WEBVTT - Why Government Hiring Is So Inefficient 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:19.240 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Hello and welcome to 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:21.919 another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:24.400 I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.240 Tracy, remember that episode we did several weeks ago about 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.800 waste and fraud and abuse in medicare I do. 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.199 It was full of interesting facts and figures, such as 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.360 the US government spends one percent of the federal budget 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:39.360 on dialysis. 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:42.000 And the thing about that episode, so we were talking 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.879 to be you, Professor Jetson, Leader Luise, you know, the 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.840 thing about that episode that's striking is if you look 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:51.960 at government spending and probably a lot of all bureaucracies 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.440 even outside the government, but if you look at government 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.160 spending or government waste or government fraud, et cetera, there 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:01.880 are many things that everyone can point to and say 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.120 this is waste, this is bad, we should change this. 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.319 But like that's clearly just being able to like identify 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:12.680 some bad process or whether it's in how you you know, 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.679 how purchasing works or how hiring works or anything like, 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.160 clearly that's not enough to fix it. Like identification almost 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:20.160 seems like the easy part. 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.360 No, I think this is actually endemic in a lot 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.360 of large organizations, although I am certain there are specific 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.160 things about the government process that are unique to them, 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:33.560 But it feels like at large organizations everyone kind of 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.720 feels helpless, right, Like everyone can say we need to 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:39.679 do this better, or this is ridiculous, or we should 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.560 change this, but no one actually seems able to fix it. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:47.680 Yeah, I anyway, Yes this is my this is my 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.080 perception as well. But we are in an era, you know, 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:53.880 the vibes have changed. We are in an era where, 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:59.440 once again and probably because inflation remains high, people see 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:04.160 the avious failures of what people call state capacity. You know, 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.680 there was a lot of stuff built under the Biden administration. 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.680 There was a lot of stuff allocated. People are frustrated 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:13.239 by the speed of things, whether you look at charging stations, 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:18.000 rural broadband, the speed with which any project gets implemented. 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.040 We're in a moment of frustration, and people want to 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:24.799 see two things. They want to see waste and spending 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.119 decline in many cases, and they also want to see 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.200 that the spending that we actually do allocate turns into action, 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:35.080 good results. Right, We're in a period where sitting aside, 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.400 what will happen, etc. Like there is this public impolicy. 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:40.720 We want to see results for things that we do. 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.320 Speaking of good results, can I just say the last 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.600 time we spoke to this guest who we are about 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.280 to speak to again, we were complaining about how clunky 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.360 the Treasury Direct website is and how you had to 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.239 click little buttons to get in instead of just typing 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:01.000 your password. And I think shortly after that someone sent 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.880 me a screenshot and said that they had fixed it. Amazing, 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.880 So you know this podcast can lead to real results. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.960 Maybe that's the answer. We just need to do podcast 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.240 episodes on various things that aren't working and that someone 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.440 here is it and stuff like that. But yes, this 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.800 is a we are in an era for people demanding results. Anyway, 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.680 you mentioned that last episode we did with this guest, 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.720 she really is the perfect guest to talk about now 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.600 in this era of doge and the sort of impulse 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.680 to see government root out waste and fraud and abuse 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:33.880 and become more efficient. We're going to be speaking with 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:37.920 Jennifer Palka. She is the author of the book Recoding America, 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.320 currently serving as a Senior Fellow at the Nascannon Center. 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.280 She was the founder and former director of the Code 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.800 for America initiative. She's been on the Defense Innovation Board, 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.960 so has seen how government actually operates and spends and 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:55.800 works and builds technology at a very granular level. Perfect 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.040 guest to have back on. So, Jennifer, thank you so 0:03:58.120 --> 0:03:59.600 much for coming back on out laws. 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:01.760 Yeah, no, thanks for having me. 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.640 You know, when it comes to government spending and waste, 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.600 you know, I think there's sort of two There are 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:12.360 sort of two things that people I think it's sort 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.960 of useful to divide the conversation in two things, because 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.560 there are major things that the government spends money on, 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.160 like various entitlements or having a large military, et cetera, 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:27.600 that some might consider wasteful per se, right, and then 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.960 there is the other aspect, which is just like within 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.680 the realm of things that many people agree we need, 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:36.839 is government getting the best bang for the book within 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.359 the sort of expectation that this is you know, legitimate spending. 