Why the Government Isn't a Bigger Version of a Startup(steveblank.com)
steveblank.com
Why the Government Isn't a Bigger Version of a Startup
https://steveblank.com/2019/11/12/why-the-government-is-isnt-a-bigger-version-of-a-startup/
123 comments
I think where people get frustrated about government is that they expect it to respond to changes in society and technology. They see inertia and think inefficiency.
I think that’s missing the point entirely. What governments offer is stability. “Inertia” is a feature. If governments swung around rapidly the way tech trends change then it would cause tremendous damage to people’s lives and to the economy as a whole.
I think that’s missing the point entirely. What governments offer is stability. “Inertia” is a feature. If governments swung around rapidly the way tech trends change then it would cause tremendous damage to people’s lives and to the economy as a whole.
Governments, especially in some areas, are also often starved. They're trying to do work without the sufficient resources to do their work effectively. Companies in that state usually end up in a death spiral and fail.
Often this ineffectiveness is misconstrued as incompetence and used as evidence to further decrease the resources available.
Often this ineffectiveness is misconstrued as incompetence and used as evidence to further decrease the resources available.
Indeed! Voters want great gov't services but also hate paying taxes. These are often contradictory. Sometimes you get what you pay for and can't vote for a magic lunch. People complain about how slow the DMV is, but if you ask them if they want their car registration fees increased to reduce waits, most will say "no".
That's because our government (referring to the USA) is extraordinarily inefficient with taxpayer money.
My tax rate in NYC was something like 36% (not counting student loan payments and healthcare premiums), but where was this money going? We're paying practically the same tax rate as countries with universal healthcare, free/affordable universities, and strong safety nets, but we have none of the above. In my 5 years in NYC I saw the subway get progressively worse every year, while the homeless population exploded. I felt like that money might as well be getting flushed down the toilet.
If I could more tangibly see where that money is going, then I'd probably feel differently. I think taxpayers should have some agency in choosing where their taxpayer money goes. Andrew Yang proposed something like this, and I love the idea:
> "Each American should be able to direct 1% of their taxes to a specific project. During Revenue Day, these projects will be highlighted, showing what, exactly, America’s money was able to accomplish during the previous year. Initial profiles of the next year’s projects will also be announced so people can get excited for them." [1]
I wouldn't mind paying taxes in the U.S. if I felt like they were being productively used. It's hard to feel that way.
[1] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/making-taxes-fun/
My tax rate in NYC was something like 36% (not counting student loan payments and healthcare premiums), but where was this money going? We're paying practically the same tax rate as countries with universal healthcare, free/affordable universities, and strong safety nets, but we have none of the above. In my 5 years in NYC I saw the subway get progressively worse every year, while the homeless population exploded. I felt like that money might as well be getting flushed down the toilet.
If I could more tangibly see where that money is going, then I'd probably feel differently. I think taxpayers should have some agency in choosing where their taxpayer money goes. Andrew Yang proposed something like this, and I love the idea:
> "Each American should be able to direct 1% of their taxes to a specific project. During Revenue Day, these projects will be highlighted, showing what, exactly, America’s money was able to accomplish during the previous year. Initial profiles of the next year’s projects will also be announced so people can get excited for them." [1]
I wouldn't mind paying taxes in the U.S. if I felt like they were being productively used. It's hard to feel that way.
[1] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/making-taxes-fun/
I'm assuming that 36% doesn't include you and "your employer's" payroll tax of 15.3% of your income, which nominally goes to social security and medicare but really ends up in the general fund. You are indeed paying over 50% of your income -- the same, or more, in tax as our higher-development neighbors!
I'm not sure if you knew where the money was going you'd feel much better about it.
For one, it's not necessarily about inefficiency, but that is part of it. For all the hate for the NHS (foreign, that is, most of the UK apparently feels love), the UK spends about $171B (USD) to provide healthcare for 66 million people. The Federal government here spends $600B to provide healthcare for 44 million people (via Medicare). It's not the same population of course -- Medicare is heavily involved in end-of-life care. But then if you include even just federal spending on Medicaid, you end up with $1T spent to provide care to 110 million people. At UK spending rates, $1T could provide medical care for the whole US population. Yes, if we had the same healthcare spending profile as the UK's NHS, we could provide healthcare for all, pay no more than we do now in taxes, and meanwhile eliminate private insurers and the hefty premiums individuals and their employers currently pay today.
But the main thing that separates us from our HDI neighbors is military spending. The USA allocates $600-800B/year to the DoD and VA (healthcare for vets). By some measures the wars in the Middle East since 2001 have cost nearly $7T. I'm not here to argue about the value of wars, but it's pretty clear that the primary focus of American conflict in the Middle East is oil. I'm not making a claim one way or the other that the USA is going to war just for oil, but it's also pretty clear that if the world were not purchasing ungodly amounts of the stuff pumped from the desert, the folks the US armed forces have been fighting would not have the kind of resources they do, and I'm pretty sure these wars would have cost much less -- if they'd happened at all.
That seems like a huge tangent, except that the $7T the US spent fighting oil-funded adversaries literally could today buy every driving-age American a Tesla Model 3. We could have eliminated almost 50% of domestic oil consumption, and perhaps shifted the world's power structure in a way that better serves what the DoD probably considers American interests, compared with the unending wars we currently have.
Would that have been better? Maybe we'll do it next time.
I'm not sure if you knew where the money was going you'd feel much better about it.
For one, it's not necessarily about inefficiency, but that is part of it. For all the hate for the NHS (foreign, that is, most of the UK apparently feels love), the UK spends about $171B (USD) to provide healthcare for 66 million people. The Federal government here spends $600B to provide healthcare for 44 million people (via Medicare). It's not the same population of course -- Medicare is heavily involved in end-of-life care. But then if you include even just federal spending on Medicaid, you end up with $1T spent to provide care to 110 million people. At UK spending rates, $1T could provide medical care for the whole US population. Yes, if we had the same healthcare spending profile as the UK's NHS, we could provide healthcare for all, pay no more than we do now in taxes, and meanwhile eliminate private insurers and the hefty premiums individuals and their employers currently pay today.
But the main thing that separates us from our HDI neighbors is military spending. The USA allocates $600-800B/year to the DoD and VA (healthcare for vets). By some measures the wars in the Middle East since 2001 have cost nearly $7T. I'm not here to argue about the value of wars, but it's pretty clear that the primary focus of American conflict in the Middle East is oil. I'm not making a claim one way or the other that the USA is going to war just for oil, but it's also pretty clear that if the world were not purchasing ungodly amounts of the stuff pumped from the desert, the folks the US armed forces have been fighting would not have the kind of resources they do, and I'm pretty sure these wars would have cost much less -- if they'd happened at all.
That seems like a huge tangent, except that the $7T the US spent fighting oil-funded adversaries literally could today buy every driving-age American a Tesla Model 3. We could have eliminated almost 50% of domestic oil consumption, and perhaps shifted the world's power structure in a way that better serves what the DoD probably considers American interests, compared with the unending wars we currently have.
Would that have been better? Maybe we'll do it next time.
It would be far better for the average citizen if the tax receipts were burnt in a giant dumpster rather than further the malignant tumor of a state that we are afflicted with.
Perhaps - but are the reasons for the US government dysfunction - because:
1. it has too much government 'civil service' ?
2. or too much private and corporate emasculation of effective government?
ie the very sentiments you echo are directly supporting the agenda of 2 and not 1.
1. it has too much government 'civil service' ?
2. or too much private and corporate emasculation of effective government?
ie the very sentiments you echo are directly supporting the agenda of 2 and not 1.
I view it as the inevitable growth of a self perpetuating bureaucracy over decades in the absence of any significant constraining force.
>People complain about how slow the DMV is, but if you ask them if they want their car registration fees increased to reduce waits, most will say "no".
Despite one of the highest fees in the country, my DMV took 4 months to transfer a vehicle registration.
At one point I spoke to an employee who told me they needed to go find the the appropriate microfiche to print the next form needed to continue processing.
Despite one of the highest fees in the country, my DMV took 4 months to transfer a vehicle registration.
At one point I spoke to an employee who told me they needed to go find the the appropriate microfiche to print the next form needed to continue processing.
Re: [Gov't worker] needed to go find the the appropriate microfiche
At least hackers cannot delete it :-)
At least hackers cannot delete it :-)
Hate is a strong word - perhaps these voters you speak of simply don't feel there is a very strong correlation between amount of taxes/fees paid, and services rendered.
'Tax' is a simple word for a simple concept that spirals into a very complicated topic in practice. Through taxes the pacifist supports wars, the environmentalist industrialisation, the bigot equality and the individualist collectivism, the staunch right winger the salaries of the leftist politicians, etc, etc.
Hating on the general concept of taxes isn't very productive but people are quite unhappy about the details. Politics involves painful compromises and tax is one of the pointy ends of politics.
I'd hazard that taxes are usually raised to force people to support ideas that the individual taxpayers vehemently oppose - because otherwise presumably said taxpayer would already be paying for the service.
Hating on the general concept of taxes isn't very productive but people are quite unhappy about the details. Politics involves painful compromises and tax is one of the pointy ends of politics.
I'd hazard that taxes are usually raised to force people to support ideas that the individual taxpayers vehemently oppose - because otherwise presumably said taxpayer would already be paying for the service.
Your thoughts about why taxes are usually raised are opinionated and don't really offer anything of interest in terms of logical foundation. Your hypothesis that things that people want are already paid for of their own volition conveniently forgets the fact that running a country is not the core competency of the people paying the tax. Thus, they are almost guaranteed to not know what to pay for. They will also not pay for things they do not yet know they need.
All of the competency arguments aside, this smacks of a "the free market will solve it" argument. These arguments are tiresome because the one example raised for the best evidence of this is the US, which is to all the rest of the world (and more than probably some of it's inhabitants) a policy tire fire.
All of the competency arguments aside, this smacks of a "the free market will solve it" argument. These arguments are tiresome because the one example raised for the best evidence of this is the US, which is to all the rest of the world (and more than probably some of it's inhabitants) a policy tire fire.
> running a country is not the core competency of the people paying the tax
People don't generally pay for things that are in their core competencies. A very common reason to pay someone else to do something is because the person with money doesn't know how to get the result they want.
> the US, which is to all the rest of the world (and more than probably some of it's inhabitants) a policy tire fire.
You might want to pass that on to the migrants of the world. Judging by total migration the United States are possibly most attractive destination available. Its migration intake isn't shabby when looked at as a rate either. That dumpster fire is a powerful attractor.
And even then you've missed the argument. I didn't say taxes were a bad thing. I said that people often have very strong principled objections to what their taxes are used for.
People don't generally pay for things that are in their core competencies. A very common reason to pay someone else to do something is because the person with money doesn't know how to get the result they want.
> the US, which is to all the rest of the world (and more than probably some of it's inhabitants) a policy tire fire.
You might want to pass that on to the migrants of the world. Judging by total migration the United States are possibly most attractive destination available. Its migration intake isn't shabby when looked at as a rate either. That dumpster fire is a powerful attractor.
And even then you've missed the argument. I didn't say taxes were a bad thing. I said that people often have very strong principled objections to what their taxes are used for.
What I was responding to was:
> taxes are usually raised to force people to support ideas that the individual taxpayers vehemently oppose
This is wrong, because they are raised to support a country and most of that (hence the "usual" qualifier) is to support things people might not know they need. Your response to this is apparently that people do pay for things they don't know they need (or don't understand are necessary), but you fail to tell the reader why. Instead you reiterate that you are convinced they'll definitely pay for them.
> taxes are usually raised to force people to support ideas that the individual taxpayers vehemently oppose
This is wrong, because they are raised to support a country and most of that (hence the "usual" qualifier) is to support things people might not know they need. Your response to this is apparently that people do pay for things they don't know they need (or don't understand are necessary), but you fail to tell the reader why. Instead you reiterate that you are convinced they'll definitely pay for them.
So people can't be trusted to know what they need personally, but when they vote they suddenly develop a keen understanding of which politicians can offer them the things they don't know they want?
That point isn't reasonable. There can't be a division where people know what they want when they vote but not when they spend money. I suppose there could be in theory, but a system that encourages that that would generally be called 'corrupt government' and the actors involved 'lying politicians' where the people who get voted in do things that the individual voters vehemently oppose.
Voting someone in to office is a broadly similar decision to going out and buying something. Individuals in their capacity as voters are not that different from individuals in their capacity as buyers.
That point isn't reasonable. There can't be a division where people know what they want when they vote but not when they spend money. I suppose there could be in theory, but a system that encourages that that would generally be called 'corrupt government' and the actors involved 'lying politicians' where the people who get voted in do things that the individual voters vehemently oppose.
Voting someone in to office is a broadly similar decision to going out and buying something. Individuals in their capacity as voters are not that different from individuals in their capacity as buyers.
I think it is much easier to recognise that someone else is better equipped to make certain domain-specific choices for you and also that they agree in broad strokes with how you think than it is to learn that entire domain and make the right funding choices. In my experience that is true for most people, but of course it might not be true for you! Thankfully we live in a world where what is good for most people is leading, and not just what is true for you.
> taxes are usually raised to force people to support....
Sorry, the first half of your sentence is too broad for the rest of it to possibly be true.
Sorry, the first half of your sentence is too broad for the rest of it to possibly be true.
Honestly I'm not sure your comment is any more helpful to me than just leaving a down vote. You havn't explained what you mean, there isn't an argument and I'm at a loss trying to follow your complaint. I could see that applying to the other part of the sentence - "ideas that the individual taxpayers vehemently oppose" - but the bit you've picked out is just literally true. Taxes are levied to finance schemes whether the taxpayer agrees with them or not.
Sorry, didn’t mean to be obtuse.
Logically speaking, the assertion that 50%+ of taxes are driven by the same motivation seems impossible. Taxation is such a generic mechanism at work in so many different places, your assertion seems like a non-starter to me.
Did you intend to make such a strong claim?
Logically speaking, the assertion that 50%+ of taxes are driven by the same motivation seems impossible. Taxation is such a generic mechanism at work in so many different places, your assertion seems like a non-starter to me.
Did you intend to make such a strong claim?
That I can learn from. Thanks :)
The intent was quite different, I didn't see a reading of that sentence that involved motivation but now that it has been pointed out I can see that it is the most obvious one. My intent was more about the outcomes of a tax but that wasn't expressed.
What I wanted to say was something more like "No political decision has perfect support, and many cause stark divisions. But taxpayers financially support all the decisions taken and they will be vehemently opposed to some of the things they fund".
The intent was quite different, I didn't see a reading of that sentence that involved motivation but now that it has been pointed out I can see that it is the most obvious one. My intent was more about the outcomes of a tax but that wasn't expressed.
What I wanted to say was something more like "No political decision has perfect support, and many cause stark divisions. But taxpayers financially support all the decisions taken and they will be vehemently opposed to some of the things they fund".
And many who talk about how we should gladly pay our taxes get or figure they would get more than they pay in if everybody would happily pay as much as they possibly could.
Not that the amount of taxes paid ever stopped a government from trying borrow and spend way more than that.
Not that the amount of taxes paid ever stopped a government from trying borrow and spend way more than that.
Governments don't "borrow and spend". Money is a political abstraction, not a tangible one. It is physically impossible for a government to run out of fiat money.
The only things a government can run out of are faith in the future and internal and external trust. When either or both of those disappear, human animals panic and the economy stops working.
Private enclosure of capital - which is equivalent to private enclosure of political and economic power - is far more likely to create that sort of breakdown than high taxes and generous public spending. (Effective - non-corrupt - public spending being equivalent to policy decisions that broaden and diffuse political power rather than concentrating it.)
Effective generous public spending is actually a political negative feedback mechanism that damps wild oscillations in confidence, seeds future investment, and enhances political stability.
The only things a government can run out of are faith in the future and internal and external trust. When either or both of those disappear, human animals panic and the economy stops working.
Private enclosure of capital - which is equivalent to private enclosure of political and economic power - is far more likely to create that sort of breakdown than high taxes and generous public spending. (Effective - non-corrupt - public spending being equivalent to policy decisions that broaden and diffuse political power rather than concentrating it.)
Effective generous public spending is actually a political negative feedback mechanism that damps wild oscillations in confidence, seeds future investment, and enhances political stability.
I think you're confusing money with resources. Money is a medium of exchange. The resources are real.
