## Notes from 15 February 2026 [[2026-02-14|← Previous note]] ┃ [[2026-02-16|Next note →]] Listening to the [[Joe Lonsdale]] podcast ([here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sEsOpHb3w0)), I discovered the [[US National Design Studio]], led by **[[Joe Gebbia]]** as the government's first _Chief Design Officer_. The studio operates within the White House Office of the Chief of Staff and is scheduled to run for three years (until July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of independence), with a mandate to improve the usability, visual design, and overall experience of federal services. Gebbia, an Airbnb co-founder and former Democratic donor, joined the [[Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)]] in February 2025. A text from [[Elon Musk]] led him to spend time with the DOGE team, where he began modernizing federal retirement processes at the [[US Office of Personnel Management (OPM)]]. His first project involved eliminating a decades-old system where federal retirement records were stored in a physical mine in Pennsylvania, successfully reducing the application process from months to approximately six minutes through digitization. Gebbia's trajectory illustrates the "[[MAGA Silicon Valley]]" network within the Trump administration's reform efforts — San Francisco tech entrepreneurs and accelerationists who view the current government as a vehicle for advancing technological infrastructure, regardless of broader ideological alignment. He has described his political evolution not as a shift in core views but as a response to the Democratic party moving too "far left", citing specific concerns about border security and public safety in San Francisco. His background also includes serving on Tesla's board and maintaining a long-standing relationship with Musk. The National Design Studio mirrors DOGE's organizational model as a "temporary organization" that utilizes volunteer talent. Gebbia is currently recruiting designers and engineers to upgrade approximately 27,000 ".gov" websites, drawing inspiration from the [[US Federal Design Improvement Program]] — a 1970s initiative under President Nixon that created iconic federal brands like NASA and the National Parks. Active projects already include [SafeDC.gov](https://safedc.gov/) for law enforcement recruitment, [TrumpCard.gov](https://trumpcard.gov/) for expedited green card processing, and [TrumpRX.gov](https://trumprx.gov/) for "most favored nation" drug pricing access. I could not help but listen to the whole interview with a mix of curiosity and a bit of grumpiness, given an unspoken tension: the National Design Studio is tasked with improving services that previous government design teams (including the now-dismantled [18F](https://www.pcmag.com/news/doge-deletes-18f-agency-behind-logingov-irs-direct-file-other-tech-projects) team) had already been addressing. The Trump administration appears to be simultaneously ending initiatives like the [IRS's Direct File](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_Direct_File) system while establishing new design infrastructure to improve similar services. Ultimately, Gebbia's positioning within both DOGE and the White House represents an attempt to institutionalize "tech speed" iteration and design thinking, while maintaining the operational disruption that characterizes DOGE's broader mandate.