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.719 And so some of these fights that in conversations that 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.080 are going to be held onto the new administration are 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:46.719 going to be in the first category, where it's like 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:51.440 big political questions about where we should be allocating our money. 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.200 But from your perspective, even setting that aside, when you 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.560 look at sort of the actual expenditure, like, do you 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.520 see big dials that can be turned in terms of 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:03.880 this can be done better. 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.320 Yeah, it's funny you say, like people get concerned about 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:08.559 the bang for the buck. I think people get really 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.520 concerned when they're like, any amount of books is not 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.560 getting a bang. Yeah, right, you know, we're it's it's less. 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.560 I understand the frustration and the switch to a dialogue 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.839 around government efficiency that Elon Musk is pushing, But I 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.760 think we've gotten to that place because people are saying, 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.159 you know, we're getting very little results. We would be 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.600 tolerant of, you know, reasonably high spending if something we're 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.279 coming out of this and you know, you talk about 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:41.560 the defense world for instance, I mean, our spending keeps 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:45.440 going up, and in theory, we're spending more so that 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.599 we can be safer and have greater deterrence. And in reality, 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.840 I think that that greater spending is actually keeping us 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.200 from making the changes that we need to make such 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:01.080 that the system is more effective in a fefficient you know, 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.440 people just still do these like big bang projects because 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.440 they have the money for them, they have all the 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:12.600 trappings around them that make them really slow all the procedure, 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.160 you know, instead of these you know fast you know procurements, 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:19.640 like we need a ton of drones, for instance, instead 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:24.360 of these you know, big heavy weapons platforms. But we're 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.320 still putting a lot of money into these things that 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:29.800 don't get us any results for twenty years. By the 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:33.360 time you know, we get the results, the thing isn't 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:37.000 actually needed anymore. What we need is drones instead of ships. 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:41.000 And you know, I really think that the dialogue is 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.320 changing for like, hey, where's the bang at all? 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.520 Right? Yeah, it feels like when organizations are sort of 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.520 swimming in money and have large budgets, they don't actually 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:55.080 have to think about how to best spend that money, right, 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.040 And so I well, I wanted to ask you more 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:02.120 your position on the Defense Innovation Board. One thing I've 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:06.000 been wondering is why does the Pentagon to this point 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:08.120 always seem to fail its audits. 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:14.160 Hmm, okay, there's so many reasons for that. One of 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.840 them I think speaks to a cordys function that you 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.560 see across government, which is we do everything in this 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.560 very very bespoke way. So it used to be over 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:29.000 five thousand different back end systems, including accounting, systems just 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.000 within the DoD. I don't think that number has gone 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:35.160 down that much. How do you get so many different 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:39.680 systems in you know, it's obviously a huge institution, but 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:41.720 like you would think there would be a standard way 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:45.800 to start to do accounting. But what happens is that Congress, 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.960 you know, puts some new requirement for reporting on this 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:54.720 particular program or this particular department, and they go, okay, well, 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:58.560 we need really bespoke software to handle these, you know, 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.280 sort of ourcane and in the weeds kinds of requests 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.360 from Congress or someone else. Some of them are like real, 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.840 Congress isn't backing off on them, and some of them 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.720 are kind of imagined. But that's how we get this 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:19.560 very heavyweight requirements development process in government, where like the 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:21.920 job of a bunch of people for a long time 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:24.400 is to go around to everybody and say, what are 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.400 all the things that you're going to need for this 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.480 system to work. Well, if you do that, they come 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:31.720 up with a bunch of things. That means you can't 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:37.320 just buy an off the shelf commercial accounting software the 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:41.839 way that even a really big enterprise would, because you've 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:43.679 come up with all these like bespoke things that need 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:45.200 to happen. Some of them are rail and some of 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:47.960 them are invented. And one of the things we said 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:52.400 on the Defense Innovation Board was it's actually not about 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.920 like doing better software to accommodate all those requirements. It 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:57.880 is about getting rid of those requirements so that you 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:02.040 can just buy commodities where But that's just really hard 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.199 because it's sort of you know, flow that power is 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.320 flowing the wrong direction. You don't have people who do 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.920 software going telling Congress to remove this requirement. It's just like, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.040 you know, the stream needs to be a reverse. So 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.240 one of the reasons is just that they literally have 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.320 all these different systems that are supposed to feed into 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:26.120 one big picture of what the Department of Defense is spending, 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:32.520 and you know what it's receiving, and it's just incredibly complicated. 