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Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees
- jordanb 2y agoWelcome to Phase 2 everyone.
- hypeatei 2y agoI'd rather have a stable government that doesn't have billionaires funding and/or running specific departments when it suits them.
- nashashmi 2y agoThe headline sucks (as of this posting) as one it doesn’t match and two even the matching headline is not accurate. Mark Cuban is encouraging the employees of 18F to start their venture to provide govt services. He will invest hoping that DOGE will see right through their mistakes and seek to hire them back. Except he is wrong. Musk is a lot of things but one thing he isn’t capable of is backtracking showing his actions to be stupid.
- mharrig1 2y agoSo Mark Cuban wants to lean into exactly what DOGE is pushing by putting himself in the middle of the Governmental to Private shift? That doesn't surprise me and gives more evidence that Cuban is not dissimilar to Musk, just that he has much better PR.
- hiddencost 2y agoI mean Musk is carrying out a coup, and Cuban is trying to invest in some programmers. I think there's some day light here.
- trial3 2y agobut the core problem to me feels like “billionaires in charge of what should be government functions.” this is still that bad for that reason even if Cuban is funnier on Bluesky
- hiddencost 2y agoThe core problem to me is that we're going through a successful coup. I'm here for it if we're proposing redistributing the wealth of everyone with 9 figures or more.
- brookst 2y agoThis is the category / degree fallacy. We don’t get to choose a world where billionaires have no special power. The choice is whether to accept some good from billionaires, or to reject what good they can do because of the harm they do.
- trial3 2y ago> This is the category / degree fallacy. I have been reading about what this is (I have not encountered it before) and earnestly fail to see how. > We don’t get to choose a world where billionaires have no special power. The choice is whether to accept some good from billionaires, or to reject what good they can do because of the harm they do. If we're discussing fallacies, I'm getting tasting notes of False Dilemma. We, participants in society, can shape, define, and reject what "special powers" means. Not totally, and I imagine the royal we of HN commenters might disagree on how much or in what ways, but I believe it is possible.
- fwip 2y agoWe sure can choose that world. Not individually, but as a people.
- isoprophlex 2y agoPresented with the noblest of intensions, no doubt, but a symptom of an extremely disconcerning trend: the beginning of the endstate where the US government is completely privatized.
- pixelpoet 2y agoExactly what I was wondering... isn't this more regulatory capture by billionaires?
- xivzgrev 2y agoThey built / manage login.gov? Oh boy. It’s one thing if Twitter has bugs. It’s another thing if people have bugs while trying to login or signup to government services. Or hackers finding vulnerabilities and no one to fix them?
- daveguy 2y agoYeah, it's almost as if Elon doesn't have the country's best interest at heart.
- psychlops 2y agoI don't think so. Many of those sites are routinely down or inaccessible. Eventually, you have to pick up the phone and wait on hold, hoping you don't get disconnected.
- dralley 2y ago> Or hackers finding vulnerabilities and no one to fix them? That's apparently no longer a concern. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/trump-russia-hacking-cyber-security https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/trump-russia... The Trump administration has publicly and privately signaled that it does not believe Russia represents a cyber threat against US national security or critical infrastructure, marking a radical departure from longstanding intelligence assessments. ... A recent memo at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa) set out new priorities for the agency, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security and monitors cyber threats against US critical infrastructure. The new directive set out priorities that included China and protecting local systems. It did not mention Russia. A person familiar with the matter who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity said analysts at the agency were verbally informed that they were not to follow or report on Russian threats, even though this had previously been a main focus for the agency. The person said work that was being done on something “Russia-related” was in effect “nixed”.
- gortok 2y agologin.gov is one of the few government services that as a private sector techie I'm in awe of. They really knocked it out of the park with login.gov, and I can only assume it was politics that had the IRS use ID.me instead of login.gov.
- markdurban 2y ago[flagged]
- throw0101c 2y agoGovernment by philanthropy and éminence grise.
- dzonga 2y ago18f has(d) really smart people. who gave up higher wages in the private sector to serve the public. then idiots like musk come along. damage from musk n co will be monumental in the years to come.
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y ago> damage from musk n co will be monumental in the years to come. That is the point.
- kingstoned 2y agoIt's generally a myth that government employees are somehow receiving low total compensation and they could do better in the real economy. Here's one government employees providing stats and experiences about what it is like to work for the government: https://www.betonit.ai/p/the-joy-of-government-employment https://www.betonit.ai/p/the-joy-of-government-employment
- garrettdreyfus 2y agoThis post says very little and you can look up almost all public salaries.
- atlgator 2y agoWhat good is knowing their salary if you don't know what their skills and experience are? How can you say they would make more in the private sector? You're just trading one set of assertions for another and neither of you have data to back up your claims.
- unclebucknasty 2y agoThis report from the CBO is more balanced and accounts for the variables you mentioned (and more). [0] "Compared with private-sector workers, federal workers tend to be older, more educated, and more concentrated in professional occupations. To account for those differences, the Congressional Budget Office limited its comparisons to employees with a set of similar observable characteristics—education, occupation, years of work experience, geographic location, size of employer, veteran status, and certain demographic characteristics (sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, immigration status, and citizenship)—in this report" [0] https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235
- muglug 2y agoThis is exactly what the people who shut down 18F want: a shrunken government reliant on private contractors for basic service needs. There’s a famous Reagan quote that the nine most terrifying words are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. That soundbite influenced a generation of small-government conservatives who ignored the big qualifier that followed — he was actually announcing more government support for farmers, a big handout to a mostly-Republican constituency: https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/presidents-news-conference-23 https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/presidents-new...
- jkestner 2y agoThe more relevant quote is Grover Norquist: shrinking government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”
- mattbrewsbytes 2y agoPrivatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle ages (or even well before). There will be inept people, waste, corruption, people stealing, etc. but there will also be the vast majority trying to do a good job and feel satisfaction in their work. It doesn't matter if its the federal government or a private corporation, its simply a trade-off of the organization structure. I don't think we, as humans, know of a better/different way to organize that would be more effective.
- hypeatei 2y ago> These people must have never worked at a large corporation Efficiency isn't the point, the point is funneling more money to themselves and their friends.
- cmorgan31 2y agoYup, those with capital are the only ones positioned during times of chaos to take advantage of the situation.
- lesuorac 2y agoHappens in large corporations too. Purchases of companies owned the CEO / brother. Mother hiring their children to high internal positions.
- hypeatei 2y agoI was referring to the oligarchs that are running the current US administration. They want to defund the government, make it shitty, and then say the only option to make it better is privatize.
- fire_lake 2y agoEfficiency is not resilient. Supply chains were efficient before Covid and look what happened. Efficiency is a non-goal for government. I’m surprised that DOGE engineers (who presumably have deployed a load balancer or two) don’t understand this.
- _fat_santa 2y agoPut Mark Cuban to the side for a bit, I think the general idea of 18f going private is a good one and was my first reaction when I heard they were getting dissolved. EDIT: I think it's a good idea in the context of them getting dissolved. I would much prefer if they continued to exist within the govt, but if the choice is between going private and ceasing to exist, I would prefer they go private and I think it's a good idea in terms of salvaging what they had already built as an org
- jkubicek 2y agoI think 18F going private is a terrible idea. The US government should directly employ the people that are responsible for building and owning its core infrastructure.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoThis is already untrue, leaving 18F aside - lots of core infrastructure is outsourced and the vast agencies are mostly operating or maintaining things. Plus where does that road end - they don’t build their own operating system after all. They have to outsource some of it.
- _fat_santa 2y agoI would argue that companies like Plantir show that it's actually quite viable to be in the private sector while simultaneously serving the public sector. Granted Plantir is primarily military and law enforcement but I would say the overall model could work well for other parts of the govt.
- wan23 2y agoIt's important to have some in house expertise to know what to buy from the private sector though.
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- esaym 2y agoBut are they hiring?
