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White House Wants To Borrow Tech Workers From Google and Amazon, Says Report (cnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the tours-of-duty dept.

"According to CNET, TechCrunch and others, the Trump administration reportedly wants tech giants to make it easy for workers to take leaves of absence to help the government modernize," writes Slashdot reader kimanaw. From a report: White House officials on Monday planned to meet with tech giants including Google, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM, to discuss ways to make it easier for employees to take leaves of absence to help with government projects, according to The Washington Post. The administration reportedly hopes tech industry workers will be able to help modernize state and federal agencies and tackle challenges such as upgrading the veterans' health care system. Attracting tech talent may prove difficult for the Trump administration, which hasn't always seen eye to eye with Silicon Valley on issues such as the president's ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries. However, White House officials believe tech workers are willing to "put politics aside." "This event on Monday is not just about our efforts, it's about our successor, and their successor after that," said one unnamed official, according to the Post. The White House didn't respond to a request for comment.

29 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Shouldn't be a problem by olsmeister · · Score: 2

    Since Silicon Valley uses so many contract workers, it shouldn't be a big deal to just poach a few away for a year or two, right?

    1. Re:Shouldn't be a problem by tmshort · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Trump doesn't pay contractors, though...

    2. Re:Shouldn't be a problem by hey! · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The myth that the private sector is made up of wonderfully efficient and capable people is easily disproved. Look at your private sector coworkers, and consider the private sector coworkers you've had in the past. Most likely they were not all paragons of efficiency and virtue.

      Still, it's likely that they are able to adapt to change more readily than their government sector counterparts, but it's not because they're fundamentally better; they just operate under less restrictive rules and expectations.

      Now it can be a good to bring in outside expertise, but the idea that bringing in private sector people will magically fix things is naive, because that expertise will operate under all the same constraints as their government employee counterparts except one: contributing to politicians who oversee the program. That's why privatization's track record of making government cheap and efficient is so un-magical.

      It can be a good thing to bring in outside experts and contractors, or it can be a bad one, depending on your plan. If your plan is to shove money at them and sit back while they solve your problems, well that's a bad plan. All things equal a vendor would rather your problems be interminable and expensive, and if he has to give you a job after you retire from public office, that's a small price to pay.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    3. Re:Shouldn't be a problem by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

      Not so fast.

      The government (taxes) doesn't pay well "in house." The high-paying jobs go to contractors who are not always patriotic, like Manning, Snowden, and Winner.

      This latest move tells us a few things:

      The gubmint doesn't have the chops to do this. Private sector, apparently, does.

      The feds have tried to use these same resources to weaponize software like drones, face recognition, and AI.

      That failed, so the next iteration is to get that same work force by providing the carrot on a stick labeled, "patriotism."

      It's the same song with a different title.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    4. Re:Shouldn't be a problem by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ...compared to most government/civil-service workers? In that light, hell yes they're paragons of efficiency and virtue. :/

      I'm curious how you know this. I worked in the private sector for decades, but at least half that work was for public sector agencies (well over a hundred in all) at all levels of government and in every part of the country except Alaska. I'd say on average public employees are about the same as private sector employees, but the variance is greater.

      That's because on one hand you've got rules that makes it hard to get rid of underperformers. But the other hand, you get people who are genuinely dedicated to the mission of their agency in a way that would be downright bizarre in a private sector employee. These are the kind of people who are really bullish about promoting the state's agricultural products, or getting the next generation into hunting and fishing. I once had a trip to the CDC's Fort Collins office when news of a hemorrhagic fever outbreak in Africa came through. It was like being in a suit-up scene in some cheesy action movie because those guys were going to war -- with a virus that made you bleed out of your eyeballs.

      The work of those kinds of employees goes largely unnoticed. When we had the Boston Marathon bombing up here, two bombs went off in the middle of crowds and 267 people were hurt, 14 requiring amputations, but only 3 died. First responders justifiably got a lot of credit for that, but the low death rate was also the result of planners having a procedure in place which rapidly activated trauma teams at 27 hospitals, so that on average each hospital had to triage on average fewer than ten patients. Imagine if they'd all gone to the nearest hospital instead. As far as I know whoever prevented that from happening never got any media pats on the back.

      The kind of government employees that make those kinds of things happen are found everywhere, and everywhere they're weighed down by deadwood coworkers and bosses. The problem is worse, however, in places where the public is fatalistic about bad government employees. Texas is the worst I've seen. One of the hardware vendors we sometimes worked with landed a bunch of contracts there by procuring prostitutes for public officials. But even in Texas there's a core of good people who make things work; they're just not the ones getting blow jobs.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  2. Who in Silicon Valley wants to work for Trump? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Great way to get black listed by the community at large.

  3. Pay them? by Henriok · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or.. they could just pay the corporations to use their workers? Say like.. contract work? You know.. how capitalism work, and not, dare I say it.. communism?

