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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 ineffi

by Frondo 8y 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 8y 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 8y 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.)

by Frondo 8y ago

badpun 8y 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 8y 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.)