> Pointing to the highest performing companies that have been selected by the market is not really a fair comparison for a government agency. Fair point. All

> Pointing to the highest performing companies that have been selected by the market is not really a fair comparison for a government agency. Fair point. All the companies I pointed out are flush with cash, making the annual budget of the census comically small. So if we want large publicly visible government software projects to start going well consistently, what would it take? Recent poorly run projects have included the failed launch of healthcare.gov which was "rescued" by SV techies and this project which is way over budget. There are many more which are smaller, less visible to the public, and I'm sure there are a set of projects which get done on time and on or below budget.