Absolutely. So I've been here about four weeks. I was at Andreessen for about 16 years. So far that still takes the cake right now.
And looking at what you're doing now, is it more efficient, less efficient, or about the same as the private sector and Andreessen Horowitz? You got anything on your radar screen that needs to be worked on? Would you say.
We got lots of things to work on. Yeah. Look, so yeah, we're starting from a less efficient position, as you might imagine. But I think there's a lot of opportunity here. And some of it is just, look, we've got great people. It's just a question of the system they're working in. It just doesn't reward efficiency. It rewards more headcount, more spending. Things only go in one direction here in Washington. And part of the challenge we have is we've got to change that.
The fact, I mean, I understood that. I'd just like an answer if I was going to ask government employees, number one, I'd like an answer to see that they exist. And two, that they're, you know, able to actually, you know, come up with a couple of things just to show that they're in the game just to the slightest bit. That's a start, isn't it? So I think that was the reason that it was kind of, people laughed at maybe five things, whatever. But that was really the rationale for it in the first place, wasn't it?
Yeah. No, I think that's right. And look, there was, I think, a very good reason, as you mentioned, to have it at the time. The reason we took another look at it is just, you know, now with the passage of time, we're trying to change the culture. And I think the culture that we want people to understand is, look, as a manager, you should know what's actually happening with your employees. And look, if that tool is helpful to you, great. You can use it. But there's other tools that you should have as a manager. Like, for example, you know, have one-on-one meetings with your team, other things that would help you understand what they're doing. So I think it was a good shorthand to start with. And as with all things, you know, we should just make sure that, you know, their utility is still there. And if not, let's move on and try other things, quite frankly.
It's hard to do. I mean, the inertia, especially in the federal government, is, I mean, it's just almost like ten times normal gravity. But trying to do something, deferred resignation program, anything you do it. And I'm not, you know, far be it for me to point fingers at Democrats. But you can't shrink anything in the federal government without hearing that the world is ending. And with our budget problems and everything else, deficit problems, it's just a fact of life. They've got to get over it.
Yeah, I agree with you, Joe. Look, this is the problem. You know this well, but just for your viewers, look, we went from 4.6 trillion in spend in 2019 to 7 trillion now. So that's like a 55% growth over the last five years. You know, it's just crazy. And look, we had a big bolus of spend in COVID, which was fine. But now we're trying to actually just right-size things. So, you know, the other thing you probably know, look, in the last administration, you know, Biden, they added 300 to 400,000 government employees. So everything we're doing here, nothing we're doing here is radical. We're just trying to kind of say, hey, look, let's right-size things. Let's kind of get back to the run rate we were on. But you're absolutely right. It's really hard to do things in Washington because in general, people only know one way, which is up. Like budgets only ever go up, headcount only ever goes up. And we just have to kind of find a way to kind of make a cultural change in terms of how people view the operational efficiency of the government.
