When people voted for Trump, many said they wanted him to “run the government like a business.” Well, in some ways, they got exactly what they asked for, just not in the way they might have imagined. The Trump administration, and particularly the Department of Government Experimentation (DOGE) (a name I’m taking the liberty to assign) has embraced the beloved tech startup mantra: “fail fast.”

For an early-stage startup, “failing fast” is a feature, not a bug. It allows companies to rapidly test, learn, and iterate until they land on the best possible solution. As a marketing leader in tech startups, I’ve applied this approach many times, and in that context, it’s not reckless. The stakes are relatively low. If a marketing experiment fails, worst-case scenario, we lose some market share or tarnish our brand reputation. Maybe, if I really screw up, I tank the whole company. But even that pales in comparison to the stakes of failing fast in government.

Government isn’t a startup

Government is not a scrappy startup. It exists to serve people—real people with real lives that can be upended or even destroyed by reckless experimentation. And yet, inexperienced DOGE team members are treating major policy changes like A/B tests, cutting without caution and pivoting without a plan. The results? Disruptions that don’t just inconvenience people but actually put their lives at risk. Government is big, slow, and frustratingly bureaucratic for a reason: the alternative is chaos.

Moving fast and losing everyone

And speaking of chaos, let’s talk about change management—or, in this case, the total lack thereof. The one other thing this administration has in common with business is its failure to prepare and support people through major transitions. Early in my career, I worked in consulting, specializing in training, communication, and change management for large-scale system implementations. We used to cite a stat that 90% of these initiatives fail—not because of technology, but because of poor adoption. Organizations routinely underestimate the importance of bringing people along for the ride.

This is precisely what Trump and DOGE are doing. They are laser-focused on their aggressive timelines, bulldozing through decades of precedent without even pausing to ensure (1) government employees are equipped to handle these changes or (2) the American people actually support them. They seem to think that squeaking out a narrow electoral victory four months ago gives them carte blanche to upend the system overnight. Spoiler alert: it does not. And eventually, the consequences of skipping over adoption and buy-in will come back to bite them.

Even bad businesses do better

But let’s be clear: beyond the reckless “fail fast” mentality and total disregard for change management, there is absolutely nothing about this administration that resembles a well-run business. Even in the most dysfunctional companies I’ve worked or consulted for, there were still basic standards of fairness, planning, and accountability. To say Trump is running the government like a business is an insult to business.

And if we’re talking about Trump’s business acumen, let’s not forget his long track record of bankruptcies. Six, to be exact. Running a business into the ground is not a model to follow, and yet, here we are, watching the same reckless approach unfold in government. And as for Elon Musk, another supposed business genius… he took over Twitter, gutted its workforce, and made impulsive changes that tanked the company’s valuation to just 25% of what it was when he bought it. 

So if this administration insists on experimenting with government like it’s a startup, they should at least be prepared for the inevitable outcome when a company ignores its employees, alienates its customers, and fumbles execution: failure.