Governments frequently consume more resources than they can purchase with the taxes they collect.
Yes, they could just print all the money they could ever need. And when they do, inflation runs wild. Then a government cannot borrow in its own currency because no one will trust it. Or it must pay a high rate.
The US government is in a unique situation. It's been able to print much more than a government normally could because it is the most trusted reserve currency in a rapidly globalizing world. Trillions of dollars are held overseas. And if the dollar loses that role, you will see a lot of inflation as those dollars return to the US. Even if it doesn't lose that role and the world just stops taking additional dollars, the US would have to print less to keep the same rate of inflation.
Most governments don't fall into this category. And no country is in this category forever.
A country's currency is really just another form of debt. And while it may never run out, the more it prints, the more it declines in value. It's not debt people can collect on, but the law of supply and demand will certainly collect on this debt.
And it's also a tax, a tax on savings. And the country could remove dollars from circulation, thereby reducing this debt and reversing the decline in the value of savings.
Governments frequently consume more resources than they can purchase with the taxes they collect.
Yes, they could just print all the money they could ever need. And when they do, inflation runs wild. Then a government cannot borrow in its own currency because no one will trust it. Or it must pay a high rate.
The US government is in a unique situation. It's been able to print much more than a government normally could because it is the most trusted reserve currency in a rapidly globalizing world. Trillions of dollars are held overseas. And if the dollar loses that role, you will see a lot of inflation as those dollars return to the US. Even if it doesn't lose that role and the world just stops taking additional dollars, the US would have to print less to keep the same rate of inflation.
Most governments don't fall into this category. And no country is in this category forever.
A country's currency is really just another form of debt. And while it may never run out, the more it prints, the more it declines in value. It's not debt people can collect on, but the law of supply and demand will certainly collect on this debt.
And it's also a tax, a tax on savings. And the country could remove dollars from circulation, thereby reducing this debt and reversing the decline in the value of savings.
Countries have held much higher debt levels than the US currently does without being the global reserve currency.
How much currency a country prints and how much it borrows are two different things.
In practice the gov't has to pretend like the money is real in order to prevent chaos. In fact both gov't and citizens have to pretend "properly" for it to work. It's a mutual agreement about how to represent the value of commerce.
Laws are the same way: members of civilization have to mutually agree on how to create and follow the laws for them to "work".
Civilization is the Mother of All Handshakes. If a large enough percentage of the population disagrees with the "agreements", anarchy happens.
Modern technology and civilization are both inherently driven by standards: both written and de-facto.
Laws are the same way: members of civilization have to mutually agree on how to create and follow the laws for them to "work".
Civilization is the Mother of All Handshakes. If a large enough percentage of the population disagrees with the "agreements", anarchy happens.
Modern technology and civilization are both inherently driven by standards: both written and de-facto.
Re: Not that the amount of taxes paid ever stopped a government from trying borrow and spend way more than that.
Government, taxes, and private industry are all tools of civilization. Tools are imperfect and the human managers & users are imperfect. One has to monitor all of them to keep them in decent working order. They won't just automatically run in an optimum mode if citizens don't keep a critical eye on them all.
Government, taxes, and private industry are all tools of civilization. Tools are imperfect and the human managers & users are imperfect. One has to monitor all of them to keep them in decent working order. They won't just automatically run in an optimum mode if citizens don't keep a critical eye on them all.
Washington State has privatized the DMV for most non-ID-card-related transactions (titling, etc.). It's cheaper and faster than every fully-state-run DMV I've experienced.
Privatization is often a varied bag. Sometimes the contractor does a good job and sometimes a lousy job. Letting it be a directly gov't run process tends to get a consistent "C" grade, while privatization may get you an "A" sometimes and an "F" others. In other words, the variation is larger. This has also been true of schools and power utilities.
This tends to happen because the owners are usually a relatively small group of people or an individual, and their individual personalities and changing goals will shape the quality of job they do. They may decide on a whim, "I'll milk out my fortune now and dump the problem on the public."
This tends to happen because the owners are usually a relatively small group of people or an individual, and their individual personalities and changing goals will shape the quality of job they do. They may decide on a whim, "I'll milk out my fortune now and dump the problem on the public."
I wish more people understood this.
Where privatisation does fix things, it's usually simply because the process of privatisation gives somebody the political capital to implement massive organizational change, and that somebody happened to be the right person for it.
Conversely, when privatised infrastructure is a mess, it can be beneficial to have it taken over by the state. Again, the mere fact of doing so will give somebody the political capital to implement massive changes, which can fix things if that somebody happens to be the right person (or group of persons) for the job.
As a corollary, it would be possible to fix many "broken" state-run offices by enabling the right person(s) to implement massive changes. That's probably even preferable to privatisation in many cases: you still have the same risk that you didn't choose the right person for the job, but you eliminate the risk of them just cashing out.
Where privatisation does fix things, it's usually simply because the process of privatisation gives somebody the political capital to implement massive organizational change, and that somebody happened to be the right person for it.
Conversely, when privatised infrastructure is a mess, it can be beneficial to have it taken over by the state. Again, the mere fact of doing so will give somebody the political capital to implement massive changes, which can fix things if that somebody happens to be the right person (or group of persons) for the job.
As a corollary, it would be possible to fix many "broken" state-run offices by enabling the right person(s) to implement massive changes. That's probably even preferable to privatisation in many cases: you still have the same risk that you didn't choose the right person for the job, but you eliminate the risk of them just cashing out.
Washington State also has the most expensive DMV fees in the nation. It's not a coincidence.
For me, WA was cheaper than both CA and NY to title and register the same car.
This is captured in the Layers of Time diagram[1]. The tension fashion to nature is at diametric odds with time and responsibility; governance is squarely inbetwixt.
https://media.longnow.org/files/2/LayersOfTime-simplNEW.jpg
[1] http://longnow.org/about/
https://media.longnow.org/files/2/LayersOfTime-simplNEW.jpg
[1] http://longnow.org/about/
At many scales, nature outpaces any human activity. Even fashion isn't as rapid as a plague of locusts.
I think this figure inappropriately separates humans from nature.
I think this figure inappropriately separates humans from nature.
Inertia is far from a feature when it comes to our biggest problems today, particularly climate change. This is going to cause a lot of damage, it already has.
Why can't both be true? Stability in some things, rapid response to change in others?
They are in some ways. Governments can respond very quickly to natural disasters or wars, for example. Sometimes they don’t, of course, and they’re roundly criticized for it.
And sometimes governments respond rapidly in very negative ways, such as when the Nazis passed the Reichstag fire decree [1]. This was the first major step to elevate Hitler to dictatorship.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree
And sometimes governments respond rapidly in very negative ways, such as when the Nazis passed the Reichstag fire decree [1]. This was the first major step to elevate Hitler to dictatorship.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree
Well, it's not a zero sum thing. Backwards compatibility can mean stability without inertia. We can get pretty much all the best features from start-ups, gov, capitalism, and socialism at the same time.
Too often we focus on the outsides of a venn diagram, and fail to invest proper effort where the overlap is. IMO, the part in the middle done well is more than enough for a good world, and the bits on the outside are just flavors.
Too often we focus on the outsides of a venn diagram, and fail to invest proper effort where the overlap is. IMO, the part in the middle done well is more than enough for a good world, and the bits on the outside are just flavors.
> The difference is operate vs. build.
This is so key. I do a lot of government consulting and one of the iceberg issues right now is how to reconcile devops, whose economics are designed to facilitate revenue growth, with fixed budget public service horizons of a decade or more.
The whole public enterprise model was up front costs for expensive developers, then offload it to cheaper operations teams on shared production infrastructure for long haul. The unspoken implication of devops/CICD/cloud/agile, etc, is that you have developers available to roll out patches and features, which sends the long term cost of the service multiplying. Imagine retaining your development consultants and a product team past the 2-3 dev years through the 10+ years of production, with no revenue growth and more probably, budget cuts.
The table in the article provides a good overview, with the caveat that defence is not normal public services in government.
Even many bank architects aren't close enough to the code of their services to meaningfully reason about what's going on. Tech is necessarily the expression of economic relationship models, where if you don't have a grasp of them, implementing tech without a view to the economics is going to sink some ships.