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.920 Now there are other reasons as well, but I think 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:37.800 that's one of the core. It's functions that you see 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:51.240 at play. 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.360 Let's back up for a second. So you wrote your 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.680 book Recruiting America. You have a great substance right now 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.160 called eating policy, and I want to get into some 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.160 of we'll get into some of the posts you wrote 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:09.560 about fixing hiring practices, and so forth. But I'm curious, like, 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.360 did you have a moment in your life, like the 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:16.560 sort of like founding trauma or whatever, where you're like, oh, wow, 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.760 this really something that you know, something that scandalized you 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:25.360 such that you've now devoted your work to writing about 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.880 and elucidating the issues that come up with things like 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:30.160 government hiring and spending. 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:35.160 Yeah, that's a funny question. I think what happened was 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.880 I started looking at this whole issue of government technology 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.880 back right after Obama was elected. Was we were working 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.920 on this idea of web two dotto if anyone remembers that, 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.920 what would gov Dato look like? And some colleagues and 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:52.880 I were sort of going to DC and talking to 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.560 people about how software got done in government. And I 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.200 remember this story. This is not the traumatic part, but 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:00.280 I remember the story from this guy who I'm from 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.319 Silicon Valley and he was working with the Department of 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.360 Labor and he was like, let me explain to you 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.200 how we do stuff here. It's like you have to 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:10.800 get soldiers from New York to d C. And you 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:15.400 go out and like source the iron and like you know, 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:20.440 have engineers speck out the requirements for the engines, because 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.160 you're going to build an entire railway instead of just 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.960 buying the soldiers some train tickets, and that can't be right, 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.760 that's crazy. But as I got into it, actually that 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.040 really is how this works. Often there's just not this 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.040 sense of like just how to use what's out there 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:41.280 because of this obsession with you know, doing everything from 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:45.280 the ground up. But before I worked in tech, my 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.240 first job out of college, I worked in child welfare 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:53.160 agency and I saw how badly the operations were there, 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:59.160 and you really see up close what's at stake these 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.720 kids luck and I thought, oh my god, if we're 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:07.520 doing software for the Department of Labor, this bad. This 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.959 is also affecting things like child welfare. And we really 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.720 ought to be putting like the best our country has 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.280 to offer on the biggest problems. And it's kind of 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:21.520 the opposite. And that's really got what made me, you know, 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:23.120 want to start Code for America. 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.360 Say more about the process of building everything from the 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.839 ground up, because I remember the last time we spoke 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.640 to you, one of the crazy numbers in that conversation 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:38.160 was the amount of requirements for a specific software project. 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.720 What is the exact process like walk us through the 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.760 I guess the life cycle of putting out a government 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.720 You know, we can talk software in particular because you 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.200 have a lot of experience with that a government software project. 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.240 Where does it start, what are the various like hoops 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:56.480 that people have to jump through, and then where does 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:57.120 it end up? 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:03.760 Yeah, maybe I'll talk about the unemployment insurance system in California, 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:08.440 which it worked on very briefly as the coacher of 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.520 the strike team in that first year of the pandemic 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:14.520 when everyone was waiting for their checks, and it was 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.960 really a disaster when we came in because there was 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:24.800 this huge backlog of claims. In fact, just coincidentally, the 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:29.400 team at the Employment Development Department had just finally gotten 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:30.840 to the point where they were going to put a 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.760 bid for a sort of a modernization they would say, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:39.319 an upgrade they call a business system modernization out to vendors. 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:43.200 And I don't remember the exact number of requirements in it, 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.920 but it was in the thousands and they had been 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:51.720 working on that for eleven years. So they started the 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:56.680 requirements gathering eleven years ago and they were just putting 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.640 it out to bid, and I think we became extremely 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.160 unpop popular by telling the governor's office you really should 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:07.600 not bid that out. It is even if it were 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.600 one year old, it's now totally outdated because now we 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.920 understand the problems that you need to be solved much 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:16.880 better than you did a year ago, but certainly better 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:21.640 than you did eleven years ago. And they did actually 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.760 stop that and sort of revise it. But like, why 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.920 are there those thousands of requirements that take I don't 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:30.880 think that I should be clear. I don't think the 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.960 requirements gathering was eleven years. It was a big chunk 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.280 of that eleven years. Then you have sort of putting 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.680 together the RFP and all getting it, you know, getting 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.480 it approved for the legislature, et cetera. So you know, 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:47.480 why does it get so big? Well, I think you I. 