4 ms·

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. My point is that if the team should include tech entrepreneurs it should also include dairy farmers, mom and pop stores and

by mixmax 18y ago

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. My point is that if the team should include tech entrepreneurs it should also include dairy farmers, mom and pop stores and advertising executves - these sectors are all as large as the tech entrepreneur sector. If you plug the tech entrepreneur hole you should also plug the dairy farmer hole - given that this sector is as large as the tech upstart sector of course. A team of thousands of different people from thousands of different sectors obviously isn't a viable solution. This is why at the top level you have people that understand macro economy, finance and politics. Below this you have the whole armada of different sectors that should be heard in respect to regulation, economy, etc. that relates to their industry. Basically if you want tech entrepreneurs to be on the economic team advising the president you should also have dairy farmers and advertising executives. And that would be a mess.

jerf 18y ago
From the original article: "our President needs to get first hand information on the impact his proposed policies will have on real Joe the Plumbers. People who are 1 person companies living job to job, hoping they get paid on time. We need to know what the impact of his policies will be on the individually owned Chrysler Dealership in Iowa. The bodego in Manhattan. The mobile phone software startup out of Carnegie Mellon. The event planner in Dallas. The barbershop in LA. The restaurant in Boston." No fair adding the word "tech" to the original article, then criticizing it for the word "tech". :) A "small business representative" is exactly what the article calls for. And the article isn't calling for this person to know about their industry, but to know about small business; the pressures of mandated paperwork on a one-person operation, tax pressures, basically all those things that come up when you're too small to have or afford an HR department and dedicated finance staff. The US Federal government, being the single largest entity on the planet AFAIK, has a bad habit of forgetting that paperwork isn't free; the cognitive costs alone when it isn't your job to fill out the paperwork correctly (with steep fines for errors in some cases) can be significant, even before we discount time. (For example, consider your taxes; even moderately complicated individual taxes won't take that much of your calendar year, but the cognitive costs can be daunting. And that's what an individual is expected to pay...)

by mixmax 18y ago

jerf 18y ago

From the original article: "our President needs to get first hand information on the impact his proposed policies will have on real Joe the Plumbers. People who are 1 person companies living job to job, hoping they get paid on time. We need to know what the impact of his policies will be on the individually owned Chrysler Dealership in Iowa. The bodego in Manhattan. The mobile phone software startup out of Carnegie Mellon. The event planner in Dallas. The barbershop in LA. The restaurant in Boston." No fair adding the word "tech" to the original article, then criticizing it for the word "tech". :) A "small business representative" is exactly what the article calls for. And the article isn't calling for this person to know about their industry, but to know about small business; the pressures of mandated paperwork on a one-person operation, tax pressures, basically all those things that come up when you're too small to have or afford an HR department and dedicated finance staff. The US Federal government, being the single largest entity on the planet AFAIK, has a bad habit of forgetting that paperwork isn't free; the cognitive costs alone when it isn't your job to fill out the paperwork correctly (with steep fines for errors in some cases) can be significant, even before we discount time. (For example, consider your taxes; even moderately complicated individual taxes won't take that much of your calendar year, but the cognitive costs can be daunting. And that's what an individual is expected to pay...)