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Sorcerer (YC S24) raises $3.9M to launch more weather balloons
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoRelated from 9 months ago: Launch HN: Sorcerer (YC S24) – Weather balloons that collect more data https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41291219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41291219
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- xnx 1y agoGood timing "At least 10 sites have suspended or limited weather balloon launches because of the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Weather Service." https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/weather-balloons-stop-trump-cuts-forecasts-less-accurate-rcna198055 https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/weather-balloon...
- wturner 1y agoTheir agenda is to intentionally make government dysfunctional as a catalyst to privatize everything. It's working.
- jmcgough 1y agoNext up is the postal service.
- mlinhares 1y agoProblem is there is no money in this for the private market, so the government will have to pay 10x more to get a patchwork of private entities to do the work the government was already doing. If we don't get these people out and revert all they did there won't be much of a future for this country that isn't becoming another failed economy with a few places being a little bit better than the others. The US will be a third world country soon.
- fastball 1y agoYes, the US Federal Government, famous for doing things efficiently and cheaply when no private contractors are involved.
- Retric 1y agoThe quiet parks of government really are, privatizing the VA was looked into several times but the numbers were prohibitive. It took me a while to realize there’s just less money to be made when the system actually works.
- fastball 1y agoRealistically this is only because our private sector in that area is incredibly broken, not because the government is doing an incredible job.
- Retric 1y agoThere’s many other comparisons where the government comes out ahead when you balance quality of what’s done vs cost. The overhead of the social security administration is far lower than other pensions, and that’s with everyone else piggybacking backing off your SSN. Some of this is scale but economies of scale only go so far.
- Wololooo 1y agoSome things cannot be done cheaply or extremely efficiently but needs to be done. One of the reason for governments to exist is to deliver services to the communities that, by essence, should not be seen as primarily a source of revenue, but enabling communities to thrive in order to generate an environment where the generation of wealth for the community is facilitated. And tell me how actually efficient and cost saving having many entities that have as sole mission to generate profit really helped (take a look at privatisation of any entities that were of public interest and the good that it did long term... Spoilers It didn't...)
- guywithahat 1y agoI feel like there's important context here, such as this company was founded before Trump entered office, and the government weather balloons were so inefficient that a private company thought they could compete with free data. Government weather data is exactly the kind of thing that should be private.
- artembugara 1y agoCongrats, @tndl You guys rock! Big fan
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- khazhoux 1y agoCongrats to the team. I gotta say, though, these days I'm used these announcements all being "Two-month old FooBar startup announces $850M angel round at a $38B valuation"
- huslage 1y agoThis is an anti-pattern. Doing the work that the government should be (and was) doing and then selling back the data to them or others when the data should be (and was) public domain is absolutely terrible for society. No one should fund this.
- jaccola 1y agoBy this logic anything could become government run but never transition from government run to privately run, creating a ratcheting mechanism that would eventually lead to ~everything being government run! The pro case for privatisation (that I happen to believe in) is: you were paying for it anyway, via your tax dollars, having it private leads to competition and stronger incentives to improve/cut costs meaning it will net cost you less.
- huslage 1y agoYou are oversimplifying here. I ALREADY paid for the weather balloons and they are no longer being launched. This is not privatization in the way that you seem to think it is. This is explicitly against the will of the people. I'm fine if they want to make new weather balloons and sell them to people to launch for whatever reason they want. Selling what by law should be public data is anathema.
- krisoft 1y agoWeather balloons are a recurring cost. It is not like you launch a weather balloon once and it provides data forever. You need to launch new balloons once the ones previously launched land. (This is typically a very short amount of time. Days not weeks.) It is not like this company is going to take over the management of weather balloons you have already paid for. Or I don't know how you imagine this is going to work. > This is not privatization in the way that you seem to think it is. Can you tell me more about how you think it is?
- huslage 1y agoI imagine the government is going to start launching weather balloons again after they get sued for illegally firing the staff that's supposed to do it.
- mandeepj 1y agoGoogle had something similar as well. I think they phased it out.
- rokobobo 1y agoI believe theirs was to deliver internet
- thrance 1y agoWelp. Good for them I guess, too bad weather reporting was gutted and is no longer a public good. At this rate, we'll soon see YC startups raising money to maintain roads.
- hodgesrm 1y ago> At this rate, we'll soon see YC startups raising money to maintain roads. That model has existed for hundreds of years. It's called a turnpike. There were hundreds of them in the US and UK. [0] Many still exist today. [0] https://eh.net/encyclopedia/turnpikes-and-toll-roads-in-nineteenth-century-america/ https://eh.net/encyclopedia/turnpikes-and-toll-roads-in-nine...
- selimthegrim 1y agoWill they have a sick electronic music track as they launch?
- jzig 1y agoIsn’t this the point of NOAA?
- pfych 1y agoNOAA might not be around much longer! ... which is grim.
- andrewstuart 1y agoWhat happens to weather balloons do they just drop out of the sky? Do they ever hit anyone? Are they just garbage the gets left on the ground?
- Daviey 1y agoYes, I found one in a car park many years ago. Disposed of the balloon, but gave the radar reflector to the local school geography department.
- tartoran 1y agoWe should be expecting more government services now going through YCombinator. Lots of profit to be made in the name of efficiency.
- neonate 1y agohttps://archive.md/gTnOw https://archive.md/gTnOw
- pyman 1y agoI can't access this site... it's behind a paywall