5 ms·

Can VCs co invest in trillion dollar government infrastructure projects? Roads bridges hospitals online education healthcare etc. ?

by cvaidya1986 6y ago

sails 6y ago
Returns on those projects are bond-like (actually are bonds typically) in their predictability, so they _could_, but I can't imagine they would.
- sanderjd 6y ago
  Right, which seems like the point: it is time to build, but not in the way that VCs build things.
flyingcroissant 6y ago
This is sometimes done as a “public-private partnership”.
noworriesnate 6y ago
A VC could build a company to fulfill a government contract? I doubt it would be able to compete with established firms though because the startup wouldn't have a history and the established firm would.
- HPsquared 6y ago
  It depends just how bloated the cost estimates are from established players.
- sjg007 6y ago
  I mean, you just defined Palantir so... VCs build companies to fulfill govt contracts all the time.
hpoe 6y ago
They already have in several of the things you listed. Online Education? Coursera, Lynda, Pluralsight, Kahn Academy, Youtube for crying out loud. Healthcare? - Healthtech is becoming a big thing, I had the opportunity to interview at a company that is currently working on a private health cloud where they aggregate all of the info about you, your smart watch, your phone, etc. (Note: That you choose and opt into) to make it available to determine the best outcomes for you personally and help the Dr. working with you practice individualized medicine. You list other things, but hospitals are being changed by technology at an amazing pace, the fact that now during a pandemic I don't have to leave my home to see my PCP, you think that was the burdened bloated Hospital beracuracy that came up with that? You then list roads and bridges, but the point is that yes, VCs and entrepenuers could figure out how to solve those too given time and a enough freedom, even we can't see it right now, it may be because our vision is just too limited to see what could be, that's what makes entrepreneurs, real entrepreneurs, different they are visionary.
- bhupy 6y ago
  A couple examples of big infrastructure projects funded by private investment (mostly private equity): Brightline / Virgin Trains USA [1] Texas Central Railway[2] which aims to introduce Shinkansen-class high speed rail connecting Dallas and Houston [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Trains_USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Trains_USA [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Central_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Central_Railway
- ryan93 6y ago
  How is a healthcare app going to replace surgery, radiation or intensive care?
  - hpoe 6y ago
    How did Amazon replace you reading a book in your house? It didn't alter the underlying fundamentals but it changed the way we think about it, and again you miss my point, most of us can't figure out things like that, we can't see how we would do that. Some people can, make it so they have the freedom to build and create and they can do things you've never dreamed of. Also a healthcare app won't replace those things but robots, computer vision, and ML could. Or they could make it so that a Dr. instead of doing 8 surgeries a day could do 80, or a Radiation machine that is totally self managed. You pop in it runs the test then it can interpret results with a 99.99% accuracy. There are lots of ways tech can augment and improve healthcare.
covidacct 6y ago
> Roads bridges See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public%E2%80%93private_partnership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public%E2%80%93private_partner... > healthcare The large healthcare providers are already run like private businesses, because they are private businesses. > education Please no. This is a favorite pet issue of the rich and powerful. Their ranks are littered with failed school reform activists. Sometimes those folks even have the self-awareness to realize they failed, e.g., the Gates Foundation. More often, they keep on proposing the same old ideas that are continuously tried and fail, while sending their own kinds to expensive private schools or public schools in the priciest zip codes in the country. Schools that are, aside from their wealth, operated in a quite traditional fashion. If you look at education outcomes by country, there's really only two things that stand out as invariants that separate education systems that work from those that don't: 1. degree of heterogeneity in schooling (school choice without some strong equalizing effect on quality just rearranges the deck chairs on the titanic), and 2. level of respect for educators (pay != respect). The "rich people can fix this" attitude is truly both a symptom and a cause of the biggest issue with America's education system: teaching is a low-status job (even places where it's well-paid). When it comes to education, Americans respect literally anyone's opinion more than the opinion of educational professionals. Hell, even random people who were literally born into wealth get more voice than the professionals who spend their lives in the classroom. If that doesn't change, nothing else will.
- geomark 6y ago
  Counterpoint to the respect for educators argument. I live in a country where teachers are highly respected (Thailand), but has among the world's worst education outcomes (as measured by standardized tests like PISA) and steadily declining. The Thai Ministry of Education continues to wring its hands year after year about it, makes various pronouncements, proposes education reforms once in a while, but student performance continues to decline. My conclusion is that respect for educators is important, but there are other much higher impact confounders that nobody seems able to clearly identify.

