Horizon Cutting-room Links: Wednesday, 29 January 2025

"Booz Allen, Lockheed and other defense contractors scrap DEI programs following Trump executive order," Washington Business Journal

"Reston-based Peraton said Tuesday its chief DEI officer since 2021, Laila Salguero, has left the company ... and a link to Peraton’s DEI page now directs users to a general corporate information page. Similarly, links to Booz Allen’s 'Celebrating Pride' page, Northrop Grumman Corp.’s 'Pride in Diversity Alliance' page and RTX’s careers page for people who identify as LGBTQ either take users to general product pages or are now dead links."

"Not all federal contractors are distancing themselves from DEI initiatives. A diversity and inclusion page of Reston’s General Dynamics Corp. remains active, as does a page on Leidos Holdings Inc.'s site recognizing the Reston company's support for and collaborations with historically black colleges and universities or HBCUs."

"Gregory Barbaccia named federal CIO," NextGov

"The U.S. government has a new federal chief information officer, Palantir alum Gregory Barbaccia. ...

He’ll be in charge of overseeing, managing and setting policy for the federal government’s technology. From the perch in the Office of Management and Budget, the OFCIO also has a role to play in developing the IT budget sent to Congress. Most recently, Barbaccia was the chief information security officer at Theorem, a machine-learning enabled asset manager, according to his LinkedIn, where he posted about his new role Friday. Pagaya Technologies Ltd. agreed to buy the company in July, per Bloomberg."

"Hegseth highlights ‘Iron Dome for America’, other first priorities as new SecDef," Defense Scoop

"Today, there are more executive orders coming that we fully support on removing [diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives] inside the Pentagon, reinstating troops who were pushed out because of [Covid-19] mandates, and an Iron Dome for Americaa."

"GSA announces new FAS, TTS leadership," NextGov

"Silicon Valley and Tesla alum Thomas Shedd is the newest leader of the Technology Transformation Services at the General Services Administration, the agency announced on Friday."

"Silicon Valley Is Raving About a Made-in-China AI Model," Wall Street Journal

“'Deepseek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen,' said Marc Andreessen, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist who has been advising President Trump ... DeepSeek’s advances sparked a selloff led by chip shares early Monday on concerns the huge spending by U.S. tech giants on leading-edge semiconductors and other AI infrastructure was justified. Futures tied to the tech-focused Nasdaq-100 were down 4%, with Nvidia sliding more than 10% premarket. DeepSeek’s development was led by a Chinese hedge-fund manager, Liang Wenfeng, who has become the face of the country’s AI push."

"At $10 Billion A Year, TSA Still Fails 90% Of The Time—And Covers It Up," View from the Wing

The travel blogs fight! "Ben Schlappig of One Mile at a Time argues that the TSA experience has gotten much better, and mocks civil liberties concerns. He uses my writings, and that of Live and Let’s Fly as a foil for his position. ... Ben says he’s “trying to come at this topic non-politically.” He isn’t, though. And you can’t evaluate TSA without considering the effect on politically significant values. I’m an old-line civil libertarian. Ben brushes such things off as not mattering. That’s political."