An Interview with @DataRepublican

An conversation with one of the most interesting people I've ever met online-- exclusively for readers of The Course of Empire

Data Republican’s Avatar on X, which she has used since she originally started posting as an anonymous account

When sometimes I feel like I am spending too much time online, I have to remind myself that I have met some absolutely remarkable people here.

Certainly among the most remarkable of these would be Jennica Pounds (AKA @DataRepublican) who, in the wake of the election, has become one of the most influential right-of-center accounts (and certainly THE Most influential data-focused account) with over 700,000 followers, regularly retweeted by everyone from Elon Musk to GOP Senators.

But while the quality of Jennica’s work speaks for itself, her story, which she relayed to me privately last fall when she was a much smaller account (maybe 10K or so followers), was in many ways even more remarkable: Jennica is deaf, mute, and autistic, profound disabilities that would be a challenge for anyone to handle. And yet using computer messaging as a medium, she has been able to make sure her “voice” is heard very loudly in the political world. And in recent weeks, with the aid of a ASL translator, and text to speech tools, she has even been interviewed on TV by major conservative political figures.

In her previous “real jobs” before her recent transformation into an online political data guru, Jennica was a distinguished machine learning, AI, and database kernel engineer, holding senior developer roles at companies such as Amazon, eBay, and Snapchat.

I first “met” and became mutuals with her in 2020, but I got to know her much better in 2024, when she emerged as the clear standout of a small group of conservative accounts bringing serious data analysis (including complex early voting models of several key swing states—she correctly predicted the winner of every swing state except for Michigan, far in advance of election day

I introduced her to Charlie Kirk and Jennica’s data analysis was invaluable to the some of the work that Charlie and TPUSA did down the stretch in the campaign. Besides Trump winning, one of the highlights of *my* political season was getting a shoutout from Jennica about my data analysis on our prospects in Florida, based on the early voting. As it turned out, I even slightly underestimated Trump’s performance there—but even there both Jennica and I hugely outperformed all of the pollsters..

But while the election began to establish her public profile, what really made it take off was work she did in making a variety of databases easily available for the public to analyze, by building free online tools that allowed users to to visually explore previously hidden links between NGOs and powerful politicians, particularly, though not exclusively, on the left. This became particularly useful in the fight over USAID. At a time when the USAID story was the biggest political story in America. Jennica’s work exposed how USAID functioned as a gravy train for a variety of left-leaning political groups.

Jennica and her family are protective of her privacy (like many who have helped Trump, she and her husband been the victim of doxing and harassment) but given our earlier relationship she was kind enough to answer a number of questions for me, both professional and personal, over a few days of emailing.

In our interview we talk about how her disabilities have also enhanced her strengths, the advantages and disadvantages of Internet anonymity, her experience with DOGE, what she thinks the biggest value of her work has been, and many other subjects.

The interview has been edited very lightly for publication.

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Q: Just a few months ago, you were a software engineer who had a lot of professional success but were working in relative personal obscurity. Even through the election, where your work began to attract some notice, you were still hardly a household name, even on X. Now you have more than 700,000 followers and are regularly retweeted by Elon and prominent elected officials. What has that transition been like for you?

A: It’s been a surreal experience, and in many ways, it still doesn’t feel entirely real. Unlike some influencers who gain traction through luck or by aggregating content, my growth has been driven by a clear mission. I’ve always been focused on substance over virality. Right now, my attention is on my next role in D.C., and with that transition, I’m not sure what my presence on X will look like moving forward. But my commitment to the work itself remains unchanged.

Q: What prompted you to make the tools that you made to do election predictions, and then why did you decide to build on that by creating data-mapping tools for most elections?

A: Early on in the voting process, it became clear that we were witnessing something unusual—signs of a substantive pro-Trump shift that weren’t being captured in traditional polling. That realization drove me to develop tools that could provide a more accurate, data-driven perspective. To be honest, election analysis is a lot more engaging when the trends are moving in your direction, which is probably why I sat out 2022—there just wasn’t much momentum for my side.

At the same time, I had taken a leave of absence from my job for unrelated reasons, and I saw it as an opportunity to challenge myself—to see how far I could go as a social media influencer while also contributing to DOGE. I never expected it to take off the way it did, but the response has been incredible.

Q: You had always been very discreet about your identity, and I was very flattered when you shared it with me privately last October. But at the same time, I’m not going to lie to you, I did a pretty deep dive to check your story out—because it seemed so incredible, and I am very wary of anonymous accounts of people I don’t’ know offline—especially if neither I nor my friends have met the account owner in real life.

You had a female anime pic as your Twitter avatar, but TBH, that’s about the most ‘tech bro’ thing imaginable. And frankly, tons of things about you—the fact that you’re a high-end software engineer, your very direct style of verbal presentation, etc.—were screaming ‘guy.’

But I quickly determined that you were exactly who you said you were.

What has the experience been like of being a minority within a minority within a minority? Were there any particular formative experiences that allowed you to break out of the social role that was expected of you to do what you ended up doing—first as a very accomplished machine learning and database engineer and then as someone on the political stage?

A: I wish I had some profound insight to share, but the truth is, I’ve always just been myself. I got into anime as a teenager—Yu Yu Hakusho was my obsession back in high school, and it still is 20 years later. I’ve also always gravitated toward classic JRPGs, staying up late to analyze hit formulas and mechanics, and I still play those. That same analytical mindset also had me programming at an early age, which eventually turned into a deep passion for database kernels and machine learning.

In many ways, I’ve always fit more easily into the traditional IRC-era nerd subculture than into communities where I was ‘supposed’ to belong. I never felt entirely at home among other deaf people or other women—not because I rejected those identities, but because my interests and communication style naturally aligned elsewhere. It’s not that I consciously broke out of a social role; it’s that I never really fit into one to begin with. But none of that makes me any less of a woman, any less deaf, or any less human. I’m just me.

Q: Inevitably, when you meet someone online, you are not learning about the whole person—just whatever persona they present. But in your case, the disjunct was particularly dramatic because, of course, we communicated for some time without my having any idea that you were deaf, mute, or autistic, which are obviously enormously profound elements of your life that you deal with every day. So I never took any of that into account when we communicated, and our conversations were totally ‘normal.’

Has the Internet been freeing for you in that way, allowing you to communicate much more easily and anonymously with people without those sorts of preconceptions—where you were only being judged on the quality of your work and intellect and not your disabilities? Was that something that you were sad to lose once your identity and background became more known?

A: If anything, my disabilities are exactly why the Internet has always felt like a natural and meaningful way for me to communicate. Online, I’m not defined by how I speak or whether I can hear—I’m judged by my ideas, my analysis, and my work. That kind of environment removes a lot of barriers that exist in face-to-face interactions.

I wouldn’t say I was sad to lose that anonymity, but the challenge has actually come from the other direction—being accused of exaggerating or faking my difficulties. The reality is, I am profoundly deaf, more so than any other deaf people I’ve met. I frequently struggle with both speech and signing, and it’s taken years of intense coordination with my interpreter to ensure we don’t miss a beat when it really matters. But for some reason, people have a hard time grasping that disabilities can overlap rather than cancel each other out. That’s been the bigger hurdle—not being underestimated, but being disbelieved.

Q: After many years as an atheist, you came to Christ in your 30s. And of course, as part of that you built something that you described as “the most valuable tool I ever created.” It’s a tool that allows you to cross reference a huge amount of the New Testament text from places where it was directly quoted by the early church fathers, providing evidence of the NT’s accuracy and antiquity. The tool was a huge hit with a couple of Christian groupchats I am in, and as someone else who only became a Christian in my middle age, I identify a lot with that part of your story. How has being a Christian impacted your work?

A: My faith has completely reframed how I view my work. At the end of the day, none of this matters if it doesn’t serve a higher purpose. I pray every day that I can set a good example, though I fall short often. But I’m grateful for grace, and I want to share that with others. If anything I do helps point people toward Christ, then it’s worth it.

You seem to have an insane work rate. When I was first checking out your background, I found a reference for you that said, ‘Jennica works three times as long, three times as hard, and three times as smart as anyone else I know. When I’m feeling proud of pulling an all-nighter and sleeping in, she’s finishing a 65-hour stint of work and shows up to get more done.’ This statement was very reminiscent of the idea in Silicon Valley of a ‘10X engineer’—someone who is just ridiculously more productive than normal engineers. To what do you attribute it?

A: I wouldn’t say I work hard in the traditional sense—it’s more that my mind operates differently. What others see as ‘not work’—just navigating daily life—often feels more stressful and chaotic to me. Work, on the other hand, provides structure, clarity, and a defined task to focus on, which makes it feel like a relief. Once I start something, my mind won’t shut down until it’s finished.

I’ve tracked my sleep for years, and I rarely get more than 5.5 hours a night—not because of discipline, but because that’s just how my brain works. It’s less about work ethic and more about functioning on a different plane. The downside, of course, is that when I’m not motivated, I can’t force myself to be productive at all.

You have got to be one of the most prominent deaf and mute people in society right now. Does that put any additional pressure on you, or do you embrace that? The Deaf community tends to be pretty political and left-leaning—how do you feel that you’ve been received?

A: When I was a teenager, I struggled with being bullied for my lack of signing skills, and for a while, that left a lasting impact. But one of the first things my faith helped me with was letting go of any bitterness I once felt toward the Deaf community.

I don’t hold onto that resentment anymore. Everyone has their own blind spots, and the Deaf community is no exception. My only hope is that, in time, they understand that I care about them and will always advocate for them—regardless of how I’m received.

Q: OK, now let’s shift back a bit to the substance of your work:

Of the work that you have done so far, what, to your mind, is the most important thing that you’ve accomplished? And what do people misunderstand?

A: I’d say the two most impactful things I’ve done are, first, creating the original tool that went viral—giving people keyword search capability into government grant awards. That opened up an entirely new world that was previously hidden from public view. Suddenly, people were uncovering obscure grants and awards, like those funding pansexual communal farms, and seeing firsthand how wasteful some of these expenditures were. It provided transparency in a way that hadn’t been possible before.

The second major impact is broader and harder to tie to a single tool. It’s the realization that many sitting members of Congress are actively involved in NGOs—like the National Endowment for Democracy—that receive taxpayer money and then use it to shape global policies. For years, the American people have felt ignored, as if their interests were secondary. Now, we have a clearer picture of why—because for many in power, these international NGOs are their real playing field. Their focus isn’t on what’s happening at home, but on influencing the world with the money they control.

Q: What do you think are the most important things that can be done with government data?

A: One of the most powerful uses of government data is exposing conflicts of interest and ensuring accountability for federal funding, especially when it comes to NGOs. I built a tool called the People Relations Tool, which maps relationships between individuals and organizations by mining Wikipedia data and analyzing the connections using LLMs. What’s available now is just a fraction—about 1%—of what I mined. But the real goal isn’t just mapping Wikipedia links; it’s about uncovering the full picture.

There are two key things we need:

1. A comprehensive way to track conflicts of interest—who is connected to which NGOs and how those relationships influence policy.

2. A system to hold NGOs accountable for the federal funds they receive. Right now, oversight is mostly luck—someone might randomly check an address and discover an NGO receiving government money is operating out of an empty office building. That’s not real accountability.

To do this properly, we need a large-scale web scrape of NGO data, cross-referenced and processed through AI. This could be done quickly with government resources, using the same processing techniques I applied to Wikipedia connections. The estimated cost is around $1 million in AI processing, but the insights it would provide into government spending and influence networks would be invaluable.

Q: What’s the most frustrating way you see your tools being misused?

A: One of the biggest frustrations is the misinterpretation of the USAID flow tool. When I released it, I included a disclaimer to clarify that while USAID money circulates widely—just as nearly every $100 bill has traces of cocaine—not every organization that touches it is dependent on it. Almost all charities interact with USAID-linked funding in some capacity, but that doesn’t mean they rely on it for survival.

Despite this, some users have misused the tool to claim that any nonprofit with even a distant connection to USAID funds is dependent on government money. The real challenge in determining whether a nonprofit is truly reliant on NGO funds lies in the opacity of the funding ecosystem. The trail often disappears into Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs), which are not required to disclose their grant recipients.

A clear example of organizations with heavy USAID-linked funding are politically connected NGOs—often with vague names that include words like ‘Democracy,’ ‘Security,’ or ‘Freedom.’ These groups, frequently run by high-profile individuals (such as Bill Kristol’s organization), rarely rely on small-dollar donations. Instead, they mysteriously receive massive sums from untraceable DAFs, making it impossible to track the original source of their funding. This is the real issue—not the fact that some legitimate nonprofits have incidental exposure to USAID money, but that many politically influential NGOs operate with virtually no financial transparency.

Q: What has been your general impression of working with the DOGE team and/or elected officials with whom you’ve corresponded?

A: Every DOGE person I’ve interacted with treats this as an existential threat and is putting in hundred-hour weeks to achieve DOGE objectives. They are sharp, data-driven, and fully aware that the U.S. is on an unsustainable trajectory. They see this as a final opportunity to course-correct before the situation becomes irreversible.

The challenge is getting the rest of the elected officials to recognize the urgency and align with DOGE.

Q: Why do you think, in general, the tech community tends to lean left?

A: This is speculation, but I see two main factors at play.

First, there’s the immigrant workforce. Many immigrants perceive the Democratic Party as more supportive of immigration policies, and they’re not entirely wrong. If the U.S. were to shift the H-1B visa system to a merit-based model, relax restrictions that tie workers to a single employer, and reduce the long wait times for green cards, it would significantly change the political calculus for many in this group.

The second factor comes from the U.S.-born workforce. The hiring pipeline for Big Tech is heavily skewed toward graduates of elite, affluent universities that serve as feeders for internships and full-time roles. These institutions lean left, and their graduates often come from privileged backgrounds, where left-leaning ideology is the norm.

Q: You’ve identified short- and medium-term opportunities around big data. Long-term, what are the biggest ways that we are going to use AI and data science (in the broadest sense of that term) to help improve government—not just with the tools we have or can build today, but with tools that may be a few years down the road in terms of our capability to develop them?

A: In the past, technology was primarily used by those in power to monitor and control the public. Government agencies and large institutions had the resources to finance massive surveillance and regulatory systems, while ordinary people had little ability to push back.

AI has flipped that dynamic. Now, everyday citizens can use AI to analyze government spending, track decisions, and uncover waste and corruption on a scale that was previously impossible. The real question is whether we, the public, will continue to use this technology to hold those in power accountable—or whether restrictions will be put in place to prevent that. Any effort to limit AI will ultimately serve the interests of those who want to maintain control, not the people. It’s up to us to ensure that doesn’t happen.

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Thanks to Jennica for a great conversation, If you’d like to support my work, please SUBSCRIBE below. And of course, you should follow

DataRepublican

’s Substack and her X account.