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In all large companies I have worked (>10K employees), the level of bureaucracy is similar to the government and decision making is really slow. In my experienc

In all large companies I have worked (>10K employees), the level of bureaucracy is similar to the government and decision making is really slow. In my experience, "private is more efficient" is a myth and primarily driven by ideological reasons.

badpun 7y ago
Have you worked for the government? I have (as an external contractor) and the level of bureucracy and waste was on a entirely different level than at even the most inefficient private company (a large bank) that I've worked for.
- achenatx 7y ago
  We are contractors that identify the most valuable features for the least amount of money. We have worked with two state agencies and learned that entire philosophy is moot in a government agency because they dont care about the value of features and they dont care about saving money. It was incredibly depressing and so we generally try not to work with government agencies.
- Frondo 7y ago
  I used to work for a business that sold a software platform to both government buyers and large private companies, and we saw absolutely no difference in inefficiency, waste, and fiefdom-building. Those things are all absolutely a matter of organizational size, almost to the exclusion of everything else (including public/private distinctions). Some of our most frustrating clients were the massive private sector companies that would kick around a proposal for six months, call meeting after meeting, and deal with an ever-changing cast of stakeholders who needed to sign off on this round. At least in government there was less flux in who we dealt with over time.
  - badpun 7y ago
    Three points: 1. Government is orders of magnitude larger than the biggest companies, and, whats' worse, the inefficiencies scale (my guess) exponentially and not linearly. 2. Government assumes democratic oversight, which is way more costly and time intensive to implement than the rule of the iron fist of the shareholders via board of a company. 3. A lot of the ways the government functions is passed as laws. If a private business needs to do a major change of strategy, say was the case with Tesla recently where they decided to get rid of the dealerships, they can implement it very quickly - whereas in government, an operational decision of this magnitude (say the IRS deciding to close local branches), would probably require changing many laws - which involves political bargaining and just general queue to get the new law passed in the parliament. BTW this is true even for much smaller stuff, like the template of the forms for tax returns - they cannot be changed willy-nilly, but need a new law to be passed (usually at a lower level than parliament, but still). Imagine facebook needing to go through some internal legislation process every time they change a form on their website - so much for "move fast and break things".
    - Frondo 7y ago
      1) Federal government, yes, state governments, most of 'em, local governments, mostly not. City and county-level governments are hugely varied in size, but it doesn't take much for a private company to be larger than vast swaths of them. Of course, you're right that no private business is as big as the US federal government. 2) A lot of companies do have elaborate internal processes for getting anything done; the shareholders don't really do much for the day-to-day operation of a company, seldom where it comes to purchasing decisions. 3) It's really more regulations, which have to be changed in concert with laws, than laws themselves. Especially at the local level, governments have pretty wide leeway so long as they do things under a general framework of fairness and competitiveness (again, varies based on corruption at work....but private companies are corrupt, too; we just don't get to peek under the covers nearly as often.)
- crdoconnor 7y ago
  I had the exact opposite experience to you. Outside pressure was the key determinant of waste and bureaucracy. Companies without competition (e.g. banks) had almost zero competitive pressure but most government departments always had at least a bit of democratic pressure. The best run were companies under heavy competitive pressure or government departments that were transparent and closely watched.
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  I've worked as a government contractor in the past and cannot disagree more. The corruption I saw was almost entirely located on the side of the contracting companies using extremely shady tactics to sell junk to the government or encourage the funding of projects that would never see the light of day.
  - massivecali 7y ago
    Reminds me of an appropriate quote from Contact with Jodie Foster. S.R. Hadden: "First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"
chrisseaton 7y ago
> "private is more efficient" Who are you quoting there? Nobody in this thread. Nobody here was claiming private was more efficient - you've imagined that. We were saying it was less beaurcpatic and a more pleasant working environment in the private sector. Look at basic things like expense policies in government jobs. The pettiness of it will astound you. In the private sector I just get given a credit card and treated like an adult.
refurb 7y ago
I disagree. Yes, large companies can be very slow and bureaucratic. However, they still have a profit motive which tends to drive action. Gov’t don’t have a profit motive, so for them, there is little that forces them to act beyond politics.
JamesBarney 7y ago
Right I think the rule is "very large organizations are slow and bureaucratic". Government is one but large corporations are another. But I've also been really impressed with government work recently. The people at the post office on tax day were much nicer and more helpful than 80% of customer support I get from companies.

