Almost two weeks after The New York Times reported that Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia had joined Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” Gebbia clarified his function on Thursday, saying on X that as a place to begin, he’ll be leveraging his design experience as a part of an effort to overtake the federal government’s notoriously sluggish, paper-heavy retirement course of.
The system may definitely use the assistance. Chuck Ezell, appearing director of OPM, mentioned in a video testimonial launched in the present day — and republished by Gebbia — that one week in the past, the administration challenged the company to “course of a retiree, finish to finish, digitally, with out printing something to paper.” The deadline? Just one week.
In the identical video, an company worker tells the cameraman that they’ve already managed to shrink the method to 2 days.
Whether that course of is scalable or sustainable stays to be seen, however OPM has been underneath stress for years to modernize its programs. Last summer season, the company launched a pilot program for a brand new on-line retirement utility platform.
In 2023, a number of lawmakers issued a press launch, urging the OPM to deal with the sluggish processing of retirees, who have been generally ready greater than 90 days to obtain their advantages.
Gebbia — a billionaire many instances over due to his Airbnb holdings — nonetheless serves on the board of the short-term rental large. Since September 2022, he has additionally been a board member at Tesla.
In his X put up about his subsequent steps, Gebbia wrote: “Since leaving my working function at Airbnb in 2022, I’ve been on the lookout for the subsequent digital design problem. And I can consider few extra essential ones than volunteering to enhance the person expertise inside our authorities.”
In addition to co-founding Airbnb, Gebbia is the co-founder of Samara, a spin-out of Airbnb that builds pre-fabricated properties that prospects can customise, selecting layouts, colours, home windows, doorways, and decks, with Samara saying it handles the remaining, together with acquiring the related permits.
Last week, Samara introduced it will donate $15 million price of the dwellings to assist Los Angelenos who misplaced their properties within the January fires that precipitated an estimated $30 billion in misplaced actual property.