Can VCs co invest in trillion dollar government infrastructure projects? Roads bridges hospitals online education healthcare etc. ?

sails 6y ago

Returns on those projects are bond-like (actually are bonds typically) in their predictability, so they _could_, but I can't imagine they would.

sanderjd 6y ago
Right, which seems like the point: it is time to build, but not in the way that VCs build things.

flyingcroissant 6y ago

This is sometimes done as a “public-private partnership”.

noworriesnate 6y ago

A VC could build a company to fulfill a government contract? I doubt it would be able to compete with established firms though because the startup wouldn't have a history and the established firm would.

HPsquared 6y ago
It depends just how bloated the cost estimates are from established players.
sjg007 6y ago
I mean, you just defined Palantir so... VCs build companies to fulfill govt contracts all the time.

hpoe 6y ago

They already have in several of the things you listed. Online Education? Coursera, Lynda, Pluralsight, Kahn Academy, Youtube for crying out loud. Healthcare? - Healthtech is becoming a big thing, I had the opportunity to interview at a company that is currently working on a private health cloud where they aggregate all of the info about you, your smart watch, your phone, etc. (Note: That you choose and opt into) to make it available to determine the best outcomes for you personally and help the Dr. working with you practice individualized medicine. You list other things, but hospitals are being changed by technology at an amazing pace, the fact that now during a pandemic I don't have to leave my home to see my PCP, you think that was the burdened bloated Hospital beracuracy that came up with that? You then list roads and bridges, but the point is that yes, VCs and entrepenuers could figure out how to solve those too given time and a enough freedom, even we can't see it right now, it may be because our vision is just too limited to see what could be, that's what makes entrepreneurs, real entrepreneurs, different they are visionary.

bhupy 6y ago
A couple examples of big infrastructure projects funded by private investment (mostly private equity): Brightline / Virgin Trains USA [1] Texas Central Railway[2] which aims to introduce Shinkansen-class high speed rail connecting Dallas and Houston [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Trains_USA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Trains_USA [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Central_Railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Central_Railway
ryan93 6y ago
How is a healthcare app going to replace surgery, radiation or intensive care?
- hpoe 6y ago
  How did Amazon replace you reading a book in your house? It didn't alter the underlying fundamentals but it changed the way we think about it, and again you miss my point, most of us can't figure out things like that, we can't see how we would do that. Some people can, make it so they have the freedom to build and create and they can do things you've never dreamed of. Also a healthcare app won't replace those things but robots, computer vision, and ML could. Or they could make it so that a Dr. instead of doing 8 surgeries a day could do 80, or a Radiation machine that is totally self managed. You pop in it runs the test then it can interpret results with a 99.99% accuracy. There are lots of ways tech can augment and improve healthcare.

covidacct 6y ago

> Roads bridges See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public%E2%80%93private_partnership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public%E2%80%93private_partner... > healthcare The large healthcare providers are already run like private businesses, because they are private businesses. > education Please no. This is a favorite pet issue of the rich and powerful. Their ranks are littered with failed school reform activists. Sometimes those folks even have the self-awareness to realize they failed, e.g., the Gates Foundation. More often, they keep on proposing the same old ideas that are continuously tried and fail, while sending their own kinds to expensive private schools or public schools in the priciest zip codes in the country. Schools that are, aside from their wealth, operated in a quite traditional fashion. If you look at education outcomes by country, there's really only two things that stand out as invariants that separate education systems that work from those that don't: 1. degree of heterogeneity in schooling (school choice without some strong equalizing effect on quality just rearranges the deck chairs on the titanic), and 2. level of respect for educators (pay != respect). The "rich people can fix this" attitude is truly both a symptom and a cause of the biggest issue with America's education system: teaching is a low-status job (even places where it's well-paid). When it comes to education, Americans respect literally anyone's opinion more than the opinion of educational professionals. Hell, even random people who were literally born into wealth get more voice than the professionals who spend their lives in the classroom. If that doesn't change, nothing else will.

geomark 6y ago
Counterpoint to the respect for educators argument. I live in a country where teachers are highly respected (Thailand), but has among the world's worst education outcomes (as measured by standardized tests like PISA) and steadily declining. The Thai Ministry of Education continues to wring its hands year after year about it, makes various pronouncements, proposes education reforms once in a while, but student performance continues to decline. My conclusion is that respect for educators is important, but there are other much higher impact confounders that nobody seems able to clearly identify.