badpun 7y ago

Have you worked for the government? I have (as an external contractor) and the level of bureucracy and waste was on a entirely different level than at even the most inefficient private company (a large bank) that I've worked for.

achenatx 7y ago
We are contractors that identify the most valuable features for the least amount of money. We have worked with two state agencies and learned that entire philosophy is moot in a government agency because they dont care about the value of features and they dont care about saving money. It was incredibly depressing and so we generally try not to work with government agencies.
Frondo 7y ago
I used to work for a business that sold a software platform to both government buyers and large private companies, and we saw absolutely no difference in inefficiency, waste, and fiefdom-building. Those things are all absolutely a matter of organizational size, almost to the exclusion of everything else (including public/private distinctions). Some of our most frustrating clients were the massive private sector companies that would kick around a proposal for six months, call meeting after meeting, and deal with an ever-changing cast of stakeholders who needed to sign off on this round. At least in government there was less flux in who we dealt with over time.
- badpun 7y ago
  Three points: 1. Government is orders of magnitude larger than the biggest companies, and, whats' worse, the inefficiencies scale (my guess) exponentially and not linearly. 2. Government assumes democratic oversight, which is way more costly and time intensive to implement than the rule of the iron fist of the shareholders via board of a company. 3. A lot of the ways the government functions is passed as laws. If a private business needs to do a major change of strategy, say was the case with Tesla recently where they decided to get rid of the dealerships, they can implement it very quickly - whereas in government, an operational decision of this magnitude (say the IRS deciding to close local branches), would probably require changing many laws - which involves political bargaining and just general queue to get the new law passed in the parliament. BTW this is true even for much smaller stuff, like the template of the forms for tax returns - they cannot be changed willy-nilly, but need a new law to be passed (usually at a lower level than parliament, but still). Imagine facebook needing to go through some internal legislation process every time they change a form on their website - so much for "move fast and break things".
  - Frondo 7y ago
    1) Federal government, yes, state governments, most of 'em, local governments, mostly not. City and county-level governments are hugely varied in size, but it doesn't take much for a private company to be larger than vast swaths of them. Of course, you're right that no private business is as big as the US federal government. 2) A lot of companies do have elaborate internal processes for getting anything done; the shareholders don't really do much for the day-to-day operation of a company, seldom where it comes to purchasing decisions. 3) It's really more regulations, which have to be changed in concert with laws, than laws themselves. Especially at the local level, governments have pretty wide leeway so long as they do things under a general framework of fairness and competitiveness (again, varies based on corruption at work....but private companies are corrupt, too; we just don't get to peek under the covers nearly as often.)
crdoconnor 7y ago
I had the exact opposite experience to you. Outside pressure was the key determinant of waste and bureaucracy. Companies without competition (e.g. banks) had almost zero competitive pressure but most government departments always had at least a bit of democratic pressure. The best run were companies under heavy competitive pressure or government departments that were transparent and closely watched.
fzeroracer 7y ago
I've worked as a government contractor in the past and cannot disagree more. The corruption I saw was almost entirely located on the side of the contracting companies using extremely shady tactics to sell junk to the government or encourage the funding of projects that would never see the light of day.
- massivecali 7y ago
  Reminds me of an appropriate quote from Contact with Jodie Foster. S.R. Hadden: "First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"

chrisseaton 7y ago

> "private is more efficient" Who are you quoting there? Nobody in this thread. Nobody here was claiming private was more efficient - you've imagined that. We were saying it was less beaurcpatic and a more pleasant working environment in the private sector. Look at basic things like expense policies in government jobs. The pettiness of it will astound you. In the private sector I just get given a credit card and treated like an adult.

refurb 7y ago

I disagree. Yes, large companies can be very slow and bureaucratic. However, they still have a profit motive which tends to drive action. Gov’t don’t have a profit motive, so for them, there is little that forces them to act beyond politics.

JamesBarney 7y ago

Right I think the rule is "very large organizations are slow and bureaucratic". Government is one but large corporations are another. But I've also been really impressed with government work recently. The people at the post office on tax day were much nicer and more helpful than 80% of customer support I get from companies.