This year, Synapse, a middleman between nonbanks offering deposit-style products to end users and their partner banks, filed for bankruptcy. The firm appears to have failed to properly track customer account balances and may have engaged in other shady practices. As a result, tens of thousands of customers have had their funds frozen for months. The banks have been unable to reconcile all the records necessary to get end users their funds back. This has led to severe harm, especially for people who were using the nonbank account as a primary checking or savings account.
DOGE is currently undertaking the "move fast and break things" approach to federal government operation.
TechGod Andreessen Horowitz was the lead investor for Synapse's 2019 funding round and held a board seat. CNBC reported $85 million in customer money was missing after Synapse folded in April 2024.
By July 2024 Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz declared their support for Trump, shortly after opening a Washington, D.C. office. They later said that office would "focus on AI."
Marc Andreessen helped Trump plan his transition alongside fellow TechGod Elon Musk. The GodPair worked on staffing DOGE, Trump's Department of Greedy Executives.
I'm sure Andreessen has a huge smile over the CFPB stand down. Synapse service had to be poorly constructed to misplace nearly 25% of depositor money ($85 million out of $265 million).
Synapse stopped firing, the CFPB stopped protecting and the TechGods are having an absolute blast. Winning.
Update 2-10-25: Many DOGE staff have the common PEU title of "Senior Advisor":
The DOGE team were given “senior advisor” titles at the agency and worked from a conference room in the basement of CFPB’s headquarters. The CFPB’s union attempted to greet them at the door, but the DOGE teams were standoffish and didn’t talk to anyone, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The DOGE employees largely stayed in the basement; one was spotted emerging to pick up a Chipotle order for lunch in the CFPB lobby.Shut down by an internal person with the title of a financial predator? COLD.
And even colder:
CFPB should “ascertain and mitigate any conflicts of interest or confidentiality protocols.”That's hard to do if the DOGE boys won't talk to anyone. What about DOGE ascertaining and mitigating any conflicts of interest?
Does this sound like the aim is closing the CFPB?
...scope of the DOGE team’s efforts would include, “work on software modernization initiatives,” the promotion of “inter-operability between agency networks and systems” and the use of software engineering to “champion the use of modern technology development and management approaches.”I learned another way to describe the PEU model - "use of modern technology development and management approaches" where workers are displaced, massive money is spent on crappy tech and all the gains accrue to executives/people at the top.