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:52.280 Unemployment insurance is a good example of this. So unemployment 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.880 insurance started in the nineteen thirty five Social Security Act. 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:58.240 So we are well now it's twenty twenty five. So 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:05.480 now we are ninety years of accumulation of policy and 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:11.720 process and regulatory cruft essentially, So think about like stuff, 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:18.160 you know, requirements and rules and guidance from both the executive, 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:22.840 legislative and judicial branches just sort of falling like garbage 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.320 onto something like unemployment insurance for ninety years. Like a 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:31.680 rule of thumb is we always add, we never subtract. 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:37.040 And this is a fault of our legislatures, primarily not 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.280 the people who run the unemployment insurance system. They kind 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.000 of feel like they can't do anything about this accumulation. 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.680 What they do then is try to accommodate all of 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:52.120 these changes over time while never actually fixing the underlying system. 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:55.840 So like one of the metaphors someone else used for 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:58.200 me is like layers of paint to just get put 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.320 on well, you know, especially if you've lived like an 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.320 apartment in New York that's been painted like ninety thousand times, 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:07.960 eventually it cracks. That's sort of what's happening. Or my 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.880 other metaphor, which is like archaeological layers, but they only 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:16.280 ever appropriate money to just like make the fixes, not 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.640 to go back and say, how would we actually design 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.400 this system if we were designing it today, not just 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.600 from a technological perspective, but how would we go back 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.280 and say, oh, that you know, requirement from the forties, 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:32.200 you know, that's been overwritten by these other things. Why 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.120 is there still code in the system that's you know, 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.000 that's dealing with that requirement from the forties and why 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.520 is there still you know, memos pointing to that, confusing 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.360 people about what the current state of the rules are. 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.840 But like, really, what we need to do is do 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:53.040 a full kind of regulatory simplification, policy and process simplification 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.560 alongside our modernizations, and we just don't do that. 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:01.920 Do government officials who are design these projects, how much 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.280 do they ever work in tandem with vendors? Like well, 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.000 they go out and say, hey, we're thinking about upgrading 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.919 the system. What do you think we should do? Or 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.360 does it always start with the requirement process and then 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:15.560 that just got sent out. 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:19.959 No, they do often work with vendors. The problem is 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.840 that the sort of way the vendor game is played, 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.480 and I'd say this is changing to some degree. It's 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.480 like the vendors benefit from all that complexity, So the 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.280 vendors never say, hey, why don't you go your legislature 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.520 and ask for like, you know, get can we you know, 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.560 collaborate in a project, sort of rationalize all of this 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.600 policy craft and then we can make you a system 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.200 that it's going to be you know, a lot more elegant, 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.879 a lot more stable, a lot more scalable. Right, scalability 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:53.720 is really really degraded by this complexity because like it's 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.040 they're huge projects. I mean, I think even after we 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:01.719 asked California to boot out the old business system monorization 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.919 and started again, they still went out with something that 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:10.160 I believe was almost two billion dollars. Might have been 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.640 one billion, So forgive me if I'm getting that wrong, 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.080 but that's still in the same range of like, that's 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.760 a lot of money to like, quote unquote like do 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:24.280 some upgrades on a system, because they really don't have 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.760 that relationship between the executive and legislative branch. And also 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.359 let's throw in the judicial to say, what this needs 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:33.960 is a real breeboot. I mean, unemployment insurance is not 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:38.119 that complicated in its basics, right, We're giving people a 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.400 certain amount of money for a certain amount of time 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:47.600 under certain conditions. But it's gotten wildly complicated, and that 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:52.520 like the vendors don't seem to most of the vendors 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:56.439 aren't really incentive to be part of that conversation about 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.840 the simplification because then the projects are going to be smaller. 