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- ThinkBeat 2y agoThis would be exactly what the Republicans want and what they have had wanted for decades. Shrink the government and privatize as much as possible. Turning 18F.gov¹ into 18FU.com, a company with the business model of selling their services back to the government in the future. Seems like a risky venture. The government could come knocking on Monday, a week later, a month later, a year later, or never. I hope Cuban is planning on funding them out of pocket for at least until it happens or at least for two years. Of course, 81FU can start providing its services to the private sector and hope to succeed that way. I am sure a lot of companies would want to buy their services to support them. ¹ I don't know if they used that domain. I just wanted a quick way to go from in the government into a company
- liopfkjn 2y ago[flagged]
- asib 2y agoThis title is pretty misleading (I appreciate it's basically the same as the article's title). He's not saying he'll fund the govt department, he's saying he'll fund a private venture made up of the people formerly employed in 18f. And he predicts that venture will be able to gouge the public purse when the govt inevitably realises the cuts they made were far too deep. As others have pointed out, this is a deeply right-wing idea and exactly what the Republican party wants to see happen.
- DannyPage 2y agoMark Cuban is welcome to advocate for a wealth tax that can fund 18f and many other portions of the government, while keeping it public and free of interference from private billionaires.
- a12k 2y ago18f was self funded by billing agencies for cost savings, basically. It was basically free for the gov, and made up of highly technical people, many of whom came from top flight Silicon Valley or SV-adjacent companies. That is to say, neither cost nor technical skill nor efficiency were issues for 18f, which means that this wasn’t axed because of their cost…
- 1970-01-01 2y agoD+ grade headline. His full offer and message: “If you worked for 18F and got fired, Group together to start a consulting company,” wrote Cuban. “It’s just a matter of time before DOGE needs you to fix the mess they inevitably created. They will have to hire your company as a contractor to fix it. But on your terms. I’m happy to invest and/or help.”
- readyplayernull 2y agoSomething tells that's an intended feature not a bug, that they will re-hire personel, re-buy assets like all those EVs, re-rent offices, but next time it will be with gov-aligned providers, and the cost will be the same for less.
- moogly 2y agoDestroying is quick and easy. Rebuilding is not. What damage DOGE can do in a year can take 20 years to restore.
- gnz11 2y agoThe cost won’t be the same but 2-3x more.
- rad_gruchalski 2y agoAnd that’s what the American taxpayer is going to pay for. “Savings”.
- 6stringmerc 2y agoSounds like Cuban is still doing his best to pivot into politics (AGAIN) and his “rah rah” quote here with no functional action / money up front fits the profile. As a Dallasite I remember very clearly Mark was angling to run for office before the news came out his Mavericks work culture was rife with sexual deviance and favoritism / help to sweep things under the rug and it tanked his ambitions. Totally serious about this.
- weebull 2y ago
- the_arun 2y agoI wonder at this rate - will they privatize IRS tax filing software?
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- rorylawless 2y agoHad DOGE been more than 2 brain cells fighting for 3rd place, they would have spun out 18F as an independent organization. They could have taken inspiration from how the British government did something similar with the Behavioural Insights Team. The US government could have even secured favorable rates for a period of time so it could continue to benefit from the 18F expertise.
- ericjmorey 2y agoIf DOGE made sense it wouldn't exist.
- ForTheKidz 2y agoAh just what we need: a billionaire to throw money around at secondary symptoms. No thank you, just lobby for higher taxes and give cash injections to the bottom of the economy, please.
- duxup 2y agoThis seems less a reaction and more the design of causing as much damage as possible. I imagine this consulting will cost the taxpayers at least twice as much and be insulted by their contract from any consequences….
- envy2 2y agoThis is exactly what Trump and Musk would want, privatization of what should be (and were) government services. No one — and I mean no one — should profit from the provision of what should be core government services, like tax filing or health care.
- afro88 2y agoThey were an agency / consultancy. So much digital work in Australia is done by consultancies (deloitte etc). The idea is they go to tender for each project to utilise the mechanism of competition for efficiency, but in reality the tenders usually go to the incumbent who over charges them. A consultancy (maybe funded by Cuban) will get this work that 18f was doing and in 2-3 years they will be grossly overcharging and this move will be for nought.
