White House launches “U.S. Digital Service,” with HealthCare.gov fixer at helm
I worked with Mikey on healthcare.gov and he's the real deal--wicked smart, but also humble, patient, respectful, grounded, and keenly insightful into how organizations work and how to fix broken ones.<p>The day healthcare.gov launched, six people total got through. Six. Nobody even knew when the site was down, except by checking CNN. Two months later, Mikey had rallied the 20-something contractors into punching through dozens of problems, and had recruited a team of (now-) 30-something engineers from Google, Facebook, YC startups, and other fine places to come in on rotations to keep the momentum going. As a result, 8 million people got health insurance.<p>If you haven't already seen it, I recommend this talk and Time article:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0albm_hhQzM&feature=youtu.be&t=3m40s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0albm_hhQzM&feature=youtu.be...</a>
<a href="http://blog-assets.newrelic.com/wp-content/uploads/80893.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://blog-assets.newrelic.com/wp-content/uploads/80893.pdf</a><p>And those of you thinking about joining: do it please! You don't have to give up your life to the government—it's possible to help in short-term rotations—but this is the best shot we have in a long time to change the way our government works.<p>(If you're interested in joining, feel free to email me a resume and I'll make sure the right people see it: brandon.ballinger@gmail.com)