    --

    - Henrik

    - when the Shadows descend -
    1. Re: Pay them? by hey! · · Score: 2

      Actually, according to Hannah Arendt, the real problem with fascists is that they don't have any real commitment to any belief or principle:

      In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true... The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  4. McCarthyism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Funny,
    I remember in school learning how evil it was to black list actors based on their political views. So now IT and Hollywood brag about black listing based on political views.

    Interesting.

    1. Re:McCarthyism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      You don't have to work with anybody in hollywood. It is a choice. You have no choice but to have Trump as president. Very big difference.

  5. Raise taxes and pay competitive rates by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Trump administration reportedly wants tech giants to make it easy for workers to take leaves of absence to help the government modernize

    The easy way to do this is to pay the workers you want to utilize wages and benefits competitive with the private sector. This might require raising taxes to cover the cost. I cannot imagine the tech companies have much incentive to loan out any workers who are any good. I'm also dubious a lot of tech workers will be super enthusiastic about working on highly bureaucratic and low paying and likely boring government IT plumbing projects unless the government is willing to back up a dump truck of money. Even then it's not clear they would get the best and brightest.

    However, White House officials believe tech workers are willing to "put politics aside."

    HAHAHAHAHAAAA.... For this administration? I doubt they'll get any sort of wide spread enthusiasm as long as Trump is in office. I think it would be a tough sell for any administration but this one in particular seems rather unlikely.

    1. Re:Raise taxes and pay competitive rates by FearTheDonut · · Score: 3, Insightful

      However, White House officials believe tech workers are willing to "put politics aside."

      As partisan as our current political climate is, the idea of people putting politics aside is optimistic at best.....

    2. Re:Raise taxes and pay competitive rates by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 4, Funny

      However, White House officials believe tech workers are willing to "put politics aside."

      As partisan as our current political climate is, the idea of people putting politics aside is optimistic at best.....

      No, it's simple. Put politics aside and just agree with the obvious goodness and rightness of what I believe! ;)

    3. Re:Raise taxes and pay competitive rates by houghi · · Score: 5, Funny

      So should the Whitehouse use VI or Emacs?

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  6. Silly government executives. by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 3, Informative

    >> administration reportedly hopes tech industry workers will be able to help modernize state and federal agencies and tackle challenges such as upgrading the veterans' health care system

    The point of government IT contracts isn't to fix or improve anything, but to extract hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars from government coffers without providing anything tangible or useful. See also: IBM, Oracle and/or Epic.

  7. its a matter of funding, not silicon valley morals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have an idea: fund agencies at a high enough level to hire developers and procure software themselves. The reason the government can't attract talent is because IT is not the "core business" of most government agencies, so when they are defunded, IT is always one of the first things to get cut.

  8. Blame the federal rules procurement by MikeRT · · Score: 5, Informative

    You know a few technical guys and a decent manager and want to bid on a contract? Not so fast!

    1. First you must figure out what contract vehicle it's on.
    2. Then you must spend money getting onto that vehicle by bidding.
    3. Then you must bid to get that contract.

    All the while going up against incumbents that have better contacts and decades of experience wording things just right, with the particular jargon needed to win in the government space.

    Oh and as a small company, you will also need to find some way to game the 8A system so that you aren't overlooked as a small business for purely political reasons beyond the agency's control.

    Simple suggestion:

    1. Abolish these processes and replace with a bond.
    2. If your bid is unrealistic and plain bullshit, you get sent to arbitration to decide on whether the contract office sends the bond to the Treasury or not.
    3. If you appeal for bullshit reasons, see #2.

    1. Re:Blame the federal rules procurement by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You know a few technical guys and a decent manager and want to bid on a contract? Not so fast!

      1. First you must figure out what contract vehicle it's on.

      2. Then you must spend money getting onto that vehicle by bidding.

      3. Then you must bid to get that contract.

      You missed one step...

      4. You must pay someone to hand out the appropriate bribe ^H^H^H^ baksheesh, errrm contribution to the appropriate guardians of democracy.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re:Blame the federal rules procurement by vtcodger · · Score: 2

      You're absolutely correct that bidding on a government contract is complex and difficult. The last government bid proposal I worked on decades ago required that we promise compliance with many millions of words of procurement specifications and about 60 pages of pro forma promising not to pollute the environment, subcontract to foreign companies, discriminate in any way in hiring, etc,etc, etc. I would guess that things have only gotten more complicated.

      A bond might work in some cases, but overall, I'm skeptical. In my experience, government Requests For Proposal (RFPs) for complex items are far from perfect and by the time all the discrepancies and major flaws are ironed out, it's pretty hazy to what degree apparent non-performance is due to contractor ineptitude/malfeasance and what is due to the government asking for the wrong thing.

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    3. Re:Blame the federal rules procurement by StevenMaurer · · Score: 2

      He is correct. You are utterly wrong. You're actually putting forward a macro-conspiracy theory, though you're also clearly too ignorant to be aware of it. There are far too many controls in place for that kind of self-dealing to occur in federal procurement. Absolutely everything is reviewed by hundreds of people before it is approved; that's the major reason why the Federal government is so slow and bureaucratic.

