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> Mr. Altman has since scaled his ambition down to hundreds of billions of dollars, the nine people said, and hatched a new strategy: Court U.S. government offi

> Mr. Altman has since scaled his ambition down to hundreds of billions of dollars, the nine people said, and hatched a new strategy: Court U.S. government officials by first helping to build data centers in the United States. When all else fails, pitch your idea to the right officials in the USG and you'll make bank. And if you do it right, you won't even be doing anything at all. There are companies getting 8-10 figures a year to fail at upgrading systems from DOS to literally anything not DOS. It's a very low bar, but a profitable one if you can pull it off.

mesh 2y ago
Do data centers drive a lot of jobs or revenue for local or federal governments?
- edm0nd 2y ago
  The NSA Utah data center cost $1.5B-$2B to build and then another ~$2B of electronics to stock inside it. It also had hundreds of contractors and employs 200+ full time employees. It consumes $40M worth of electricity each year and uses 1.7 million gallons of water each day for cooling. So it sure doesn't seem like it unless we want to get into a debate around how much perceived useful data and value the NSA gets out of spying on Americans and foreign countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
citizenpaul 2y ago
>There are companies getting 8-10 figures a year to fail I read some article about how the federal retirement system is about up to $500m over the last 20 years on a failed outsourcing the digitization of their paper system. They are apparently not much closer to having a digital version than they were when they started something like 3-4 contractors ago. Specifically the storage hub in West Virginia. There has to be some sort of grift in that kinda waste. How do that many companies not move the needle and get to keep the money?
- jonathanyc 2y ago
  In Canada, there was a lot of controversy over the government awarding ~$200M in contracts to one consultancy, almost always without competitive bidding. They chronically underdelivered, e.g.: There has been much scrutiny over how much the ArriveCAN app cost to develop and who was subcontracted for its development. Contracts show that the federal government will spend close to $54 million with 23 separate subcontractors. A Parliamentary committee ordered federal departments to submit contracting documents related to the app but have been told that the names of subcontractors cannot be released citing issues of confidentiality. In October 2022, two developers at two separate IT companies took part in a hackathon where they both developed duplicates of the ArriveCAN app in under two days, for an estimated cost of $250,000. Surely the actual app was more complicated than the hackathon duplicates. But where in between $250k and $54m should the cost have been? To be fair, I read estimates saying Healthcare.gov cost around $500m, and a friend who I know is a great engineer worked on that (albeit in a rescue capacity). And a single F-35 costs $80m, so maybe we need to triage things.
  - citizenpaul 2y ago
    > cannot be released citing issues of confidentiality How the f can this even be an excuse? How can the government be confidential from itself? If so why has the person that allowed confidentiality in these contracts not been removed. Rhetorical of course, "The un-accountability machine" grift in action.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Jtsummers 2y ago
  There are a lot of problems. A key one I saw repeatedly: No one in program offices (the offices responsible for these system developments) has the proper expertise to judge IT/software contracts or the IT/software portion of contracts. And, they won't listen to you because they've got a contractor or two sitting on their shoulder whispering into their ear things that are very wrong (this got a Colonel I worked with in trouble once) and leads to very biased decision making, away from reality and in favor of the grifters. This is a reliable thing. There are some really good people in gov't, but they don't seem to make their way to the program offices. So without expertise and good judgement, you get these 8-10 figure (or maybe worse) boondoggles.

mesh 2y ago

Do data centers drive a lot of jobs or revenue for local or federal governments?

edm0nd 2y ago
The NSA Utah data center cost $1.5B-$2B to build and then another ~$2B of electronics to stock inside it. It also had hundreds of contractors and employs 200+ full time employees. It consumes $40M worth of electricity each year and uses 1.7 million gallons of water each day for cooling. So it sure doesn't seem like it unless we want to get into a debate around how much perceived useful data and value the NSA gets out of spying on Americans and foreign countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center

citizenpaul 2y ago

>There are companies getting 8-10 figures a year to fail I read some article about how the federal retirement system is about up to $500m over the last 20 years on a failed outsourcing the digitization of their paper system. They are apparently not much closer to having a digital version than they were when they started something like 3-4 contractors ago. Specifically the storage hub in West Virginia. There has to be some sort of grift in that kinda waste. How do that many companies not move the needle and get to keep the money?

jonathanyc 2y ago
In Canada, there was a lot of controversy over the government awarding ~$200M in contracts to one consultancy, almost always without competitive bidding. They chronically underdelivered, e.g.: There has been much scrutiny over how much the ArriveCAN app cost to develop and who was subcontracted for its development. Contracts show that the federal government will spend close to $54 million with 23 separate subcontractors. A Parliamentary committee ordered federal departments to submit contracting documents related to the app but have been told that the names of subcontractors cannot be released citing issues of confidentiality. In October 2022, two developers at two separate IT companies took part in a hackathon where they both developed duplicates of the ArriveCAN app in under two days, for an estimated cost of $250,000. Surely the actual app was more complicated than the hackathon duplicates. But where in between $250k and $54m should the cost have been? To be fair, I read estimates saying Healthcare.gov cost around $500m, and a friend who I know is a great engineer worked on that (albeit in a rescue capacity). And a single F-35 costs $80m, so maybe we need to triage things.
- citizenpaul 2y ago
  > cannot be released citing issues of confidentiality How the f can this even be an excuse? How can the government be confidential from itself? If so why has the person that allowed confidentiality in these contracts not been removed. Rhetorical of course, "The un-accountability machine" grift in action.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Jtsummers 2y ago
There are a lot of problems. A key one I saw repeatedly: No one in program offices (the offices responsible for these system developments) has the proper expertise to judge IT/software contracts or the IT/software portion of contracts. And, they won't listen to you because they've got a contractor or two sitting on their shoulder whispering into their ear things that are very wrong (this got a Colonel I worked with in trouble once) and leads to very biased decision making, away from reality and in favor of the grifters. This is a reliable thing. There are some really good people in gov't, but they don't seem to make their way to the program offices. So without expertise and good judgement, you get these 8-10 figure (or maybe worse) boondoggles.