This is so key. I do a lot of government consulting and one of the iceberg issues right now is how to reconcile devops, whose economics are designed to facilitate revenue growth, with fixed budget public service horizons of a decade or more.
The whole public enterprise model was up front costs for expensive developers, then offload it to cheaper operations teams on shared production infrastructure for long haul. The unspoken implication of devops/CICD/cloud/agile, etc, is that you have developers available to roll out patches and features, which sends the long term cost of the service multiplying. Imagine retaining your development consultants and a product team past the 2-3 dev years through the 10+ years of production, with no revenue growth and more probably, budget cuts.
The table in the article provides a good overview, with the caveat that defence is not normal public services in government.
Even many bank architects aren't close enough to the code of their services to meaningfully reason about what's going on. Tech is necessarily the expression of economic relationship models, where if you don't have a grasp of them, implementing tech without a view to the economics is going to sink some ships.
The other big issue I see in government projects is that government and other public sector organizations have a mandate to serve all citizens, even the expensive ones. Startups can choose to ignore the 20% of their potential market that is expensive to serve.
The 80/20 ratio is a huge thing, good call. Often, no service at all, or unusable crap service for everyone is politically preferable to leaving anyone out.
That play of getting those %80 features into production and leaving the %20 people to fight it out afterwards as tech and feature debt is standard product management, but it takes extra finesse in govt.
I have seen some great success stories. Seemingly simple things like QR codes for game tags, federated logins for citizens, online license and permit renewals, a city parking app, pothole reporting.
This project is really interesting to me: https://www.open311.org/learn/
That play of getting those %80 features into production and leaving the %20 people to fight it out afterwards as tech and feature debt is standard product management, but it takes extra finesse in govt.
I have seen some great success stories. Seemingly simple things like QR codes for game tags, federated logins for citizens, online license and permit renewals, a city parking app, pothole reporting.
This project is really interesting to me: https://www.open311.org/learn/
> There isn't anything fundamentally broken about government.
The government is simply the extreme version of "too big to fail."
And governments should be treated as "too big to fail" entities; a failed government is a very, very bad thing.
But it's also inevitable that government has the same problems as any organization with that label: misalignment of incentives, stagnation, tendency to corruption, reduced customer choice, inefficiency, etc.
The government is simply the extreme version of "too big to fail."
And governments should be treated as "too big to fail" entities; a failed government is a very, very bad thing.
But it's also inevitable that government has the same problems as any organization with that label: misalignment of incentives, stagnation, tendency to corruption, reduced customer choice, inefficiency, etc.
Would be great if there was an efficiency task force directed at digitizing, streamlining, and optimizing government functions, communication, and programs.
Yep, please check out:
http://codeforamerica.org https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://usds.gov/
http://codeforamerica.org https://18f.gsa.gov/ https://usds.gov/
Might be and might be not. Many revolution started on country level. In fact the whole word “revolution” are from that. And some change like Roland and Margaret started or even Chrysler or may be Apple 2nd life is how a large org can change course.
It is by definition larger. But may be not so different when an idea caught up, you do not know the end but still try.
There are many government process, role, citizen ... within one Gov
Read the 3 lens approach.
It is by definition larger. But may be not so different when an idea caught up, you do not know the end but still try.
There are many government process, role, citizen ... within one Gov
Read the 3 lens approach.
> Government is usually optimized around operational activity, and it usually does so very well from the perspective of how the organization is designed.
First, I think this depends a lot on your locality. I think you'll find a lot of places where people are nowhere near as complimentary about basic government services like DMV as you seem to be.
Second, I think this depends a lot on the type of service and how large a segment of the population needs it. Everybody gets driver's licenses, so there is a limit to how much suckitude the DMV can have before it becomes a political issue. But many social services are only used by a small fraction of the population, so unless you are one of those people or know one of them closely enough, you won't be aware of how much those services suck, and if you are aware of it, you will have a very hard time getting other people, who don't use the services and don't know anyone who does, to care. And the people who do need those services are usually those who have little if any ability to push back at suckitude.
Finally, I think you are ignoring the huge difference in how the incentives of a government organization are determined, as compared with those of a corporation. A corporation is a business: its fundamental incentive is to make money. Corporations that don't do that go out of business. A government organization, however, has whatever incentives were put in place by the political process that created it (and those incentives can gradually change as the political process changes); and the one constant about government organizations is that, once they're created, they never go away.
First, I think this depends a lot on your locality. I think you'll find a lot of places where people are nowhere near as complimentary about basic government services like DMV as you seem to be.
Second, I think this depends a lot on the type of service and how large a segment of the population needs it. Everybody gets driver's licenses, so there is a limit to how much suckitude the DMV can have before it becomes a political issue. But many social services are only used by a small fraction of the population, so unless you are one of those people or know one of them closely enough, you won't be aware of how much those services suck, and if you are aware of it, you will have a very hard time getting other people, who don't use the services and don't know anyone who does, to care. And the people who do need those services are usually those who have little if any ability to push back at suckitude.
Finally, I think you are ignoring the huge difference in how the incentives of a government organization are determined, as compared with those of a corporation. A corporation is a business: its fundamental incentive is to make money. Corporations that don't do that go out of business. A government organization, however, has whatever incentives were put in place by the political process that created it (and those incentives can gradually change as the political process changes); and the one constant about government organizations is that, once they're created, they never go away.
Do those services suck because of operational problems or were they designed to suck?
Its not clear from your answer how much blame you are putting on operational issues and how much blame (if any) you are putting on the misaligned incentives between governments and the people who use their services.
Its not clear from your answer how much blame you are putting on operational issues and how much blame (if any) you are putting on the misaligned incentives between governments and the people who use their services.
> Do those services suck because of operational problems or were they designed to suck?
For the worst ones (the ones that only a small fraction of people, most of whom are indigent, use), neither. They suck because of misaligned incentives, but the systems were not "designed" to suck; they were designed in response to political pressure from voters, who are mostly ignorant of the misaligned incentives and believe that, if they vote for a system that will "help the poor", for example, that the system that results will actually do that. And since most of them never have to interact with the system directly, they don't realize that in fact it is not doing what they voted for.
For the worst ones (the ones that only a small fraction of people, most of whom are indigent, use), neither. They suck because of misaligned incentives, but the systems were not "designed" to suck; they were designed in response to political pressure from voters, who are mostly ignorant of the misaligned incentives and believe that, if they vote for a system that will "help the poor", for example, that the system that results will actually do that. And since most of them never have to interact with the system directly, they don't realize that in fact it is not doing what they voted for.
Do large corporations really suck less than the DMV? YouTubers dealing with random copyright strikes, Amazon warehouse workers, Comcast users, PayPal users suddenly denied access to their income stream, medical insurance customers bankrupted by claims - and others - are all entitled to wonder if the DMV is really the pinnacle of suckitude.
To outsiders, this looks like a mythological problem in the US. There's a simple-minded - and wholly wrong - narrative of "private sector good, public sector bad".
There's certainly room for improvement in the public sector. But there's a lot more to the public sector than the DMV and the IRS, and the sector as a whole doesn't do too badly - when it isn't being interfered with politically.
To outsiders, this looks like a mythological problem in the US. There's a simple-minded - and wholly wrong - narrative of "private sector good, public sector bad".
There's certainly room for improvement in the public sector. But there's a lot more to the public sector than the DMV and the IRS, and the sector as a whole doesn't do too badly - when it isn't being interfered with politically.
> Do large corporations really suck less than the DMV?
As I said, I think it depends on your locality, and of course on the large corporations. Also see below.
> there's a lot more to the public sector than the DMV and the IRS, and the sector as a whole doesn't do too badly
I think you are giving far too much credit to the public sector. As I said, government services which everybody uses, like DMV, have much less room for suckitude than services which only a small fraction of people, most of whom are indigent and hence have little or no ability to push back at suckitude, use. I think most people would be shocked if they knew how badly many of these services suck. (I only happen to know because I happen to have married someone who was helping several friends to try to navigate these services, and so I have had first-hand experience with them.) The suckitude of the large corporations that you describe simply pales in comparison. And, unlike in the case of those corporations, people have no alternative if the government is providing the services.
As I said, I think it depends on your locality, and of course on the large corporations. Also see below.
