Secretary of the DOGE
Secretary of the DOGE
The great government transformation of 2025
I’m going to give an account of what became known as “The Great Government Transformation of 2025”. It’s a story that carries immense educational value for those interested in the practical application of systematic problem-solving to large, complex systems.
Our tale begins in early 2025, when the newly appointed Secretary of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, set out to revolutionize federal bureaucracy through his celebrated five-step problem-solving approach. The department, playfully nicknamed "DOGE," was granted authority to review and revise federal operations.
The success that followed provides a masterclass in what I call the "Psychology of Effective Reform," the rare combination of clear thinking, systematic process, and rational persistence that occasionally produces miracles.
The initial phase began with questioning requirements. Secretary Musk assembled a team of what he called "first principles analysts." These were highly motivated people all trained to ask not just why something was done a certain way, but whether it needed to be done at all. They began with a simple but revolutionary approach: every government requirement had to justify its existence.
The results were startling. Take the case of federal forms. The team discovered that citizens were providing the same information to different agencies multiple times over. By creating a single, secure federal data repository, they eliminated 92% of redundant form-filling. A grandmother in Florida wrote to thank them when her Social Security application, previously a months long ordeal, was completed in 12 minutes.
The second phase – deletion – produced what I consider a textbook example of institutional courage. True to Musk's principle that "if you're not forced to put back at least 10% of what you delete, you're not deleting enough," entire processes were eliminated. When they deleted the requirement for in-person visits for passport renewals, the outcry from bureaucrats was deafening. But the sky didn't fall. Instead, processing capacity increased by 640% while costs dropped by 82%.
Next up the optimization phase brought what I call "Compound Efficiency Gains." The team discovered that most government inefficiencies weren't single-point failures but rather interconnected systems of unnecessary complexity. By simplifying the tax code's small business provisions, they triggered a cascade of improvements: tax preparation time dropped by 71%, compliance costs fell by 84%, and audit accuracy improved by 95%.
A young IRS analyst named Sarah Chen spotted the pattern: when you simplify one part of government, you create opportunities to simplify ten others. She called it the "Efficiency Multiplier Effect," which later became required reading at business schools.
The fourth phase focused on speed enhancement produced what can only be described as a revolution in government service delivery. Veterans' benefits, which once took months to process, were approved within hours. Building permits that used to take years were issued in days. One construction company executive was moved to tears when he received a federal environmental impact approval in just two weeks, a process that had previously taken his firm two years.
The final phase – automation – is where the true genius of the approach became apparent. Unlike previous automation attempts that simply computerized existing processes, Musk's team only automated systems where the requirements had already been questioned, deleted, optimized, and accelerated.
The results defied even the most optimistic projections. Government operating costs dropped by 47% while citizen satisfaction scores reached their highest levels since measurement began. The federal workforce, rather than being decimated, was redeployed to high-value activities that actually required human judgment.1
Take the case of John Martinez, a former data entry clerk at the Department of Agriculture. After automation eliminated his original role, he was retrained to help farmers optimize their operations using the department's new AI-driven climate prediction tools. He later reported that he'd never felt more fulfilled in his work.
The impact on the economy was profound. The reduction in regulatory burden and improvement in government services triggered what economists called the "Efficiency Dividend." GDP growth accelerated, small business formation hit record levels, and tax compliance reached an all-time high. Even as tax rates were reduced, this growth allowed the government to collect more in taxes, and sooner, relieving the pressure from the mounting pile of debt the country had accrued.
What lessons can we draw from this triumph?
First, we see the power of what I call "Systematic Disassembly," the ability to take apart complex systems, examine their components, and rebuild them better. This is related to what I've long termed the "Mental Models Approach" or others call thinking from first principles, using clear frameworks to understand and improve reality.
Second, we observe the "Competence Cascade Effect." When highly competent people are given clear processes and proper authority, they tend to attract and empower other competent people, creating a virtuous cycle of improvement.
Third, we see the "Human Capital Revelation," the discovery that most government employees weren't inherently inefficient, they were simply trapped in inefficient systems. When those systems were fixed, their natural capabilities flourished.
The Department of Government Efficiency now stands as a model for institutional transformation worldwide. Its methodology has been adopted by governments from Singapore to Sweden. The headquarters building, once a maze of cubicles and paper storage under previous tenants, has become a learning center where officials from around the world study the principles of systematic reform.
(I should note that the building itself operates at net-zero energy consumption and processes visitors with remarkable efficiency.)
The moral of this story? The best solutions often come from combining simple principles with disciplined execution. The genius lies not in complexity, but in the systematic application of fundamental truths.
So remember this: When someone tells you that the government can't be fixed, remind them of 2025, when a clear process, properly applied, proved that the impossible just takes a little longer.
Thank you for your attention to this remarkable and instructive tale.
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Because the United States is currently reporting close to full employment, there is a unique opportunity to land this change as any public sector employees who opt out of the transformation can more readily find jobs in the private sector, compared to a situation where unemployment was running higher.