First, he digitized the entire federal retirement process, cutting it from six months to a few days. Now, he’s overhauling the U.S. government’s online presence, one website at a time. And Joe Gebbia has been in Washington, D.C. less than a year! Learn why he stepped up to serve, and the impact our best minds can have on D.C., in a conversation with our nation’s first Chief Design Officer.
As co-founder of Airbnb, Joe turned a living-room experiment into a multi-billion dollar global brand. Then, he launched Samara, helping homeowners reimagine their yards with state-of-the-art Accessory Dwelling Units. He also sits on the boards of Airbnb, Airbnb.org, and Tesla. Last February, he joined Elon Musk and the DOGE team in D.C. to overhaul retirement for federal workers, before setting his sights on modernizing the nation’s 27,000 .gov websites.
We begin with Joe’s journey to D.C., and how a former Democrat came to support President Trump and take on problems that have plagued government for decades. His first challenge: federal retirement and “the mine” — a storage facility inside a Pennsylvania mountain that houses all federal employees’ retirement paperwork. Learn how Joe worked alongside career civil servants to transform a broken, six-month slog into a digital-only process that takes mere days. Now, he’s set his sights even higher: overhauling the government’s digital portals and delivering an Airbnb-like experience, starting with the Trump Gold Card, TrumpRX.gov, and, more recently, RealFood.gov and TrumpAccounts.gov. We go inside the Oval Office and Joe reveals his conversations with Pres. Trump on the importance of aesthetics, functionality, and design. Drawing inspiration from President Nixon’s beautification initiative, he worked with Pres. Trump to launch the government’s first digital makeover. It’s inspiring to see Joe’s leadership, and if you, or someone you know, wants to join his elite team of designers and engineers, there are a few spots remaining.
00:00 Episode intro
01:15 Lifelong Democrat to Trump White House
07:50 Text from Elon / Joining DOGE
10:20 “The Mine” & fixing federal retirement
13:50 “What if we did it in a week?”
21:45 What happened to DOGE?
23:30 Becoming America’s Chief Design Officer
26:45 Inside the Oval Office with Pres. Trump
31:00 Fixing 27,000 .gov websites
34:00 Making America beautiful & functional again
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit
blog.joelonsdale.com