> there's a lot more to the public sector than the DMV and the IRS, and the sector as a whole doesn't do too badly
I think you are giving far too much credit to the public sector. As I said, government services which everybody uses, like DMV, have much less room for suckitude than services which only a small fraction of people, most of whom are indigent and hence have little or no ability to push back at suckitude, use. I think most people would be shocked if they knew how badly many of these services suck. (I only happen to know because I happen to have married someone who was helping several friends to try to navigate these services, and so I have had first-hand experience with them.) The suckitude of the large corporations that you describe simply pales in comparison. And, unlike in the case of those corporations, people have no alternative if the government is providing the services.
Its not that they suck less but that they have a P&L insentive. Because they are arent politically mandated they’ll eventually run out of money, the government dont have the same problem, they can continue as long as there is political mandate.
As a physicist who is looking for a job, the primary things preventing me from working on defense projects are twofold:
1. Defense systems are, in general, useful for offense. Unless I can know that the primary utility of an innovation is for good, I cannot work on it. Our only control in the matter is our choice of which innovations to make. I was heartbroken the day I saw a citation of my work in a military application, as it was never the intent of the work.
I'll do nuclear non-proliferation work all day, but won't touch a system that can kill another human unless we are at war. Humans are really, really good at killing one another -- we don't need to get better at that.
2. Defense projects are classified, and classification is the antithesis of science.
1. Defense systems are, in general, useful for offense. Unless I can know that the primary utility of an innovation is for good, I cannot work on it. Our only control in the matter is our choice of which innovations to make. I was heartbroken the day I saw a citation of my work in a military application, as it was never the intent of the work.
I'll do nuclear non-proliferation work all day, but won't touch a system that can kill another human unless we are at war. Humans are really, really good at killing one another -- we don't need to get better at that.
2. Defense projects are classified, and classification is the antithesis of science.
> I'll do nuclear non-proliferation work all day, but won't touch a system that can kill another human unless we are at war. Humans are really, really good at killing one another -- we don't need to get better at that.
I don't think you can stop humans from getting better at killing each other. So the real question is: who should have the best killing systems? If the answer is "not the US," then who will it be?
I don't think you can stop humans from getting better at killing each other. So the real question is: who should have the best killing systems? If the answer is "not the US," then who will it be?
It is essential that we find a way to stop humans from getting better at killing one another. If killing-technology advances to the point that one person can kill seven billion, we will have a major problem on our hands.
What is necessary is to have sufficient distributed killing-capacity to prevent any one actor from gaining outsized power over everyone else. If people collectively agree that WMD are bad, and are willing to go to conventional war to stop everyone else from developing WMD, there may be a WMD-free equilibrium.
What is necessary is to have sufficient distributed killing-capacity to prevent any one actor from gaining outsized power over everyone else. If people collectively agree that WMD are bad, and are willing to go to conventional war to stop everyone else from developing WMD, there may be a WMD-free equilibrium.
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The US and its coalition partners went to conventional war to stop Iraq from developing WMD. How well did that work out? WMD development is mostly done in secret so we'll usually never have hard evidence of what any country is doing. It's just a totally unrealistic proposal.
The issue there is that declaring conventional war on someone who is making WMD's means you losing really quickly. So you need WMD's to ensure you can stand against them. And therein lies the entire history of military development. You can't enforce anything without force. And he who has the most force has the advantage.
Declaring conventional war on someone who has WMDs, especially if they have a lot of them, is a fool's game. Blocking them from making them, if they don't already have them, is a different story.
Unfortunately the US has a long history of giving the best killing systems to randomers (in many cases as a self sustaining racket, which is horrifying). The net result has not been great at all. If the parents criteria of pure defense was applied then the world including the people of the US would be much better off.
Speaking of the "antithesis of science":
> I was heartbroken the day I saw a citation of my work in a military application, as it was never the intent of the work
Isn't a cornerstone of scientific research that you never know what fruitful unrelated applications could be created by your work? The scientific community is collaborative, multidisciplinary, etc.- you should be happy your work contributed to progress.
> I'll do nuclear non-proliferation work all day
Even though full non-proliferation will likely contribute to more war?
> Humans are really, really good at killing one another -- we don't need to get better at that.
Shouldn't we ALWAYS strive to get better at everything? Isn't that the point of scientific research?
> unless we are at war
Well, we are at war. In 2018, Congress identified 7 countries that we are officially in conflict with. And if you have a broader definition of war, the number is much higher.
> Defense projects are classified, and classification is the antithesis of science.
Not all defense projects are classified.
> I was heartbroken the day I saw a citation of my work in a military application, as it was never the intent of the work
Isn't a cornerstone of scientific research that you never know what fruitful unrelated applications could be created by your work? The scientific community is collaborative, multidisciplinary, etc.- you should be happy your work contributed to progress.
> I'll do nuclear non-proliferation work all day
Even though full non-proliferation will likely contribute to more war?
> Humans are really, really good at killing one another -- we don't need to get better at that.
Shouldn't we ALWAYS strive to get better at everything? Isn't that the point of scientific research?
> unless we are at war
Well, we are at war. In 2018, Congress identified 7 countries that we are officially in conflict with. And if you have a broader definition of war, the number is much higher.
> Defense projects are classified, and classification is the antithesis of science.
Not all defense projects are classified.
Should I be happy that someone researching weapons systems that might be pointed at me found my work useful? That's a strange definition of progress.
It is far from proven that a world without nuclear weapons is necessarily a world with more war.
We should not strive to get better at everything. Improving our ability to cause one another pain for its own end, for example, is cruel and inhuman. To me, the point of scientific research is a deeper understanding of Nature.
Agreed that the United States is actively engaged in armed conflict, but the integrity of our nation is arguably facing greater threats from within; a difficulty we must find our way through together.
Agreed that not all defense projects are classified -- that was a simplification. Many of the projects for which my skills are suited are classified. I'm perfectly happy accepting DARPA or similar funds for peaceful research.
It is far from proven that a world without nuclear weapons is necessarily a world with more war.
We should not strive to get better at everything. Improving our ability to cause one another pain for its own end, for example, is cruel and inhuman. To me, the point of scientific research is a deeper understanding of Nature.
Agreed that the United States is actively engaged in armed conflict, but the integrity of our nation is arguably facing greater threats from within; a difficulty we must find our way through together.
Agreed that not all defense projects are classified -- that was a simplification. Many of the projects for which my skills are suited are classified. I'm perfectly happy accepting DARPA or similar funds for peaceful research.
Offensive capabilities aren't linearly related with human death and suffering. It's not even clear whether the relationship is positive or negative.[0] Have you considered the possibility that your work could potentially create a net-benefit to humanity by keeping world powers in a state of Nash-equilibrium/MAD?
[0]: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/09/Bubble-and-lines-...
[0]: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2018/09/Bubble-and-lines-...
Yep, sure is possible. But all it takes is one unstable leader, or the failing of governmental structures designed to promote stability, or a few flaky sensors erroneously claiming a nuclear attack, and the meta-stability of MAD can tunnel to the true potential minimum, where nobody can wage war because we're all dead.
The modern world is unaware of how terrible major wars and nuclear weapons can be, because we are now generations removed from the experience. I fear that we are poised to re-learn some of those lessons.
Circling back: Yep, sure is possible, but I'm not going to work on weapons systems unless we are at war. I'd rather work on the education and science needed to help everyone respect one another and lead healthier lives. I've only got one life and don't want to spend it building systems that might end others' lives more-efficiently.
The modern world is unaware of how terrible major wars and nuclear weapons can be, because we are now generations removed from the experience. I fear that we are poised to re-learn some of those lessons.
Circling back: Yep, sure is possible, but I'm not going to work on weapons systems unless we are at war. I'd rather work on the education and science needed to help everyone respect one another and lead healthier lives. I've only got one life and don't want to spend it building systems that might end others' lives more-efficiently.
Keep in mind that the existence of lots of skilled people who are willing to contribute to serious war efforts, but who'd rather do other things most of the time, has some deterrent effect on foreign countries--there is an incentive to avoid doing something bad enough that it "wakes up the sleeping giant". I'd reserve criticism for the few people who aren't willing to help even in nightmare scenarios.
I think its more about what do you want to leave behind you ....sure, a given defense technical discovery or innovation may, in the right circumstances, used by the right people, prevent suffering, but, if your goal is to help others it seems a lot more direct to be a teacher, or a doctor, etc.
You might find this thread insightful https://twitter.com/yonatanzunger/status/975545527973462016
In bullet 1, you say that you were heartbroken to see a citation in a defense project.
In bullet 2, you say that classification is the antithesis of science because projects are classified (read: not published)
But in Bullet 1, somebody cited you in an unclassified paper, and also once you publish you obviously don't get to control who uses your ideas or for what purpose short of a patent.
These seem mutually exclusive, but I might be misunderstanding.
In bullet 2, you say that classification is the antithesis of science because projects are classified (read: not published)
But in Bullet 1, somebody cited you in an unclassified paper, and also once you publish you obviously don't get to control who uses your ideas or for what purpose short of a patent.
These seem mutually exclusive, but I might be misunderstanding.
> ... in an unclassified paper
Or a declassified paper. (Not everything that starts behind the classification wall, stays behind the classification wall... but neither does everything behind the classification wall come forward in any reasonable timeframe.)
Or a declassified paper. (Not everything that starts behind the classification wall, stays behind the classification wall... but neither does everything behind the classification wall come forward in any reasonable timeframe.)
True! But things do get released.
Government and corporations are full of compromise. Stay in a school related environment for as long as possible if your ideals are the most important aspect of your career search.
> The government isn’t a bigger version of a startup and can’t act like a startup does. Innovation activities in government agencies most often result in innovation theater. While these activities shape and build culture, they don’t win wars, and rarely deliver shippable or deployable products.
> The very definition of a contractor implies a contract. And a government contract starts with fixed requirements that only change with contract modifications. That makes sense when the problem and solution are known. But when they are unknown the traditional methods of contracting fail.
This I think is the biggest failure in public private partnerships. These arrangements were supposed to save the taxpayer money by allowing nimble contractors to come in and do the heavy lifting on projects.
However what it really did is:
1) Create an adversarial relationship between between the government and the contracting entity, which is very much filled with even more red tape then it was were trying to replace.
2) Hollow out the talent in the government, causing more reliance on the private sector.
I'm not convinced these relationships can exist in a healthy way. If there isn't a lot of red tape and strict contracts then it's likely the government will get robbed blind and that leads to stricter contracts and more red tape: a virtuous cycle of red tape and lack of progress.
I think less emphases needs to be put on these partnerships and more on developing talent within the government that can innovate from within. This creates the possibility of empowered leaders within government departments that can run projects like agile mini-startups.
> The very definition of a contractor implies a contract. And a government contract starts with fixed requirements that only change with contract modifications. That makes sense when the problem and solution are known. But when they are unknown the traditional methods of contracting fail.
This I think is the biggest failure in public private partnerships. These arrangements were supposed to save the taxpayer money by allowing nimble contractors to come in and do the heavy lifting on projects.
However what it really did is:
1) Create an adversarial relationship between between the government and the contracting entity, which is very much filled with even more red tape then it was were trying to replace.
2) Hollow out the talent in the government, causing more reliance on the private sector.
I'm not convinced these relationships can exist in a healthy way. If there isn't a lot of red tape and strict contracts then it's likely the government will get robbed blind and that leads to stricter contracts and more red tape: a virtuous cycle of red tape and lack of progress.
I think less emphases needs to be put on these partnerships and more on developing talent within the government that can innovate from within. This creates the possibility of empowered leaders within government departments that can run projects like agile mini-startups.
For what it's worth (to the initial quotes posted) there are plenty of options in the FAR and on existing contract vehicles to hire people with particular sets of skills to achieve a general goal / purpose of the organization "and other duties" that will allow you to contract flexible skills that you can direct as needed.
To your last point - I agree there is a lot of red tape. This needs to improve but it's also there for protection.
At a minimum, updating the GS scale / hiring authorities to ensure that the right expertise can be hired at competitive rates to effectively manage and guide contractual expertise is a MUST.
Right now, program officers may not even have the expertise / in-house resources to understand whether the work being done / reported is going to achieve their contract objective, and they might be relying on contractor project managers to translate. (Sometimes from the same company!) so checks are hard to come by and it's all very inefficient. To do this effectively you have to be able to hire folks that know, to create a culture around the effort at the agency so they can bring contractors on as true partners that understand the way the agency does business (norms, engineering standards, reporting, etc) - this goes a long way to ensuring objectives are met and real work is getting done.
To your last point - I agree there is a lot of red tape. This needs to improve but it's also there for protection.
At a minimum, updating the GS scale / hiring authorities to ensure that the right expertise can be hired at competitive rates to effectively manage and guide contractual expertise is a MUST.
Right now, program officers may not even have the expertise / in-house resources to understand whether the work being done / reported is going to achieve their contract objective, and they might be relying on contractor project managers to translate. (Sometimes from the same company!) so checks are hard to come by and it's all very inefficient. To do this effectively you have to be able to hire folks that know, to create a culture around the effort at the agency so they can bring contractors on as true partners that understand the way the agency does business (norms, engineering standards, reporting, etc) - this goes a long way to ensuring objectives are met and real work is getting done.
> If there isn't a lot of red tape and strict contracts then it's likely the government will get robbed blind
I'm mostly in agreement, but regarding this point:
What needs to happen here instead of the strict contracts is that government nurtures good contractors. It's actually not terribly different from nurturing good employees. You need to look for people who do their jobs responsibly, efficiently and properly.
If they don't, you try to help them correct course, and if they can't, you let them go.
The strict contracts are precisely the problem - they lock everything down, lull you into false security and prevent you from discovering and cutting bad actors quickly. No cure, no pay never pans out, and meanwhile you're bleeding from the opportunity costs.
Of course, in order to make this work, you need people with clue on the inside so they can distinguish good work from bad work. I do think you can attract people like this, if you don't prevent them from doing their work by letting the lawyers run the show.
I'm mostly in agreement, but regarding this point:
What needs to happen here instead of the strict contracts is that government nurtures good contractors. It's actually not terribly different from nurturing good employees. You need to look for people who do their jobs responsibly, efficiently and properly.
If they don't, you try to help them correct course, and if they can't, you let them go.
The strict contracts are precisely the problem - they lock everything down, lull you into false security and prevent you from discovering and cutting bad actors quickly. No cure, no pay never pans out, and meanwhile you're bleeding from the opportunity costs.
Of course, in order to make this work, you need people with clue on the inside so they can distinguish good work from bad work. I do think you can attract people like this, if you don't prevent them from doing their work by letting the lawyers run the show.
> What needs to happen here instead of the strict contracts is that government nurtures good contractors. It's actually not terribly different from nurturing good employees
Strict contracts and the associated strict contracting rules do not exist to prevent the government from getting robbed by evil contractors that government officials are otherwise powerless to constrain, but to prevent the government from being robbed by corrupt government officers, including those at the highest level.
Likewise, strict government employment rules, which exist to prevent those with hiring authority (especially the elected chief executive) from instituting a spoils system with the government payroll.
Your ideas do not seem to address the threat model that the rules they would replace are concerned with.
Strict contracts and the associated strict contracting rules do not exist to prevent the government from getting robbed by evil contractors that government officials are otherwise powerless to constrain, but to prevent the government from being robbed by corrupt government officers, including those at the highest level.
Likewise, strict government employment rules, which exist to prevent those with hiring authority (especially the elected chief executive) from instituting a spoils system with the government payroll.
Your ideas do not seem to address the threat model that the rules they would replace are concerned with.
you hit the nail in the head. Innovation cannot be contracted, it needs to be nurtured from the inside. I think a better model for that would be a professional, long term version of Code for America.
This is a weird article. The author has plenty of background and standing to comment on the topic.
But he's leaving out that many of the problems the government seeks to address are bigger than what a "startup" (his word) would ever address. A better comparison might be between governments and very large-scale enterprises -- not startups. A lot of his words have to do with software, when typically the problems governments address have to do with (in increasing order of difficulty) hardware, big infrastructure, or society, or other societies. The startup/government comparison is not parallel for other reasons too -- and it's exhausting to enumerate!
But he's leaving out that many of the problems the government seeks to address are bigger than what a "startup" (his word) would ever address. A better comparison might be between governments and very large-scale enterprises -- not startups. A lot of his words have to do with software, when typically the problems governments address have to do with (in increasing order of difficulty) hardware, big infrastructure, or society, or other societies. The startup/government comparison is not parallel for other reasons too -- and it's exhausting to enumerate!