- robomartin 2y agoReading every thread related to something DOGE is doing reveals the same pattern. Commenters instantly seem to reach two conclusions (or bring them to the table from preconceived notions): 1- Republican = bad, evil 2- You cannot/should not touch anything in government I won't get into the first because it is objectively stupid. This is just as stupid as people on the right concluding "Democrat = bad, evil". Both polar opposites need to stop being bigoted and use their brains. Living in their respective glass houses they throw stones and shit all over half the country, painting them as evil, stupid, incompetent, etc. This simply isn't true. On the second point. Well, that's an unreasonable position. It say that government is perfect as it is and none of the hundreds of organizations that comprise it and millions of people who run it should ever be expected to do better. Ever. Again, utterly unreasonable. Government should be obligated to go through an audit every N years. You cannot just keep throwing money at it and growing it. That does not solve problems in the private sector and it sure as hell does not in government. I have worked with and sold product to various government groups. From White Sands Missile Test Range to city local entities. Anyone posting comments without having had experience engaging with government entities has no idea what they are talking about. None. I have seen contracts awarded to companies charging double the street price because the person making the decision is so incompetent that they went with the company they thought would cover their ass. These are lazy and expensive decisions made by people who are not qualified to do the job and should not have that job. In other words, they would not have been hired to do that job in the private sector in a million years. The US has serious problems. We need a restructuring of priorities and how we do things or it will be hell in a decade or two. The reason we have to be so assertive today is that this work should have started 25 years ago. It did not. And so the problem is now an order of magnitude greater. This week I spent five days cleaning our area drains. I should have done this ever five years or so. I did not. I have not touched them in 25 years. That's why it took five days. The accumulated crap in those pipes was amazing to see. Solid sticky mud, roots, tennis balls, rocks, lego pieces, garbage bags, etc. This required renting a powerful machine to just rip through stuff as well as a powerful 5000 PSI pressure washer with a 100 ft snake and a nozzle to shred everything in its path. In other words, when you don't keep an eye on things for a long time, the solution tends to be far more "violent" than the case of having kept thing in order with regular checkups (this applies to your health as well).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- austin-cheney 2y agoIs there any evidence that government teams are more wasteful or less productive than commercial alternatives? How does spinning a government team into a government contract of a commercial vendor save the government money?
- ctxcode 2y agoPrivate companies are required to do a good job and balance spending to stay alive. Goverment agencies can do the most horrible job for enormous amounts of money and just keep going.
- austin-cheney 2y agoFirst of all that isn't evidence of anything and explains how we got in this pickle to begin with... people making shit up. Secondly, private companies don't have to do a good job. They have to turn a profit, which could be exploitative and not necessarily legal. Third, government agencies have budgets and audits like many public companies but not private companies. If a government agency exceeds its budget it is essential bankrupt. Finally, if a government agency fails an audit people can be fined, fired, or even prosecuted. Government agencies are always audited, unlike many commercial companies that are only audited according to regulation and/or cause of investigation. Many of the people recently fired by DOGE are auditors that were preventing the very kind of behavior you suggest of government.
- ericjmorey 2y agoNo evidence at all. Just feelings.
- yapyap 2y agoso smart, privatizing essential parts of the government. it’ll make it seem like you were able to do massive budget cuts in the moment and then you’ll spend 5x the money on consulting firms when nobody is focused on the budget anymore cuz they moved on
- mola 2y agoEvery privatization of utilities I saw (not US) always devolved to being priced higher, being given legal monopoly, workers earn much less, quality degrades. A single "business man" gets super rich
- afro88 2y ago18f wasn't a utility though. It was a digital agency / consultancy inside the government. Still shouldn't be shut down IMO, but lets call and apple an apple.
