3 ms·

Is there some balance sheet that explains how it cost $327M? Is this some massive contract awarded to some goverment guy's buddy?

jbooth 13y ago
It's actually the opposite. All of the regulations preventing it from going to some guy's buddy mean that only bloated, f'd up bureaucracies can clear the hurdles to land the gig. And in the end, it still helps to have some buddies, of course.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Yes. The risks of doing a government contract are enormous. Once an old family friend with a lot of state government contracting experience brought me in to help out with some technical stuff. One of the clauses in the contract basically said that they could just decide not to pay me. After I got done spluttering, it was explained to me that they needed the clause in case of certain weird emergencies that never happened. (I can't remember now, but I imagine government shutdown is one of those cases.) So I said, "Whatever," and signed, because I could afford to take the risk. But there is no way I'd do that for a substantial project. The bigger the client, the bigger the crazy. To be able to take $5m gambles, I'd want to be doing $50-100m/year. Which means I'm running a bloated, f'd-up bureaucracy for sure. No thanks; if I need more crazy in my life, I'll just go read some comments on YouTube or newspaper sites.
r0h1n 13y ago
Accenture seems to be the biggest contractor - http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/09/15/californias-state-government-builds-itself-a-327-million-web-site/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/09/15/californias-st...
- tootie 13y ago
  Having worked with Accenture on a government project in the past, they will milk CA dry and staff up with an army of worthless college grads at inflated bill rates and send their profits to the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes.

3 ms·

Is there some balance sheet that explains how it cost $327M? Is this some massive contract awarded to some goverment guy's buddy?

by vehementi 13y ago

jbooth 13y ago
It's actually the opposite. All of the regulations preventing it from going to some guy's buddy mean that only bloated, f'd up bureaucracies can clear the hurdles to land the gig. And in the end, it still helps to have some buddies, of course.
- wpietri 13y ago
  Yes. The risks of doing a government contract are enormous. Once an old family friend with a lot of state government contracting experience brought me in to help out with some technical stuff. One of the clauses in the contract basically said that they could just decide not to pay me. After I got done spluttering, it was explained to me that they needed the clause in case of certain weird emergencies that never happened. (I can't remember now, but I imagine government shutdown is one of those cases.) So I said, "Whatever," and signed, because I could afford to take the risk. But there is no way I'd do that for a substantial project. The bigger the client, the bigger the crazy. To be able to take $5m gambles, I'd want to be doing $50-100m/year. Which means I'm running a bloated, f'd-up bureaucracy for sure. No thanks; if I need more crazy in my life, I'll just go read some comments on YouTube or newspaper sites.
r0h1n 13y ago
Accenture seems to be the biggest contractor - http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/09/15/californias-state-government-builds-itself-a-327-million-web-site/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2012/09/15/californias-st...
- tootie 13y ago
  Having worked with Accenture on a government project in the past, they will milk CA dry and staff up with an army of worthless college grads at inflated bill rates and send their profits to the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes.