Funding Tech For Government, Instead of Tech For Industry 64
An anonymous reader writes: If you're a creative engineer looking to build a product, you're probably going to end up starting your own business or joining an established one. That's where ideas get funding, and that's where products make a difference (not to mention money). Unfortunately, it also siphons a lot of the tech-related talent away from government (and by extension, everybody else), who could really benefit from this creative brilliance. That's why investor Ron Bouganim just started a $23 million fund for investment in tech companies that develop ideas for the U.S. government. Not only is he hoping to transfer some of the $74 billion spent annually by the government on technology to more efficient targets, but also to change the perception that the best tech comes from giant, entrenched government contractors.
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An established creative :)
Come on now - you live in a world where Donald Rumsfeld is considered an intellectual and you're complaining about a bit of poor communication?
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'establishment' or 'established firm' might be better.
Tricky proposition (Score:5, Insightful)
Having skimmed through the article, it seems to me the elephant in the room is being ignored. A much more compelling case can be made for the fact that too *much* information technology already at the disposal of the government is making it way too easy to abuse the American public. It isn't a question of funding, it is a question of priorities.
Tricky proposition (Score:2, Interesting)
I disagree. I think it's a problem of culture. Government jobs with union-y environments are not fun, for anyone. Good engineers quit because of dysfunction and poisonous workplace culture. The ones who stick around are either incompetent or just don't care about doing cool stuff and doing it well.
No amount of money in the universe is going to change the culture of working closely with the government.
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I don't think we're talking about the same things. Post-9/11, plenty of cool things have been done by talented IT professionals for the government in the name of national security. If it was desired badly enough, it was made to happen. I don't think cultural differences was much of an impediment that got us to the point we are today.
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I suppose it depends on your perspective though. If you like 18 hour days and being considered basically being unemployable by the time your 50, a job as a corporate programmer is an ideal career choice.
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Yes, and unfuck you, too.
Oh, and your infantile "union-y" - your damn GOP have outsourced a *lot* of the government, so they can claim to have "cut the size of government" (and prevent people from joining unions). It's saved *so* much money... NOT. For example,
I, personally, am a sysadmin for a federal contractor, and therefore "an engineer working for the US government". Your tax dollars not only pay me (and I get paid *exactly* comparable to GS salaries, and my benefits are similar. Oh, and you're paying
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There's a lot more to government than military intelligence gathering and law enforcement (although it would be a good idea for someone to remind most current governments that those are two things, not one). And most government projects end up spending insane budgets. This isn't limited to the US. It amazes me how often government projects to build databases to store a few million records with a few tens to thousands of queries per second (i.e. the kind of workload that you could run with off-the-shelf s
Good Luck With That (Score:4, Interesting)
The government-it industrial complex is controlled by the same sort of corrupt relationships that the military-industrial complex. Come in to that situation with new ideas and you will get slapped down by entrenched interests intent on making use of networks of people moving back and forth between government and industry in order to create personal wealth. New ideas and new technologies only rock the boat.
The classic example is the PPACA web site. Hundreds of millions spent on something that would be a 5-10 million dollar project in a sane world.
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Maybe it can be run by the corrupt social security or Medicare people instead, right?
tinfoil hats (Score:1)
You tinfoil hat types keep saying that. However, it's clear that the real problem is that the federal acquisition regulations are just too damn complex due to kneejerk reactions of politicians carelessly adding regulations. And trust me, the mega-defense contractors are too inept to screw the government on purpose. Gutless bureaucrats do that from the inside to "reduce risk" ... risk to their careers.
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Big contractors and political parties share a mutual benefit from big contracts in that a profitable contractor will make donations to political campaigns, lobby groups and support "government" initiatives such as employing more young people to reduce bad headlines about youth unemployment. Anything that attempts to break up this cosy relationship will be strangled at birth
Won't solve the real issue. (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh great, govt customer wants it. They see it today. Well, thanks to procurement, it will be 18 months before they actually buy it. But, by that point, the product will have changed a good bit - well because that is what software does now a day. But, that isn't what Gov manager wanted - they want what they saw 18 months ago.
The sales cycle will chew startups up and spit them out. Not many can accommodate 18 month+ sales cycles.
And that eve
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Those are issues, even "real" issues as said by OP, but what you both don't understand is that they aren't the issues that the guy (some private entrepreneur) wants to address. Yeah, his round peg won't fit in square holes, but he's not even trying to fill square holes.
What he is trying to do is make jobs. Yes, this is a make-job program. If he guy really wanted to satisfy some government tech need (that may change 18 months down the line, at the last moment, as you two indicated), he could be using that mo
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What he is trying to do is make jobs.
Ugh, that's a terrible characterization especially he actually has a valid business model, invest in start ups whose business model is doing highly profitable services for government. It's not about "making" jobs, but hoovering up public funding for profit.
I think the spin about returning tech to government is an attempt to evade the opposition to government expenditures. It may also be an attempt to portray the VC fund he represents as being one of a few players in that sector, even though it probably i
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If people don't fleece him enough and he actually turns out to be successful, that just means the make-jobs program worked.
Again, that's not what he's doing. Public funding is potentially a huge profitable gravy train. This has little to do with creating jobs except incidentally. The only people who would be fleeced are taxpayers, which is already rather easy to do.
Further, while I haven't brought it up before in this discussion, what is supposed to be the benefit to just "creating jobs"? Hiring people for make-work means that they aren't available for more productive work.
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You can both have profits and create jobs at the same time.
Again, I see no evidence for the "create jobs" aspect or why it's even worth discussing.
Exactly. When this VC funds companies that serve government, those companies become unavailable for more productive work, like serving the private sector and the free market
No, when the government funds the companies that serve government, then a lot of resources, not just the companies themselves, become unavailable for the private sector, "free" markets, etc.
Competent Engineers Not Wanted! (Score:1)
The government requires mediocrity to provide stability (anyone too smart or too stupid will cause instability, rocking the boat). No one exceptional will endure a government position, unless they have serious masochistic tendencies. Why would an investor choose to waste money developing ignored products for government? It must somehow improve political influence, as long as the failures don't become noticable. However, given the typical success of government contracts with normal incompetence, it would
Government s a crappy investor (Score:2)
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> the government can't resist sullying markets with subsides and manipulative politics. Just look at the US solar efforts.
Mmmhmmm. Darn those Chinese and their free market solar gumption. Oh, wait.
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Good point, develop the technology, refine it, then throw it all away because it challenges established industries, leaving China to pick it up as if gift wrapped for them and make money out of it.
I haven't heard of that one, how about you show us where to look to see such a disaster?
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Here's the Forbes article Germanys Green Energy Disaster a Cautionary Tale for World Leaders. [forbes.com]
That was 2013. Here it is even worse a year later in the NY times article German Energy Push Runs Into Problems, [nytimes.com] reporting major troubles such as:
. Electricity prices in Germany are already among the highest in the world.
. The price of industrial electricity has risen about 37 percent since 2005.
. International energy experts say the country cannot meet its future need
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My 'precious electronic toys' use about a tenth of the power that the ones I was using a decade ago for the same purpose did. Even lighting power consumption has dropped. My fridge, freezer and washing machine are the big electricity consumers in my home - efficiency has improved there, but nowhere near as fast as for gadgets.
And I'll wager that your energy costs have skyrocketed. Am I right?
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You were bluffing (Score:2)
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Yet another example of a hardworking Comrade of The Party attacking it's opponents I see - YOU are the one that was making wild claims while I haven't written much other than calling you out on it.
WTF is it with you losers "charging at windmills". Solar is more mainstream than the pol
The gov, any gov, should be all ears (Score:2)
as long as it's destructive. They'll do the extortion for you, you'll toast
with the 'cream of the crop', you'll be IT!
Why the government? (Score:2)
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investors had been scared away by the idea that working with government might be a tortuous slog, but Bouganim says that he saw that behind that red tape lay a market that could be worth in the neighborhood of $500 billion a year...he's motivated in part by the desire to help make sure that that governments in his adopted country are using the best, most appropriate technologies they can as they go about serving their citizens. "And what better way to have an impact," he says, "than capitalism?"
In other words, he wants to invest in companies that sell technology to the government. Seems reasonable, but certainly not revolutionary.
Government: by extension, us? (Score:1)
Since when did corporations developing technologies mean the rest of us cannot benefit?
And for that matter, since when were we an extension of the government?
I don't think you've seen daylight in a long, long time.....
unfortunately? (Score:2, Insightful)
So 'unfortunately' if you are going to build a product that people may need and enjoy you are going to start a business, that may create new products and create investment opportunities and jobs in the process, you are going to 'siphon'? 'Siphon' talent away from government ('and everybody else')?????
This 'story' is one gigantic flamebait.
There is nothing unfortunate about building your own company to pursue your own goals and you are not siphoning anything from anybody by building your own business. Unde
The NSA shows us (Score:2)
No thanks, I'll stay in the private sector.