Skip to content
Modern WisdomModern Wisdom

Inside DOGE, The IRS & How to Scam the US Government - Sam Corcos

Go see Chris live in America - https://chriswilliamson.live Sam Corcos is an entrepreneur, CEO of Levels, and a special advisor to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). What’s really happening inside the U.S. government? For the first time, a DOGE insider exposes the chaos, corruption, and dysfunction plaguing Washington. How did America’s most powerful system lose its way, and can we climb out of this financial and technological free fall? Expect to learn what is currently happening inside DOGE, why Sam decided to step into a political position, Sam’s biggest misconceptions he had about the government before he went inside, how the government actually operates internally, why it’s so hard to make change in the government, how to scam the US government, how to solve the government contract problem, how the IT in the government got so dysfunctional and how we might get out of this, what the IRS actually does and if tax collection is actually viable to help the debt problem, and much more… - 0:00 Becoming Chief Information Officer of the Treasury Department 6:22 The Politics of Working in Politics 11:19 What It’s Really Like Working for the US Government 25:05 How Do You Change the System? 37:46 What Has Sam Sacrificed for the Government? 43:51 The Procurement Process is Broken 53:47 How Much Money Does the Government Really Spend? 01:01:28 Why is Finding Engineers Proving Difficult? 01:10:56 Are Young People Favoured for Government Jobs? 01:15:54 US Media is Fuelling Federal Mistrust 01:25:55 DOGE is More Than a Meme 01:30:04 How Does DOGE Save Money? 01:38:05 Why Spending Cuts are So Important 01:43:02 Modernisation Isn’t the Answer 01:48:55 Is Data Security at Risk? 01:55:09 The Reduction in Force Process is Brutal 02:00:58 What Sam Would Go Back and Change About DOGE 02:10:06 What Does the IRS Actually Do? 02:16:32 How are Tax Policies Really Enforced? 02:25:52 People are at the Core of DOGE 02:35:26 How Long Will It Take to Fix IT Systems? 02:42:14 What Have Been the Biggest Changes in Sam’s Work? 02:52:32 How Will Systematic Changes Stick? - Get up to $350 off the Pod 5 at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom Get $100 off the best bloodwork analysis in America at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic here - https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

Chris WilliamsonhostSam Corcosguest
Oct 9, 20252h 55mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Inside IRS Tech Chaos, Doge Reforms, And Massive Government Waste Exposed

  1. Sam Corcos, now CIO of the U.S. Treasury, explains how he was brought in to rescue the decades‑long, massively over‑budget IRS IT modernization effort and to clean up broader Treasury technology systems.
  2. He details structural problems: non‑technical leadership in technical roles, extreme procurement dysfunction, misaligned contractor incentives, and civil-service rules that make it nearly impossible to remove poor performers.
  3. Corcos describes how Doge-linked reformers have been cutting billions in wasteful contracts, recomposing teams so engineers do engineering, and attacking bizarre legacy practices like the IRS’s dependence on 60 million faxes a year.
  4. Throughout, he emphasizes that the real leverage is organizational and cultural—fixing incentives, leadership, and hiring pipelines—so that any technical modernization can stick beyond his limited tenure in government.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Put technical leaders in charge of technical decisions.

Corcos argues that multi‑billion‑dollar IT decisions were being made by leaders who “don’t know how computers work.” His first major move at the IRS was to place about 50 non‑technical IT leaders on administrative leave and replace them with actual engineers, which immediately sped up delivery and improved decision quality.

Fix procurement and contract oversight to unlock massive savings.

Government vendors exploit misaligned incentives, often ballooning prices once they’re embedded. By rigorously reviewing contracts—canceling unused tools, challenging arbitrary price hikes, and cutting unnecessary toys—Corcos says Treasury/IRS has conservatively saved billions, with far more possible if procurement rules (FAR, BPA/IDIQ structures, small‑business set‑aside abuses) are reformed.

Recompose organizations so engineering orgs are actually staffed by engineers.

At the IRS, the engineering org had roughly one engineer for every ten non‑engineers. Corcos is pushing a simple but radical rule—“Engineering is for engineers”—moving non‑technical roles out of engineering and hiring real developers through a more rigorous, technically informed hiring pipeline.

Attack data fragmentation and legacy sprawl before chasing ‘modernization.’

The IRS has around 108 conflicting “sources of truth” and dozens of unintegrated systems for basic data like addresses. Corcos prioritizes data quality and consolidation over greenfield rewrites, warning that the current “one‑off modernization, then abandon” pattern just multiplies legacy systems instead of replacing them.

Align incentives and accountability around cost, risk, and outcomes—not process.

Because it’s not “their” money and firing is nearly impossible, leaders default to safety and process: renew every contract, declare everything “mission critical,” avoid tough calls. Corcos stresses you must reward people for canceling bad spend and managing risk thoughtfully, not merely for following cumbersome procedures.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

If the IRS were a private company, it would have gone bankrupt many, many years ago because people would stop buying the service because it’s bad.

— Sam Corcos

Historically, if you want to hire a good engineer [at the IRS], you have to hire five, because you just don’t know what you’re gonna get.

— Sam Corcos

Executive orders are not self‑actualizing. Just having the policy is a very small part of the amount of work that actually needs to get done.

— Sam Corcos

We receive 60 million faxes per year at the IRS. We have, I believe, 50,000 active fax lines… and I cannot for the life of me figure out where the lever is to turn this off.

— Sam Corcos

It is hubris to think that a system that has had quite literally a million hours of labor put into it… you can rewrite from scratch and then cut over one day and it will suddenly start working.

— Sam Corcos

Role and mandate of the Treasury CIO and IRS modernizationNon‑technical leadership, civil service protections, and performance managementGovernment procurement dysfunction and contractor incentivesDoge’s role, optics, and political/media backlashCybersecurity, data integrity, and legacy systems (mainframes, faxes, shadow IT)Budget realities, waste–fraud–abuse, and national debt concernsHiring, pay caps, and challenges attracting/retaining top technical talent

High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome