The news around HealthCare.gov hasn’t been good. But the government has called in the big guns to help. Rather than rely solely on government contractors and East Coast developers, the folks in D.C. have asked for members of Silicon Valley to help fix the mess.

What was refreshingly surprising to me is that the government actually called up specialists from much smaller companies. That’s a good thing, because as we all know, Google and Facebook live in the future, while the U.S. government lives, distinctly, in the past.

How do I know about this hush-hush effort to bring in startup people to help with HealthCare.gov? Because I had a meeting canceled on me. Jason Huggins, CTO of Sauce Labs, had to bail on me yesterday because his government needs him.

But it’s a great sign. If Sauce Labs is being called in to help with HealthCare.gov, at least we can be sure they’ve got seriously big brains in the room, and ones that are focused on software development, not government bureaucracies or political capital.