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:04.040 Let's talk about government hiring and your experience, and you've 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.480 written some sort of wild stuff on your subject just 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.160 about how hard it is to get a talented person 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.199 in the door. And this is even sitting aside the 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.080 fact that government pay skills aren't the same as private 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:19.960 sector pay skills, et cetera. There's no like, you know, 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:24.840 equity upside for a talented engineer just working through the 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:26.760 government HR process. 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.960 What do you see the biggest problem with hiring to me? 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.959 And there's there are many isn't the pay though I 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.399 know that should be fixed and a lot of people 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.679 do talk about that. It's that we don't actually assess 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:42.639 candidates for their skills. So if you leave a part 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.439 the like political appointees and the people who get appointed 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.560 are things like JLA or schedule. See where you're using 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:53.399 an exception and just talk about like the regular uh, 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:58.439 open to the public competitive process. Ninety percent of those 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:03.200 use on self assessments of the person's own skill and 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.359 they tell you what level they are and a resume screen. 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.360 So how it goes is as a hiring manager, you're 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.399 like completely cut out of the process. The HR person 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.320 is in control, and you say, okay, I need this 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:19.080 job there's all this sort of back and forth about 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.040 what the job is. The job descriptions aren't often up 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:25.080 to date. Maybe there isn't a job description or a 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.280 classification for the kind of person you need, especially if 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:32.720 it's technical. Leaving all that aside, you finally post a 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.520 position and let's say five hundred resumes come in. Well, 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.639 your HR person has to give you a sert, a 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.480 list of people that they deem qualified. And the way 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.800 they get from five hundred to say ten on the 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.240 sert is first they look for everybody who has cut 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.480 and pasted from the job description into their resume and 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:55.840 cover letter. Oh, by the way, that person had to 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.240 have known to do a government resume which is usually 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.200 like seven pages long as opposed private sector resume, which 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.440 would be shorter. That's all another story. So anyone who 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.880 has exact matches between the language in the job description 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:13.320 and their resume can go through to the next step. 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.040 Of those the people who rate themselves as a master 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:21.000 on all levels then can go through to the next step, 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.000 and from there they apply veterans preference. Now I am 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:28.760 a fan of giving veterans preference, but when you have 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:32.320 down selected out all the people who didn't want to 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.359 cut in paste or didn't want to basically lie and 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:38.480 just say that they were a master on every competency. 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:43.320 The good veterans probably haven't ended up on that sert, 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.360 And so as a hiring manager, you're given a cert 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.520 of people who just knew how to play the game, 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:52.480 but don't necessarily have the skills, and half of the 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:56.639 time the hiring manager just rejects the sert. So, like 0:21:56.680 --> 0:22:00.359 an example of how this works with that, you know, 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.680 looking for exact matches, was this guy that we found 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:05.800 when we were working on the Defense and Avation Board 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:11.280 who had literally won the hack the Pentagon contest, like 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:15.080 the top security researchers in the country came together and 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:17.400 this one guy he happened to be nineteen years old. 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:22.639 One that thing, he's like incredibly talented, and the people 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:25.239 there recognized this is the kind of guy that we 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.719 need in the Pentagon making our systems more secure. So 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:33.120 they try to hire him, but his resume like just details, 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.239 you know, all the programming languages and frameworks that he 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:40.359 knows how to use, because that's what you would, you know, 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:44.719 you would talk about your experience with specific frameworks and languages. 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:47.800 If you were applying for a private sector job, and 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.040 the you know, HR people look at that and they go, 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:53.280 we have no idea what that means. That doesn't match 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.000 at all our language. And he gets kicked out literally, 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:59.119 you know, in the first the first down select. But 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:01.920 it doesn't stop there, like the people at the Pentagon 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:05.800 continue to try to get this guy hired, and pretty 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:09.959 high level people kept in intervening as they tried again 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:14.280 and again to get Jack Cable hired, and it took 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:18.000 months for him to like finally get through the process. 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:21.720 In between, one of the HR people told him, why 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:24.439 don't you go work for Best Buy selling TVs for 0:23:24.480 --> 0:23:26.280 a year because then you'll be qualified. 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:28.879 That is nuts. So just to be clear, because he 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:32.760 said on his CV specific programming languages like I can 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:36.639 use like babbel and I'm an expert in I don't know, 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:40.439 NPM or whatever. The HR manager didn't recognize it, and 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:42.560 they're like, this is not what we're looking for. 0:23:43.560 --> 0:23:47.680 That's exactly right, and they explained to the Defense Innovation Board. 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:51.000