      The real "corruption" is how major employers garnering Federal contracts have their local Congressman in their pocket. It leads to the Pentagon telling Congress to stop buying it equipment that it doesn't need. But even with this, it's a matter of votes, not money.

      It is a mark of how far Slashdot has fallen that ignorance like yours is upvoted to +5, with nary a supporting statement on your side.

  9. Politics aside by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "White House officials believe tech workers are willing to "put politics aside.""

    Politics, yes, But not rabid nationalism, raping the environment for personal gain, hating on different cultures/religions/sexual orientations, dumping on women and setting the world on a war footing –NO!

    1. Re:Politics aside by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 2, Informative

      Loving one's country is rabid nationalism now? Well I never.

      Number of wars started by Trump: 0. How many did Obama start? Was it more than seven?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  10. here's a crazy idea: by Thud457 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why not pay market competitive rates and not be a toxic, obsolescent, career-killing place to work?

    "Oh no, we wouldn't want to do that. Let's just borrow some villeins from their lords Google and Amazon." Who BTW are really onboard with the whole divisive racism, hate and fearmongering agenda. This is what they really think about you.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  11. Naive by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Idiots. You are working for the Country, the American people, not for Trump.

    When Trump accepts that reality then I will too.

    We are not talking about working on his campaign, we are talking about working on the software infrastructure for the nation.

    So what? If it is important to the richest nation on earth then the richest nation on earth can damn well pay market rates for it. Buy fewer bombers if they need to find the money in the budget. The military is ridiculously over funded as it is.

  12. Clueless by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So you are a denier of reality, politics trumps the truth in your mind. Good to know.

    Denier of reality? Quite the opposite. I'm WELL aware that our current president likes to think we all work for him and that he doesn't work for us. How is it that you missed that fact? Once he actually starts working for the American people (ALL of them) then we can have this discussion about my motivations.

    Wow, you truly are an idiot. The administration is not asking for free labor. They are asking for employees to be able to take a leave of absence rather than having to quit their jobs and hope to get rehired later.

    Yes they are asking for a discount on labor. If they were willing to pay market rates then they wouldn't have to go begging the private sector for talent. Hell they could just hire the company to do the work if they need the person or win the person away from the private sector outright by paying them competitively. There is no point to such a discussion unless they are trying to get labor at a discount.

    Try to take off your political lens for a moment and at least read the summary: "discuss ways to make it easier for employees to take leaves of absence to help with government projects"

    Grow up and learn to read what that really means. Politics is ALWAYS involved and to think otherwise is dangerously naive.

  13. Or they could just let a realistic RFP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    which isn't low cost, technically acceptable, and which lowers some of the corporate requirements to allow for smaller companies to bid. As for patriotism, I did my years in a windowless building, where I had no contact with the outside world while on duty, where I settled for 40% under market pay in the name of service to my country, where my personal life was monitored 24 hours a day, where I had restrictions placed on where I could travel for vacation, who I could talk with, what sites I could visit online, and my level of political involvement. If the government fixed some of these issues, maybe they would be able to fill those vacant cyber spots. Seriously though, let a realistic RFP that targets smalls for the work, and you will get your workers.

  14. Re:18F anyone? by mcvos · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What great things has Trump done exactly?

    Fiscal? The deficit is larger than ever.

    Economy? Stockmarket is down.

    He mostly accomplished tax cuts for his buddies, cruel treatment of children, discrediting the US internationally, cozying up to all sorts of dictators and other authoritarians, and he's made DC even more corrupt than it was before. Really great things he has accomplished.

  15. It's all about playing power games. by Guppy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or.. they could just pay the corporations to use their workers? Say like.. contract work? You know.. how capitalism work, and not, dare I say it.. communism?

    So the question is... why isn't Trump pushing for a way to make it easier to temporarily hire engineers from Boeing and Lockheed-Martin, instead of having NASA hand out contracts to those companies? Or perhaps maybe grab some workers directly from Halliburton, instead of signing a contract that goes through their entire company?

    Short answer -- because he personally has a beef with Amazon and Google, seeing that their corporate culture is hostile to his agenda. So in one stroke he seeks to find a way to forgo handing out lucrative government contracts to those companies, while simultaneously weakening them by leeching away talent.

  16. Re:18F anyone? by mcvos · · Score: 2

    The economy was starting to recover prior to Obama taking office? I suggest you take another look at the data, because that is completely false.

    You are claiming three contradictory things now: Trump is responsible for the recovery, Bush is responsible for the recovery, and Obama is responsible for the recovery being so slow. You are desperate to blame something, anything on Obama, while claiming credit for anyone who is not Obama, thought preferably Trump, no matter how undeserved.

    I understand facts have gone out of fashion with Trump's election, but that doesn't make anything you say correct. Stick with your "alternative facts" if you must, but don't expect anyone else to believe them.