YouSaid · the spoken record

Matt Cutts

lines on the record: 104
first: 2018-07-02
most recent: 2018-07-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Oh, just USDS.gov. And if they want to figure out how they can apply, it's us.gov slash join. And I promise you it's super simple. It takes a minute and a half with your browser autocomplete. And all you need is a resume. And there's no obligation. You can just talk to our recruiters. They will tell you whether it might be a good fitter.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh my goodness. You know, if I could, so my former employer only allows people to take six months off to go do a good deed, if they would give 12 months off, that would be fantastic. All right, I'll talk to you sooner about that.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's true, and I will just say it's been so gratifying to see support on both sides of the aisle as well as from tech companies. So we had the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nedela, showed up a couple weeks ago and just did a fireside chat. Oh, that's great. So people understand that this is important around the world.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Would we sword by clown? Your farm subsidy. You could do all kinds of things. It's totally true, and I have as well. And there is so much headroom to improve things in government right now”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That would be a great thing. Like, oh, hi, we got your tweet. Would we sword by cloud? Your farm subsidy. You could do all kinds of things. Listen, I have gotten so many things solved through Twitter. It sounds crazy.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I'm less worried about machine learning, I am less worried about artificial intelligence or blockchain. I am more worried about a veteran who calls the VA every single day at 9 a.m. We talk to him. His name is Charles. And he said the phone lines open up at 8 a.m. So he waits for the phone lines to clear out over an hour. And then he calls at 9 a.m. to figure out where he is waiting for his disability claim appeal. And all we did was implement a progress bar so that he knows where he stands out of 100,000 plus veterans. And so even though he knows he might have a two or a two year wait, two and a half year plus weight, just knowing where you stand in that queue makes you feel heard and respected and valued.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We are looking for designers. We're looking for engineers. We're looking for product managers. Typically, people who are a little more experienced in their career, someone who can sit down with a cabinet secretary and say, your system isn't going to launch the way that you thought it was going to, but can also put their hands on the keyboard and actually do a thing.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I will say that even going to talk to companies like Microsoft or Adobe has been really gratifying. But the thing that we have found is grassroots. So when individuals find out about the US Digital Service, that's where they know that they can have an impact. And so I'd encourage anybody who even if you think you might have three to six months to try something new, just check out USTS.com. We're not arguing about that.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mm. So if people want to do this again, and you don't think you need the chief executive talking about this, because I don't think they've talked, Obama was that kind of ad for come to DC, and he was friendly to Silicon Valley. You don't think you need that”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Gives people a better idea about whether this is a good college or university to go to. And completely unbeknownst to us, last week a large consumer search engine picked that up. And so if you go to your favorite search engine and type in Yale University, you'll get information that was collated and combined and processed by the US Digital Service. You know, you don't have to go to a big company. If you're at a big company, you're one of 70,000 employees. If you're on the US Digital Service, part of this dedicated team of 175 people who can really make a big difference.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Am I coming to this? I will say what we have found works very well is if we're able to get people to know we're still here, we are still working on projects that matter, and we're hiring, and then we can sit down in front of somebody and go through the projects and talk about, you know what, you probably haven't heard about this really interesting success that's going to mean that, you know, doctors get better care. And when people hear about the projects that we're working on and we have a report to Congress, we recently put out on USDS.gov. And when people see the kinds of things that they're becoming a US citizen is faster and easier because we help digitize a system called the form called the N400. When people realize, oh, you know what? I do know a veteran. I do know somebody who recently had an encounter with Medicare. I do know somebody who's a student. So if you type in any university, Yale University, Spellman College, we worked on something called the college scorecard.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A lot of people are taking a step back and saying, I joined because I wanted to make the world a better place. Is this company really the best place for me? And I would argue the things that we're working on at the US Digital Service are completely nonpartisan and are really helping a ton of people. Think about Medicare. That is 55 million Americans. And a startup just isn't going to be able to have that impact, at least at the beginning.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I will tell you, we are able to get great work done. So I know somebody might look at the headlines and be like, oh, it might seem counterintuitive to me sitting in Mountain View or Palo Alto to think about moving to DC. What I can tell you is pound for pound, dollar for dollar, we are able to do incredibly impactful and inspiring projects where people hear about it and it affects them. It affects their lives. And so if anybody's looking for meaning or purpose or to try to make the world a better place, I would actually argue the technology industry with things like Me Too.