- c_moscardi 2y agoWorth noting that there already exists an ecosystem of these sorts of contracting firms (nava, skylight, truss I believe, forgetting even more) that, basically, pitch themselves as the antidote to beltway banditry People from the federal civic tech nexus started them up over the past decade as they termed out of 18F, USDS, and PIF
- jay-barronville 2y agoIt’s so interesting that here on HN, on virtually any political topic, virtually the entire commentary is one-sided, and virtually all comments providing dissenting views are simply downvoted and/or flagged out of existence (often with no actual counter-arguments). On technical topics, this place tends to be so awesome—I learn so much by just reading the comments—due to the intellectual diversity of the viewpoints, but on anything even remotely touching politics, it turns into an entirely unwelcoming echo chamber. I guess one could argue that this is a pretty good representation of how divided our country is (for those of us who are Americans), but I think it’d be so dope if the same folks who tend to have these great intellectually diverse discussions on technical topics could also do the same for the topics affecting us all (i.e., politics), but I guess that’s just wishful thinking.
- chmorgan_ 2y agoHappens to me here all of the time. If it doesn't align with the HN groupthink it gets hammered out of view.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jay-barronville 2y ago> If it doesn't align with the HN groupthink it gets hammered out of view. Yup. The following is a concrete example… HN commenter [0][0]: > If things keep going the way they are going, [a country with an authoritarian government that makes favored industries subsidized] could describe the US just as well in a few short years. Me [1][1]: > Why do you think so? For asking this reasonable question, I received a bunch of downvotes but not a single response. Of course I can assume the reason is because I’m supposed to just accept the premise that Trump is bringing about an authoritarian government, but I really don’t, and a majority of American constituents (who voted for him) don’t either. Before emigrating to the U.S., my parents and my family lived under real authoritarian regimes, under which family members were sanctioned, tortured (some still have the marks on their bodies to this day), and even killed for their political viewpoints, so I actually find so much of this hyperbolic rhetoric rather offensive when there are billions of folks all across the world who actually have to live under such regimes. Rather than doubling down on the hyperbolic rhetoric, it might be a good idea to, in good faith, try to understand why half of your fellow Americans see the state of our country so differently from you, which requires good-faith intellectually diverse discussions. The ultimate irony in all of this is that a lot of folks seem to not understand that, when it comes to politics, simply alienating the other side, is one of the most counterproductive things to do, because while you won’t have to “suffer” hearing their viewpoints, they’ll simply resort to using the one tool they can still use: their vote. This is why Trump’s 2024 win was so shocking to so many when it was so obvious to anyone actually paying attention and listening. The same applies to AfD coming in second in Germany. Months before the 2024 election, I told a friend of mine (who’s a big Democrat donor in Georgia) that I think the Democrats are wrong about the Hispanic vote, and he told me, “I love you bro but if you think Hispanics are voting for Trump the way he speaks about them I got a bridge to sell you. Trump is cooked!” After the election, he followed up, “I’m all ears now, what did I not understand?” It was too late though. I knew I was right about the Hispanic vote, not because I have a crystal ball, but because my church is filled with Hispanics and I learned so much about how they think politically and so much of the nuanced perspectives within their community by listening to them, meanwhile the Democrats think almost entirely in terms of identity politics. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43159998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43159998 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43163139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43163139
- kierangill 2y agoI’ve seen a lot of positivity surrounding login.gov on HackerNews. I’ve never used the service and am unfamiliar with the quality of its implementation. Many commenters here point to login.gov as an example of the US government shipping good software. [1] 1. From the end-user’s perspective, what makes this a quality service? Is it simply better than other government alternatives, or does it compete with equivalent modern services from the private sector? 2. From the technologist's perspective, why is this considered quality software? I see it's an open-source Ruby on Rails app[2] with basic documentation, tests, and monitoring. As a non-RoR developer, I'm curious where this project falls on the spectrum from merely adequate to exceptional, and why. [1] e.g., in this comment section: “login.gov is one of the few government services that as a private sector techie I'm in awe of” [2] https://github.com/18F/identity-idp/ https://github.com/18F/identity-idp/
- js2 2y ago> 1. From the end-user’s perspective, what makes this a quality service? Is it simply better than other government alternatives, or does it compete with equivalent modern services from the private sector? I couldn't even login to ssa.gov before it was integrated with login.gov. Every year or two I'd give it a shot, it told me my account was locked, I had to visit a Social Security office to get it unlocked. I tried that once; the local office wasn't able to help. Fast forward a few years and the login process has been delegated to login.gov. I was able to prove my identity in the normal way (asked a bunch of questions from my credit report) and finally login. So let's start with: it works. But it's at least as good as any SSO that I use elsewhere (Okta, Apple, Google). It supports multiple factors (security key, passkey, TOTP, etc), something that, e.g., Fidelity only barely offers. Besides that, it's visually appealing, having a nice modern look.
