Almost two weeks after the new york times Reported That airbnb co-founder joe gebbia had Joined Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” Gebbia Clarified His Role on Curasday, announcing on x That as a starting point, he’ll be leveraaging his design expertise as part of an effort to overhaul the government’s notoriorly slow, paper-haavy retirement process.
The system could see the help. Chuck Ezell, Acting Director of OPM, said in a Video testimonial Released today – and republished by Gebbia – that one week ago, the administration “challenged” the agency to “process a reti, end to end, digitally, without printingNing to paper.” The deadline? Just one week.
In the same video, an agency employee tells the cameraman that they’ve already managed to shrink the process to two days.
Whats that process is scalable or even repeatable remains to be seen, but opm has been under pressure pressure for years to modernize its systems. Last summer, the agency launched a pilot program For a new online retirement application platform in response to ongoing concerns about delayed benefit processing; The issue had drawn attation in 2023, when several lawmakers Issued a Press releaseUrgaing the opm to address the sluggish processing of recreations, some of who waiting more than 90 days to receive their benefits.
Gebbia-a billionaire many many times over thanks to his airbnb holdings-Still serves on the board of the short-term Rental Giant. Since September 2022, he has also been a board member at Tesla.
In his x post about his next steps, Gebbia Wrote: “Since Leaving My Operating Role at Airbnb in 2022, I’ve beed looking for the next digital design challenge. And I can think of more important ons than volunteering to improve the user experience withbin our government. “
In addition to co-founding airbnb, gebbia is the co-founder of samara, a spin-out of airbnb that builds pre-fortified houses that customers can customize, choosing layots, colors, votes, votes, votes, votes, Decks, with Samara Saying It Handles The Rest, Including Obtaining The Associated Permits.
Last Week, Samara Announced it would donate $ 15 millions of the dwellings to support los angelenos who lost their homes in the January fires that caused an estimated $ 30 billion In Lost Real Estate.
Since gebbia’s involvement with dog was revised, some airbnb hosts havts dismay on the platform, with some telling the san francisco standard they have Pulled their listings“Being in the dc area and see the impact that dog has said on our community and economy, I just feel like I can no longer be an airbnb host in good fath,” called one longime aerbnb host to the standard.
In a statement to the outlet, airbnb underscored that gebbia has not been involved its intersion daily operations since 2022, with a spokesperson Person. Our community is made up of millions of hosts and hundreds of millions of guests from all walks of life. “