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I will say the mission and the purpose of the US Digital Services is exactly the same as it was before. We're trying to do the most good for the most people who need it the most. And what's really interesting is there's so much work to do that trying to make these systems work better is a non-partisan issue. We see support from”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And can start to do really good work. Sure, absolutely. So I want to finish talking about sort of how it's operating in a politicalized. Has it changed a lot from a political point of view? Does it feel like you're insulated from that? Because one of the key things is science shouldn't be political, but it has become. It just has. You know what I mean? Government shouldn't be this political, but everywhere you go, things that were not political are now political.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it is interesting in California, for example, there's things about clearing your court record. So if you did something that was illegal but is no longer illegal, people were thinking, oh, okay, you can clear your record. They have started to make that a little bit easier with things like just send somebody a text and say, yes or no, would you like us to clear your record for you? And you text back yet a why, and then somebody can be like, okay, we will take care of the rest of it from here because it's mostly automatable. I mean, that's pretty inspiring because somebody's life can get that much better if they can get the record expunged so they can start to do really good work. Sure, absolutely.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's called iterating. Yeah, exactly. How have you been out of Silicon Valley? You've seen a good idea In civic things. But is there one group of people that you can think of where you saw wow, that was an interesting?”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and we do find case studies work really well, especially mayors, and this is getting outside of the US Digital Service, but mayors and town managers are super willing to crib from other folks. So it's not thaterating. Yeah, exactly. How have you been out of Silicon Valley? You've seen a good idea. So it's not so much that one particular city leads everybody else, but it is interesting to see, you know, if Oakland is doing something really savvy, a lot of other people are willing to copy that. And we also do see a little bit of a trend where some folks who helped with U.S. Digital Service have helped to stand up things like the Massachusetts Digital Service. The California Digital Service. Wouldn't it be great to have a Colorado digital service? And so you do see this sort of movement where more people are realizing there's a lot of great work to do in civic.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And yet There's a ton of great work to do. Is there a great estate or a city that's doing an amazing job where you look at it? Because a lot of these things, your victories are things that I assume you want to show them. Look at what we did over here at BA. FDA over there, or whatever, whoever the agency you're targeting, they might be like, oh, maybe I want some of this.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Procurement, getting more people in the ecosystem risk. A lot of people just aren't paying as much attention to some of these problems. And so, you know, there's the phrase that software is eating the world, and yet people have not gotten around to trying to target government. And it's not just the federal government”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then we ended up encoding that into digital service certification. So starting in 2022, if you're a contracting officer who works on a digital service project of more than $7 million, you will need to have this additional certification that makes it more likely that instead of $100 million boondoggles, you'll actually write something where you could have a small system and iterate quickly and deliver something pretty fast.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Two different classes, two cohorts called contracting officers about the right way to write contracts. So it's not just time and materials, it's things like we'll do story points and we can do them in two week cycles.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. And then just to add on to the pile one other immediate problem that comes to mind is just the fact that a lot of small businesses and even large businesses don't know how to participate in the federal contracting ecosystem. So one of the things that we've We've been working on how do you improve procurement? So, on one hand, it's getting more people. No, actually, we've had good results. I'll tell you a quick story. So one is just getting more businesses to try to participate. You can have a next generation of contractors who are agile and nimble and move quickly and are able to deliver results quickly. But then you also need to help contracting officers in the federal government write better contracts. So we've actually trained up”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If there were ways to change the risk equation, so it's interesting because there's a lot of people who are not as interested in”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there was a law called MacRa, and normally you would write the policy for a year, open it up for public comment, and then take one round of comments and then finalize the policy. And we said, okay, take that time and divide it into one fifth and write a draft policy quickly. And then we help them prototype what would be the implications of that? What would change if this were the policy for doctors? And then we got feedback. And then we did that policy again and again and again. And they were able to do five iterations instead of one in a year. And we talked to a civil servant at Health and Human Services who said, I never want to go back to the old way again. Just the fact that you can make policies that end up in a better place. This is one of the best policies I've ever been involved with crafting. And that's not even technology. That's just trying to bring agile practices from industry into government.