tech.

[Stephen Overleigh]

If you enjoy Politico Tech, please subscribe. And for more tech news, subscribe to our newsletters, Digital Future Daily and Morning Tech. Our managing producer is Annie Reiss. Philip Frobos helped produce today's episode. I'm Stephen Overleigh. See you back here tomorrow.