I'd say that it's not that risk isn't appreciated. Rather, risk tends to be taken in a rather bi-polar way. 99% of the time, the government goes with the gian

I'd say that it's not that risk isn't appreciated. Rather, risk tends to be taken in a rather bi-polar way. 99% of the time, the government goes with the giant, ossified consulting firm. However, 1% of the time, they decide to take a risk. They don't just go with the local start-up, though. They hire Bob's nephew, who's "a real whiz with computers." Bob's nephew puts together a minimum viable product, then Bob's 12 year old nephew accidentally sends out a mass e-mail with everyone's medical records. The agency then gets accused of not taking privacy seriously, so a whole new set of privacy rules are enacted. Only a industrial giants have the patience to wade through this paperwork, so they scoop up every job for a while. Eventually, someone looks at the insane standards and points out that the government could save millions of dollars that they're paying to IBM by just hiring a startup. Bob then points out that they could save thousands of dollars on this bloated startup by just hiring his nephew.