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Paper is one policies can take a while to change because it's important to ask for comments and the public needs to comment. So for example, we tried a new application, a new approach recently at Health and Human Services.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there is so much good work to be done, high impact work that can help a regular person, you know, get access to the sort of government services that they need to have. If we can just have more people come to USDS.gov slash join and fill in an application and throw a resume in the pile just to continue the conversation about whether, you know, it might make sense for them to try an adventure, a limited tour of duty within government to see if it works for them. Right.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“which are unsearchable and frankly some people think that they can do better by scanning or faxing stuff in and then having an electronic version of that and the fact is it needs to be digital native from the beginning that's how it's searchable that's how you can really check for errors and all those sorts of things”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Millions of pieces of paper are shipped to places, which then does a lottery and then ships all that paper back to the people who lost in the lottery. And so if you could just start with a pre-registration phage that was digital, over and over and over again we see veterans records being paper. We see people who want to sign up for the military being paper. We see people who want to be certified as small businesses paper. And so we're kind of used to seeing these pictures of supervisors' offices with like stacks and stacks up to the ceiling. Which are uncertain.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Here's what I find most funny. I was at a conference and somebody said, hey, Matt, what do you think the government's policy on blockchain should be? And I said, honestly, if we could just get rid of the paper, I would be extremely ecstatic. Right. Because of a large quantity of this stuff that we see is, for example, H1B visas, you know,”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. That's exactly right. So an external security researcher finds a bug, you pay them money, and they get money, and you get more secure. It's like, yeah, it's kind of table stakes.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Plenty sex if you want to make the world better Absolutely. So it's pretty interesting because you do see issues, for example, in security bug bounties have been around since 1995. Netscape invented them and used them first. And the federal government had never done a bug bounty before the U.S. Digital Service brought them into the Pentagon in 2016. But it's.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely. But that's okay because we have a lot of projects that we need to work on. And so we're happy to drop off a report, say we think that the way you're doing it is wrong. If we were wrong in a couple years, we will show up and buy you a drink and say, great job. And if in a couple years something is still going wrong, then we're happy to show up then and see if we can help at that point.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They might disagree with the approach or the technical assessment that we came up with. And that's fine. Reasonable people can disagree. And I'm sure there's been many times when the visual service works.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Somebody will just radically disagree with you. We've had a couple reports, one I can think of just in the last week where we said, here's what we think the best approach is. And the agency's like, hmm, thanks very much, but no thank you. And we've got enough stuff to work on. We don't feel like we have to...”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of thing. They absolutely can. We have found as we do longer-term engagements, that sort of concern drops away because people are like, well, these folks working on vets.gov, they're not going anywhere. They are going to see it through. And so those concerns drop away. You occasionally see somebody who's like, okay, well, I can just wait you out. But for the most part. If you're getting good work done and trying to make sure that credit goes to the agency and the employees where the ideas are coming from, we have found pretty good collaboration. Now, it is always possible that”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In general, the more that we can be helpful, the more that we can say, here's a problem we're trying to help you solve together. So it's not an adversarial thing. In general, that is when it becomes more productive. That's when we're able to get better results.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, we're not trying to. We have found it very helpful if we collaborate and try to act as partner. So one of the first instincts that somebody might have is, oh, is this an auditor? And so one of the things that one of our core values is create momentum. So rather than just write a report, we have occasionally said, okay, this military recruiting system is not working the way that you'd like it to. What if we just leave an engineer behind and he can work on trying to get this system to talk to that system? And that helps to differentiate ourselves. Right, that you're fixing a problem. That's right. And so...”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So something is on fire So right now, when you deploy them, I'm going to talk about the next section, the last section about what the biggest problems are. But I want to make sure people understand how that works. When you go into these things, if you're seen as temporary, how do the people that exist there in technology look at you? Because you're coming in and telling them they're stupid, really.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we have found a couple things. One is that if there is an urgent need, so something is on fire, then usually everybody's willing to clear out all the obstacles. That really helps. Other than that, building trust and credibility over time helps a lot, you know, taking things the slow way, helping air support, executive support at the agency level is definitely helpful. And we have in the past occasionally used White House support as well to say you might not like these people who are going to show up, but please listen to them. And we're willing to use whatever tools we need to to make the right things happen.