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Why can't the government run its own computers? I mean, shouldn't it?

snowwrestler 7y ago
The federal government cannot compete with private industry salaries and benefits for rare technical talent because of caps on federal salaries. Federal salaries are capped because attacking "government waste" and "lazy overpaid government workers" is popular with politicians and the electorate. So instead the government outsources technical projects to private contractors... which means ultimately the government is paying those big salaries, and the profit margin on top of them. One of many many "penny wise / pound foolish" problems with the way we do government services.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  Yeah I'm aware of how this goes down: in addition to what you say, government management types get their beds feathered by working for the for-profit companies they contract the work to after they "retire" (aka everyone involved in F35 procurement ends up working at Lockheed; total coincidence I am sure). Yet, somehow the NSA manages to run their own data centers[1]. It even looks kind of cost effective! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Part of that may have been the times. That project started construction back in 2011 which means it was in planning for a while before that. The cloud vs on-premises debate was at a different state back then iirc. Also it's for NSA's questionably legal spying on US citizens vs the more standard legality of DoD's work.
- arbitrary_name 7y ago
  I've worked with federal government, and I can say is if rather that they pay private contractors. I used to find all paid government devs sleeping in toilet cubicles all the time. If rather Amazon or the squeeze on its employees to perform than shirt unmotivated public sector management. And this comes from an unabashed hard left big government voter.
  - snowwrestler 7y ago
    For AWS, Amazon does not hire employees that it needs to "squeeze" in order to get acceptable performance. Amazon [1] aims to recruit and keep the best employees, who are talented and driven to build the future. It deploys the resources necessary to do so, and operates in a way that empowers them to innovate and find success. The federal government, in the name of cutting waste and fighting corruption, largely is forced to do the opposite in the IT space (with a few rare exceptions). [1] Not implying Amazon is alone on this; all the big cloud operators do.

The federal government cannot compete with private industry salaries and benefits for rare technical talent because of caps on federal salaries. Federal salaries are capped because attacking "government waste" and "lazy overpaid government workers" is popular with politicians and the electorate. So instead the government outsources technical projects to private contractors... which means ultimately the government is paying those big salaries, and the profit margin on top of them. One of many many "penny wise / pound foolish" problems with the way we do government services.

scottlocklin 7y ago
Yeah I'm aware of how this goes down: in addition to what you say, government management types get their beds feathered by working for the for-profit companies they contract the work to after they "retire" (aka everyone involved in F35 procurement ends up working at Lockheed; total coincidence I am sure). Yet, somehow the NSA manages to run their own data centers[1]. It even looks kind of cost effective! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
- rtkwe 7y ago
  Part of that may have been the times. That project started construction back in 2011 which means it was in planning for a while before that. The cloud vs on-premises debate was at a different state back then iirc. Also it's for NSA's questionably legal spying on US citizens vs the more standard legality of DoD's work.
arbitrary_name 7y ago
I've worked with federal government, and I can say is if rather that they pay private contractors. I used to find all paid government devs sleeping in toilet cubicles all the time. If rather Amazon or the squeeze on its employees to perform than shirt unmotivated public sector management. And this comes from an unabashed hard left big government voter.
- snowwrestler 7y ago
  For AWS, Amazon does not hire employees that it needs to "squeeze" in order to get acceptable performance. Amazon [1] aims to recruit and keep the best employees, who are talented and driven to build the future. It deploys the resources necessary to do so, and operates in a way that empowers them to innovate and find success. The federal government, in the name of cutting waste and fighting corruption, largely is forced to do the opposite in the IT space (with a few rare exceptions). [1] Not implying Amazon is alone on this; all the big cloud operators do.