10.5Bhours
a year on federal paperwork: the work of 5 million full-time people.
OMB, Information Collection Budget, FY2023
The frontier was never a place. It was a decision to push onward. And a desire to build a better future.
A think tank working to clear the way
for America’s builders and innovators.
We explore how government regulates, buys, and runs technology. Then we open-source tools that help you get more from the government you already pay for.
ExploreWe start at the source and research it: the law, the contract, and the budget.How We Work →
GatherOur two gatherings, Budget-Making Briefings and Fellowship Retreats, seat public leaders and industry as peers.See Our Gatherings →
SolveOpen-sourced tools and standards in our library, made together and kept current.Our Work →
Government spends billions keeping old systems alive.
History tells a different story.
The Cost Today
79¢
of every federal IT dollar planned for 2025 keeps old systems running.
GAO-25-107795, July 2025
Read why →29%
of 104 million IRS calls reached a person, after waits of more than 14 minutes.
National Taxpayer Advocate, FY2025
The Record
1 in 270
occupations on the 1950 Census disappeared mainly because of automation: the elevator operator.
James Bessen, Boston University, 2016
60%
of American jobs in 2018 had titles that did not exist in 1940.
Autor, Chin, Salomons & Seegmiller, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2024
58M → 159M
U.S. jobs since 1964, when a committee of economists and scientists warned President Johnson that innovation would need “progressively less human labor.”
Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution, 1964; BLS, Sept. 2026
Some people do lose their jobs. We tell those stories too. The Long View →
Where We Work
Nine programs, one problem: public bodies deciding what they can’t fully judge, on a deadline.
See Our Work →
Government Efficiencies
Data Centers and the Grid
Artificial Intelligence
Constituent Experience
Designing Before Buying
Workforce Enablement
Budgeting for Modernization
Vendor Accountability
Procurement ReformsOpen-sourced, not sold.
How We Reason
- Scrutinize Laws That Pick Winners
- Count the Costs Nobody Invoices
- Examine Who a Rule Really Protects
- New Ideas Shouldn’t Need Permission
- Capitalism, Not Capitolism
- The Status Quo Isn’t Good Enough
- Incentive Structures Are Undefeated
- Reliance upon First-Order Principles
- Judge Value, Not Just Price