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That much like Mackenzie. But we're also inside. We're also. Right. Right, right. And in terms of where power has to come from, does it have to come from the agency heads or how does it, how do you impose yourselves on them?”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A little like McKenzie, but not that much like McKinsey. But we're also inside. We're also federal employees. And so we have no dog in the fight. We are offering an independent view. And then we'll hand that up as a discovery sprint report. So, for example, if you're a farmer and you want to hire seasonal workers, there's this type of visa called H2A. And so we came in and said, you know, is there a way to improve how this process works? We handed off a report. And sometimes you can see entire projects get kicked off just on the basis of those reports that say, oh, here's something that makes no sense whatsoever. Can this be changed? And that's really gratifying to see.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we now call them stratops, but one of their goals is to help people get around and navigate through bureaucracy and figure out how to get through red tape. And so over time, as we have done well at, say, the Department of Defense, we will have a two or three star general show up and say, you know what, I would love for you to kick the tires on this payroll system, or I would love for you to tell me what's going wrong with this ground control system so that we can talk to satellites and have it be robust and reliable. And so we'll do a discovery sprint. We'll take a couple weeks. We'll fly in. We'll talk to as many of the stakeholders as we can. We'll get as much truth.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We do a thing called a discovery sprint. So we'll get a designer or a user researcher, an engineer, a product manager, maybe a bureaucracy hacker.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And what are the areas that when someone goes in, someone goes in to do something, one of the things is identifying problems not just be putting out fires, like the bigger problems. How does a digital service person go in when you're not doing the fire? Like this broke, fix my iPhone. Sure.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So having someone who comes in and says, okay, here's the technical reason why you should do something, and we are willing to absorb the risk, and we're willing to say this is the right thing to do from a technical perspective, that can sometimes avoid re-litigating a lot of battles and get you to a better place”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, one of the things that's been really interesting is the VA. They have actually been leaning in in a lot of ways to try to make changes. And yet at the same time, there is a lot of accumulated history. And one of the challenges you face in government is simply around risk. Nobody wants to be the person who's responsible for a system going horribly wrong and then having to go in front and testify in front of Congress. And so there's a lot of mechanisms to try to take that risk and disperse it, manage it, you know, try to say we did everything that we could. And yet at the same time, that doesn't necessarily mean that you get to better solutions. It just means that there's no one to point to when the system goes down. So I remember talking to Mikey Dickerson about healthcare.gov and he said, look, I was happy to be the scapegoat, the person that everybody could point to and say, oh, it didn't work because what did I have to lose? So he just came in and he said, I suggest we do this. I suggest we do that. And over time was able to help get the site working again along.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, that idea moves forward. So, yes, I joke that one of the roles of the US Digital Service is to absorb risk. It's to take things that look risky and then by implementing them show them, oh, this isn't that risky. It's been done in industry for years and years and years.”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But his agencies, I guess, right? Yeah, it's interesting because if you take a look at the Secretary of the VA versus maybe a nurse at a VA facility, there can be up to 17 layers between that nurse and the secretary. And so on one hand, it's very hard for information to make its way up. And so one thing we can do is we can go and talk to that nurse or talk to that soldier and then be talking to the Secretary of VA or Defense the next day. So one superpower is just the ability to get find the truth and tell the truth is what we call it. But it's also interesting because sometimes just inertia comes into play. And, you know, there are fantastic dedicated, passionate civil servants who might not be able to get the right thing done because they just face a lot of different kinds of adversity. And so coming in hopefully with air cover and being able to say, here is an independent view and here's why this person who already was situated at an agency and had a great idea should be empowered to make”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, when you think about doing this, what's the pushback from the government itself only because it's an astonishing array of bad websites, bad accessibility. I don't joke when Tinder works. I mean, most people have very easy experiences with their consumer apps and they're easy to use, and most people can use them. You don't need a level of tech education to be able to... Use Facebook or Instagram or anything, any of these consumer things. And I know it's such an easy comparison, but it's not. If you're able to use all these things easily, you should be able to use government services easily. What are the problems in getting these cabinets to make these changes for these agencies, I guess”
2018-07-02 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Matt Cutts · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT