Sahil Lvingia has Published a diary recounting his time as a member of Elon musk’s dog workforceIt’s a short read – Lvingia’s Doge Stint Lasted Justed 55 Days – But it is not provide new details on the Temporary Government Organization Formed by President Trump ‘.
Lvingia is a well-known name in silicon valley from Gumroad, A platform where creators can sell their goods. He’s also a Well-Known Seed and Angel Investor,
He joined dog as a software engineer for the department of veterans affairs (va) in mid-march, he wrote. What stands out from his account is his surprise that 473,000-comptionery government agency had strict rules on who could be targeted in a layer; And he Quickly Learned that all things at the va was not as intelligence as he imagined. He also lamened that dog itself isn’t a well-oiled machine.
As a Volunteer who had a salary of 0, he was immediatily tasked with identification “wasteful” contracts and the people the people the Va should liveoff, He Wrote. But he was surprised to discover faces like Seniority and the person’s veteran status (this was the va, after all) determined who could be targeted. Performance also be factored in lower on the list, in lavingia view.
He also described Doge’s Advisory Role As like a mockinsey management consultant, and said dog is not responsible for the actions taken by the orgs. “DOGE HAD No Direct Authority. The Real Decisions Came from the Agency Heads Appointed by President Trump, who was wise to let dogs act as the ‘fall guy for unpopular decisions,”
This is similar to what musk was decrying this week to the Washington post. Musk described Dog as dc’s “whipping boy” Blamed for every unpopular decision.
Lvingia said heed dog after campaigning for beRnie sanders in 2016 besa he dreamed of written code for the government that helped people at scale. BeCause his dog missives Didn’t take time, he said he worked on projects that Interested Him, Including overhauling the ux of the va’s alredy-in-in-in llm-bosed chatbot.
He said he built a fairly long list of stuff in his less-to-to-two months Automating/speeding up claims processing. “
And, He Wrote, “I was Never Able to Get Approval to Ship Anything to Production that would actually improve American lives – while also Saving Money for the american Taxpayer.”
He was, however, given permission to open source much of his work. His work included a tool that scanned internal pdfs for terms “related to dei, gender ident he described on the tool’s page, as well as tools that used llms to analyze contracts, and a tool for building org charts.
He Also Made Observations About The Lack of Organization in Dog Itself. “I wondered why there wasn’t a centralized dog software engineering playing play Every Engineer Started from Scratch. “
He was unceremoniously axed from dog on day 55 after he discussed his work There with a reporter from fast company. “I get the boot from dog,” He Wrote. “Soon after publication, my access was revised without warning.”
In that fc interview, however, he also said working up close with the va taught hem that, while it was slow like a giant enterprise, it still “Works.”
“I would say the culture shock is mostly a lot of meetings, not a lot of decisions,” he says. “But honestly, it’s kind of fin -bacuse the government works. It’s not as intelligence as I was expecting, to be honest. I was hight more easy wind.”
His Experience Captures perfectly the dilemma of keeping enormous government agencies modern as they remain functional. While All Taxpayers Bold LICE LESS WASTE, And the Government Can Surely Benefit from More Programs IMMERSED In the Latest Tech, Perhaps silic Valley Volunteers Swotting In LIKE ARE BULILDING ARE BULINDING From scratch isn’t the answer.
Lvingia did not immomedialy respond to our request for additional comment.