- dcow 2y agoI feel like a lot of the discussion is beating around the bush or tangential. The very simple cause of this wave of layoffs is in response to the “what did you do this week?” email. If you’ve been following closely, a week ago DOGE sent an email to many people, including suspected dead government workers, asking them to list in 5 bullets what they accomplished the prior week. Some people didn't respond after having the last week to do so. Some people protested with insubordinate responses. According to TFA the people let go were unable or unwilling to complete this simple task. DOGE this DOGE that. At least in this instance it seems like a effective tactic was deployed and cuts were made based on observed performance.
- notahacker 2y ago> According to TFA the people let go were unable or unwilling to complete this simple task. TFA does not say this.
- dcow 2y ago> Those impacted in the wee hours of Saturday morning also received emails late Friday from DOGE with the subject line, “What did you do last week? Part II.” They were asked first last last week. And then again on Friday. —— > According to Politico, the emails — prompting employees to list their weekly accomplishments by Monday — were widely distributed across multiple agencies, including the State Department, the IRS, and the NIH. I’m not making this shit up…
- notahacker 2y agoNot a single word in that sentence about how every agency receives those emails indicates that the staff let go (i.e the entire 18F workforce) were "unable or unwilling to complete this simple task" Though the fact that they were asked to submit a list of accomplishments by Monday and fired in the early hours of Saturday morning with a statement their department had been deemed "noncritical" is a pretty good indication that noncompliance had nothing to do with it...
- scintill76 2y ago
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- chmorgan_ 2y agoThis is Cuban putting his money where his mouth is. He wasn't willing to do it when it came to applying DEI to his basketball team, but I'm glad he is here.
- stuckindoors 2y agoBill Clinton ended up cutting staff throughout his time in office. Despite the cuts in government staff driven by the narrative that a smaller government is better by years of Reagan and Bush1. Despite these cuts, the sum effect was that costs significantly rose as they had to hire contractors to do the things that internal staff was doing. Things are more complicated than they appear. https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2025/02/26/fresh-air-for-february-26-2025?showDate=2025-02-26 https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2025/02/26/fresh-air-...
- bamboozled 2y agoIs there a single government service or dept which has been privatised and it’s turned out cheaper in the long run for tax payers? I can’t think of a single example.
- financetechbro 2y agoNothing comes to mind. Because even if the original goal of privatization is to bring costs down (which I’m sure happens in many cases) the overall LONGTERM goal of a private business is to return money to shareholders. So in the very short term it is totally plausible for costs to go down (capture low hanging fruit efficiencies), but long term this will never be the case, because the system is designed to extract as much wealth as possible - once you’ve captured cost/expense efficiencies, the next step is to capture pricing efficiencies. This I believe will be a very bad outcome for bottom 90% of Americans and a very good outcome for top 10%
- dawnerd 2y agoIt’s the same myth that universal healthcare would cost people more than private insurance. Insurance is there to make money. Gov programs don’t need to be profitable - just sustainable.
- mindcrash 2y agoCuban: "It’s just a matter of time before DOGE needs you to fix the mess they inevitably created. They will have to hire your company as a contractor to fix it. But on your terms. I’m happy to invest and/or help." Unfortunately these people (Musk and friends) are so full of themselves that it's more likely they will rather let the whole proverbial house burn down than ask for help. It's one of many reasons why I am currently a political orphan. Absolutely sick and tired of the shenanigans of both the "left" and the "right".