It’s a weird topic but the claim to run a government like a business is rampant and needs to be corrected.
I mean it almost makes sense if the purpose of the company is to make it's employees richer, happier, and overall have a better life. And if you consider that ROIs that take decades or a century are still profitable. But I'm not sure of any company that operates this way because how can your product be employee well being?
Nobody's talking about the whole government being a startup. He's saying that government agencies can't be run like a startup. As far as scale goes, many government agencies are smaller than many successful startups.
I've worked in both the public and private sector, albeit not in the USA.
The simplest and biggest difference between public and private sector organisations is their motive: Private sector makes money. Public sector avoids being front page of the news. The behavior of each organisation often maps directly to these motives (albeit also, sometimes, perversely).
Secondary to that you have the fact that startups (and other private-sector organisations) fail and disappear all the time. Public-sector organisation's are enduring. If your defense force screws up and waste 100 billion dollars, there will still be a defense force the next day. This explains differing priorities around enduring, consistent activity and focus where in the private sector you might see full-blown pivots.
I like some of the stuff in the article's table but some of it is presented as a bit more immutable than is the case in reality. For example, fixed requirements on government projects versus agile/testing/story/feedback based delivery? Not true as a rule, lots of that kind of thing happening in the public sector. But fair as a broad generalization.
The simplest and biggest difference between public and private sector organisations is their motive: Private sector makes money. Public sector avoids being front page of the news. The behavior of each organisation often maps directly to these motives (albeit also, sometimes, perversely).
Secondary to that you have the fact that startups (and other private-sector organisations) fail and disappear all the time. Public-sector organisation's are enduring. If your defense force screws up and waste 100 billion dollars, there will still be a defense force the next day. This explains differing priorities around enduring, consistent activity and focus where in the private sector you might see full-blown pivots.
I like some of the stuff in the article's table but some of it is presented as a bit more immutable than is the case in reality. For example, fixed requirements on government projects versus agile/testing/story/feedback based delivery? Not true as a rule, lots of that kind of thing happening in the public sector. But fair as a broad generalization.
This is a great article.
I've worked for defense contractors, but most of my time has been spent at a very conservative, results-driven, constantly-in-ship-mode commercial corporation.
It has taught me to make software that actually works; not software that looks like it works.
I don't give pitches; I give demos. I quickly learned to never try selling a pig in a poke. It had better work.
The problem with that, is that it takes more work and time to get to that phase, and, possibly, more risk.
It taught me to carefully evaluate projects, and plan for the long term.
I'm often painted as a "naysayer" because of this.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. I plan to succeed. That means shooing the unicorns and pixies out to pasture, and concentrating on the raw materials, and how we will get from here, to there. That often requires resource husbandry, and compromises.
I also NEVER assume that the MVP will be a "one-off." It WILL be the seed of the product for the long term, so it can't be rushed, and it must be of the highest quality that can be reasonably achieved. I generally optimize for quality over features for early-stage releases; knowing that we probably will never be given the chance to "go back and fix it later."
In that respect, the corporation was very much like the defense department. There's a story about Hyman Rickover, and how he'd deal with tech salesmen, coming to his office with sample kit. I'm not sure if it's true, but it is fun:
He is said to have taken the kit, walked over to his second-story Pentagon window, and dropped the device out onto the ground below.
"If it still works, I'll consider it." He is reputed to have said.
I've worked for defense contractors, but most of my time has been spent at a very conservative, results-driven, constantly-in-ship-mode commercial corporation.
It has taught me to make software that actually works; not software that looks like it works.
I don't give pitches; I give demos. I quickly learned to never try selling a pig in a poke. It had better work.
The problem with that, is that it takes more work and time to get to that phase, and, possibly, more risk.
It taught me to carefully evaluate projects, and plan for the long term.
I'm often painted as a "naysayer" because of this.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. I plan to succeed. That means shooing the unicorns and pixies out to pasture, and concentrating on the raw materials, and how we will get from here, to there. That often requires resource husbandry, and compromises.
I also NEVER assume that the MVP will be a "one-off." It WILL be the seed of the product for the long term, so it can't be rushed, and it must be of the highest quality that can be reasonably achieved. I generally optimize for quality over features for early-stage releases; knowing that we probably will never be given the chance to "go back and fix it later."
In that respect, the corporation was very much like the defense department. There's a story about Hyman Rickover, and how he'd deal with tech salesmen, coming to his office with sample kit. I'm not sure if it's true, but it is fun:
He is said to have taken the kit, walked over to his second-story Pentagon window, and dropped the device out onto the ground below.
"If it still works, I'll consider it." He is reputed to have said.
> So, the question is: What’s next? How do leaders in government think about and organize innovation in a way that makes a difference?
The answer here for me is to create a culture of experimentation and hypothesis testing whose results can be rapidly incorporated into the operations of the agency. Allow for testing off the critical path. Allow for smaller-scale experimentation to prove a concept that has an on-ramp into your day-to-day operations
This works for technology approaches, this works for regulatory approaches - it even works for opt-in citizen services IF you create the framework that supports it. (Director signs paper saying citizens can opt-in to test practices and those that do have X rights in the normal process, get the language cleared by legal, and you've got something that can last for a bunch of use cases)
Reduce the burden to get something started at a low level when your staff know it's a better way. Continue to reach out to line employees to ask what they would like to try out / attempt to make the organization better.
So much of government stagnation is the sheer burden of getting any sort of experiment approved / blessed, so you miss out on what's already in the building, let alone what can be gotten from outside. Maybe what I'm describing is "lean enterprise" type stuff.
As for Why Government Isn't a Startup and the original premise. Well... why isn't IBM a bigger version of a startup? Imagine dealing with all of the cruft ever written by congress since the formation of the country as your basis for operation. :)
The answer here for me is to create a culture of experimentation and hypothesis testing whose results can be rapidly incorporated into the operations of the agency. Allow for testing off the critical path. Allow for smaller-scale experimentation to prove a concept that has an on-ramp into your day-to-day operations
This works for technology approaches, this works for regulatory approaches - it even works for opt-in citizen services IF you create the framework that supports it. (Director signs paper saying citizens can opt-in to test practices and those that do have X rights in the normal process, get the language cleared by legal, and you've got something that can last for a bunch of use cases)
Reduce the burden to get something started at a low level when your staff know it's a better way. Continue to reach out to line employees to ask what they would like to try out / attempt to make the organization better.
So much of government stagnation is the sheer burden of getting any sort of experiment approved / blessed, so you miss out on what's already in the building, let alone what can be gotten from outside. Maybe what I'm describing is "lean enterprise" type stuff.
As for Why Government Isn't a Startup and the original premise. Well... why isn't IBM a bigger version of a startup? Imagine dealing with all of the cruft ever written by congress since the formation of the country as your basis for operation. :)
"But the 2013 Snowden revelations damaged that tenuous relationship yet again. In hindsight the damage wasn’t the result of what the United States was doing, but over the Pentagon’s inability and unwillingness to own up to why it was doing it: After the intelligence failure of 9/11, security agencies overcompensated by widespread, warrantless datamining as well as electronic and telephonic surveillance, including on U.S. persons.
Without a clear explanation of why this had been done, startups,..."
I don't think that lack of understanding of the reasons for surveillance is the problem. It is quite common for people to understand the desire to fight terrorism and prevent another 9/11, and still understand that the NSA's methods are ripe for abuse. Lying to Congress about the nature of the program (the what, not the why) doesn't inspire confidence that abuse won't happen.
I find the idea that the reasons for surveillance was simply not explained very well to be ahistorical. Perhaps that's just the bubble I've been in though.
Without a clear explanation of why this had been done, startups,..."
I don't think that lack of understanding of the reasons for surveillance is the problem. It is quite common for people to understand the desire to fight terrorism and prevent another 9/11, and still understand that the NSA's methods are ripe for abuse. Lying to Congress about the nature of the program (the what, not the why) doesn't inspire confidence that abuse won't happen.
I find the idea that the reasons for surveillance was simply not explained very well to be ahistorical. Perhaps that's just the bubble I've been in though.
