(February 21, 2023) The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may sound like a punchline, but its mission is anything but. Created by the incoming Trump administration to streamline federal operations and eliminate trillions in wasteful spending, DOGE has brought together an unlikely pair to lead the charge. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, known for his takedowns of corporate “wokeness,” joins forces with Elon Musk to bring private-sector rigor to government inefficiency.
DOGE’s cryptocurrency-inspired name has already drawn attention, but its leaders are focused on results. “This isn’t about trimming budgets on paper,” Ramaswamy said at a recent forum. “It’s about making government work—efficiently, transparently, and for the people.”
Ramaswamy’s tirade against social justice warriors led to him found Strive, a publicly traded company that seeks to make companies shut down their ‘woke’ overtures – and has drawn over $300 million in assets. It also inspired a short-lived but much talked about presidential bid, which Ramaswamy abandoned when now President-elect Donald Trump announced his candidacy. Now, the high-achieving, controversial Global Indian has made it to a top, but arguably unenviable spot in the Trump administration – his role in DOGE is welcomed by the tech-centric MAGA majority, who keen to see government inefficiencies put to right. However, he is now also in the eye of a storm as a virtual Republican civil war rages on X, which only intensified with his comments on American culture.
Vivek Ramaswamy
From founding a biotech company that launched a historic IPO, to a pedigreed edcuation at the US’ top colleges, Ohio-born Vivek Ramaswamy has evolved, over the years, into a prominent Conservative voice, taking on what he calls ‘Corporate America’s social justice scam’. Flying in the face of the pundits who now populate the Ivy Leagues, Ramaswamy maintains that corporations are not in the business of altruism but hypocrisy. “(It’s) Goldman Sachs preaching about diversity so it can be at the front of the line for the next government bailout. It’s AstraZeneca waxing eloquent about climate change… It’s State Street building feminist statues to detract attention from wage-discrimination lawsuits,” he writes, in Woke Inc. His opinions are clear, his delivery brutal, and both have earned him the tongue-in-cheek epithet, CEO of Anti-Woke Inc.
The age meritocracy
Vivek Ramaswamy’s views on immigration have been as direct as his critiques of corporate “wokeness.” He has called for a merit-based system that prioritizes skilled talent over broad entry pathways, arguing that unchecked immigration threatens to dilute economic opportunities for American workers. “Immigration should strengthen our nation’s economy and innovation—not overwhelm our system or compromise security,” Ramaswamy said in a recent speech.
While his stance resonates with many who see the current system as outdated, it has also drawn criticism from opponents who argue that it overlooks the humanitarian aspects of immigration policy. Ramaswamy counters that his approach balances compassion with pragmatism, emphasizing the need to focus on reforms that benefit the country’s long-term economic interests.
The wolf of Wall Street
By the time he turned 30, Vivek Ramaswamy, who was described by Fortune as an “ambitious wunderkind,” apparently cancelled his honeymoon in the Swiss Alps. Instead, his new bride Apoorva accompanied him as he rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange to launch the biggest biotech IPO in US history. (One admits, that’s much more romantic than a chalet). Those were the golden days of the biotech bubble and Ramaswamy took full advantage. In December 2014, he founded Roivant with a ten-member team that included his mother and brother. It was the parent company then to Axovant Sciences – and the story of how a company that hadn’t even existed a year prior, sold its shares at $15 a-piece, raising $315 million at a $1.4 billion valuation is the stuff of Wall Street legend. How did that come to be? Through RVT-101, an unproven Alzheimer’s drug the company had purchased from GlaxoSmithKline at $5 million.
Photo: @Forbes
A few days later, experts and enthusiastic investors began to ask the obvious question – why would a pharma giant sell off a drug for so little? The shares prices spiralled and the drug, it eventually turned out, didn’t work. Still, it was a historic stock market triumph and Ramaswamy was put glowingly on the cover of Forbes as ‘The 30-year-old CEO conjuring drug companies from thin air’. He attracted many critics but it didn’t take away from what he was actually trying to do. As he told Forbes, “It’s an ethical problem of an underappreciated magnitude. So many drugs that would have been of use to society are cast aside. Certain drugs have gone by the wayside for reasons that have nothing to do with their underlying merits.