I don't really understand the argument, most startups explicitly have a goal/off ramp. The government is the exact opposite in terms of goals...
Bureaucracy is a major reason. See Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy ("in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representatives who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions."). A government tend to be less and less efficient, whereas a startup has to be more and more to survive.
Technocracy is another one. The Dilbert principle/Putt's law/corollary ("Technology is dominated by two types of people, those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand"/competence inversion) is everywhere at play, however startups are too young and not big enough to really suffer from it.
Raw power, coupled to inertia, is also a reason. As J. Ousterhout pointed it out "The most important component of evolution is death. it's easier to create a new organism than to change an existing one. Most organisms are highly resistant to change, but when they die it becomes possible for new and improved organisms to take their place" ( https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/sayings.php ). A government is very powerful and has huge inertia, it won't easily evolve or die.
Technocracy is another one. The Dilbert principle/Putt's law/corollary ("Technology is dominated by two types of people, those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand"/competence inversion) is everywhere at play, however startups are too young and not big enough to really suffer from it.
Raw power, coupled to inertia, is also a reason. As J. Ousterhout pointed it out "The most important component of evolution is death. it's easier to create a new organism than to change an existing one. Most organisms are highly resistant to change, but when they die it becomes possible for new and improved organisms to take their place" ( https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/sayings.php ). A government is very powerful and has huge inertia, it won't easily evolve or die.
I was on an agile team for a government project and one of the other people on a team made the observation that agile is about people over process and government is about process over people and I don’t think people would prefer government to work the other way.
Startups are generally taking risks by design. When you are allowed and expected to take risks, your behavior is different than those being risk averse. Most gov't services are infrastructure to a degree. You don't want people gambling with infrastructure.
If public-sector work actually cared about reducing risks, then SRE would be huge in the public sector. SRE is literally about making rational decisions about engineering reliability in the context of risk-tolerance levels (i.e. availability/error and financial budgets). But it's not.
The kind of risk-avoidance that pervades the public sector (really, all sufficiently large organizations) is actually one of political risk avoidance. It's perfectly OK for systems to fail for reasons that were forewarned, because management's ass is covered. If something is working, then don't fix it, because all change is political risk.
This happens because ultimately, at the end of the day, public sector organizations are led by politicians. The "deep state" is not genuinely independent from politics - the attitudes of leadership trickle down the chain. No matter which policies are currently favored by the politician serving at the head, the process of advancing your interests is largely identical.
The kind of risk-avoidance that pervades the public sector (really, all sufficiently large organizations) is actually one of political risk avoidance. It's perfectly OK for systems to fail for reasons that were forewarned, because management's ass is covered. If something is working, then don't fix it, because all change is political risk.
This happens because ultimately, at the end of the day, public sector organizations are led by politicians. The "deep state" is not genuinely independent from politics - the attitudes of leadership trickle down the chain. No matter which policies are currently favored by the politician serving at the head, the process of advancing your interests is largely identical.
[deleted]
> Startups can do anything. They can break the law and apologize later (as Uber, Airbnb, and Tesla did), but a government official taking the same type of risks can go to jail.
That doesn't seem right at all. Shouldn't we all be equal before the law? Or has it become the norm that the foundations of democracy are being vanished one after another?
That doesn't seem right at all. Shouldn't we all be equal before the law? Or has it become the norm that the foundations of democracy are being vanished one after another?
Because most start ups fail and when government's fail really really bad things happen? Because government's have an utterly different set of priorities than startups which are founded with the aim of making their founders as much money as possible? Because move fast and break things works of you're building Facebook but not if you're providing end of life care?
Why would anyone think that?
A startup can't coerce people to become its customers. A startup has to convince individuals to part with their money voluntarily.
A startup can't coerce people to become its customers. A startup has to convince individuals to part with their money voluntarily.
I am wondering more like why can't the government be a bigger version of IETF, with the deliberate democracy ideals of Habermas: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=363840
One more. Whilst you want success but do you want some government Lue HONG kong and chinese government successful. Hence what government is more important than success for government.
We can have a lot of startup and we hope we will so some can fail !!! May be we want some government to fail as well but not most of them.
We can have a lot of startup and we hope we will so some can fail !!! May be we want some government to fail as well but not most of them.
> the damage wasn’t the result of what the United States was doing, but over the Pentagon’s inability and unwillingness to own up to why it was doing it
What? Is violating the Constitution on a massive scale just a casual pastime like pepper-spraying a protester?
What? Is violating the Constitution on a massive scale just a casual pastime like pepper-spraying a protester?
And yet the government gave us the moon landing and the Internet--two massive technological feats that could never have been accomplished by private companies.
> ...rally the nation against a common threat.
Only that the common threat is now the nation's own citizens if the targets of surveillance are any indication.
Only that the common threat is now the nation's own citizens if the targets of surveillance are any indication.
A simple but crucial distinction between government and startup / company: a startup / company can select the people it consists of.
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The author of this article needs a lesson in what facts are.
Government 101
It is not just one lens. There are many governments. Unitary, system, process and politics. There is not just one consistent same government even for communist. And there are many startup.
Further they serve different process, client, budget among all these group.
Solution may be smaller core, affiliated ... but not to abandon the core.
It is not just one lens. There are many governments. Unitary, system, process and politics. There is not just one consistent same government even for communist. And there are many startup.
Further they serve different process, client, budget among all these group.
Solution may be smaller core, affiliated ... but not to abandon the core.
joshypants(1)
So much of the government (and other things, insurance, driver's license, any sort of interaction between two parties) would be solved with some programmable UUID.
Essentially, I want a thing where I issue a new UUID (communication channel) for every party I'm interacting with, I can revoke these, redirect these, renew these at my convenience.
So much of clerical work is literally double checking forms. I want to fill out one for, the other parties can then request my info.
Essentially, I want a thing where I issue a new UUID (communication channel) for every party I'm interacting with, I can revoke these, redirect these, renew these at my convenience.
So much of clerical work is literally double checking forms. I want to fill out one for, the other parties can then request my info.
This sounds a bit like the Aadhaar system here in India (I can open a bank account without filling out any new forms, just using a finger print reader).. I would say be careful what you wish for; this lays the grounds for a surveillance state.
> this lays the grounds for a surveillance state
We already have a surveillance state in the USA without the convenience of good digital authentication with tokenized opt-in data-access authentications, as described by GP.
I'd rather have the benefits of a more mature authentication system. We in the USA pass around 3-4 strings (Social Security ID, Full Name, Date of Birth, Mother's Maiden Name, sometimes Street Address and/or Zip Code) and that is used as a proxy for Authorization (not even authentication).
It's ridiculously easy to get defrauded of your entire life savings (or more) in the US because knowledge of those strings (and sometimes a few more) is enough to someone to get access to a loan, mortgage, a cell phone (possibly porting/transferring from your existing SIM/line) in my name.
We already have a surveillance state in the USA without the convenience of good digital authentication with tokenized opt-in data-access authentications, as described by GP.
I'd rather have the benefits of a more mature authentication system. We in the USA pass around 3-4 strings (Social Security ID, Full Name, Date of Birth, Mother's Maiden Name, sometimes Street Address and/or Zip Code) and that is used as a proxy for Authorization (not even authentication).
It's ridiculously easy to get defrauded of your entire life savings (or more) in the US because knowledge of those strings (and sometimes a few more) is enough to someone to get access to a loan, mortgage, a cell phone (possibly porting/transferring from your existing SIM/line) in my name.
Not quite. With aadhaar, you don't see the data the state has access to.
I'm very much concerned with the surveillance however as they say, good fences make good neighbors.
I'm very much concerned with the surveillance however as they say, good fences make good neighbors.
Government is usually optimized around operational activity, and it usually does so very well from the perspective of how the organization is designed. Things get weird because priorities are driven by external mandate. DMV issues licenses, taxes are collected, social services are delivered. The downside of scaled operations is that changes are difficult and expensive. The exception is when there is growth -- the government is good at borrowing money and good at building stuff.
Large corporations aren't that much different. If anything, the average medium/large corporation has fewer controls and is less competent at a given task that a .gov organization would be, but delivers each marginal task at a lower cost and less red tape. (aka compliance requirements)
Startups are different. They are built to build and tend to do the minimum viable activity and are usually a big mess operationally.