The immigrant life in Ohio
Vivek Ramaswamy’s parents arrived in the USA shortly before their son was born in 1985, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father was an engineer and patent lawyer who worked at General Electric and his mother (who went on to join him at Roivant) is a geriatric psychiatrist. As the The New Yorker would have it, his “family commissioned his horoscope, which predicted that he was destined for greatness.”
Ramaswamy was imbued, even from an early age, with a “sense of superiority,” he admits. There was pressure on him always to be the star, no matter what he did. Hard work was the mantra of every Indian immigrant and their children, they determined, would grow up to embody the great American dream. After getting into a scuffle at the public school he attended, which resulted in him being pushed down the stairs, his parents shifted him to a private prep school.
He was a tennis champion and played the piano like pro. Then, like a model Indian kid, Ramaswamy went off to Harvard University, where he majored in Biology and first dipped his toes into American politics. This was the start of Ramaswamy’s great disillusionment with what he perceived as the left’s groupthink. He was a proud libertarian and even became president of the Harvard Political Union.
Harvard to hedge funds
Just outside the NYSE, looking forward to ringing the closing bell in a couple of hours. pic.twitter.com/Pk3UvWsQAH
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) August 10, 2022
This was the heyday of the hedge fund and after his sophomore year, Ramaswamy interned with Amarant Advisors, working in the biotech division. He lived the good life, accompanying the company’s bigwigs as they partied on yachts, blowing thousands on a bottle of wine. He didn’t enjoy the experience, he wrote later, in Woke, Inc. Goldman Sachs made him just as discontent – he was unhappy to find that corporate altruism was nothing more than an eyewash for media optics.
Even so, Ramaswamy made his way to the New York City hedge funds soon after college. He also attended Yale Law School while continuing to work at QVT. That’s where he met Apoorva, whom he would go on to marry.
In 2014, he founded Roivant and in 2015, performed his IPO magic trick. In September 2017, it was established that Axovant’s drug, Intepirdine, was a failure. “It felt humiliating,” he told The New Yorker. Axovant saw a series of failures after that.
Ramaswamy’s own brand of Corporate Social Responsibility
In the late 2010, diversity, equality and social consciousness were buzzwords in Corporate America. A new standard had been set, restaurants that sold fried chicken were successful not for their fried chicken but their views on the LGBTQi community.
America doesn’t force you to choose between speaking your mind freely and putting food on the dinner table. Between the First Amendment and the American Dream. We’re the quintessential nation on earth where you get to enjoy both at once. pic.twitter.com/S6Kyly5oCY
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) February 20, 2023
The young millionaire’s frustration continued to grow. In the Wall Street Journal in 2019, he spoke of the power of stakeholder capitalism. Issues that should be decided through an exercise of electoral rights and executed by governments, were now put in the hands of companies. Oil companies were giving lectures on climate change and political views seemed more important than a good product, or a sound financial model.
Ramaswamy spoke out freely and soon became a fixture on Fox News, as well as a prolific columnist for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and a host of other publications. In 2022, he wrote letters to Apple, which was planning a racial equity audit and told Disney to “stop speaking out on political issues that do not affect its business. He told the Financial Times, “It’s like McDonald’s volunteering to take responsibility for the adult body weight of anyone who’s eating a Big Mac.”
Doge Days
As DOGE begins its work, the challenges ahead are monumental. Critics argue that federal bureaucracy is too entrenched to be transformed, while supporters see DOGE as the shakeup Washington desperately needs. For Vivek Ramaswamy, it’s a test of his ability to bring his private-sector philosophy into the public domain.
“We’re not promising miracles,” Ramaswamy said at a recent press briefing. “But what we are promising is accountability—a government that earns the trust of its people, step by step.”
Whether DOGE succeeds or becomes another cautionary tale of ambition colliding with reality remains to be seen. But for now, it’s clear that Ramaswamy and Musk are determined to leave their mark on a system long overdue for change.
From left to right: Sam Dalrymple, Sparsh Ahuja, Sadia 
A still from the TIME's coverage of Project Dastaan[/caption]
Reema Mahajan, founder, Indian women in Dubai[/caption]
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