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Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

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Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#191

Post by jisnsm »

hello_moto wrote: post #145
jisnsm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. The government will have several providers to choose from, which will have to compete in price. If the prices are still inflated, we are talking government corruption, which is yet another reason to make the government smaller, not bigger.

That's not how govt contract works. Repeat providers will win almost all contracts because they know how to navigate the "red tapes" and they know the inner people. Competition? lol...

I am very aware of this, which is why I mentioned corruption in my comment, and how the only solution is to make the government smaller. Should have read the comment to the end.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#192

Post by blactuary »

trentnix wrote: post #122
blactuary wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this exactly. Reflexive "ugh govt" is a result of decades of Reagan-ite propaganda. Govt is just people, and people are flawed and have competing incentives. I've worked in massive companies that have incredibly dumb inefficiencies.

> Reflexive "ugh govt" is a result of decades of Reagan-ite propaganda I (and many others) have worked for, contracted for, interacted with, and/or closely observed government for decades. The only “reflexive” thing here is your argument that people who disagree with the you are the victims of propaganda. You can certainly quibble with the details on how to deliver government efficiency (and I highly encourage people…

Also, support for the DOGE mission is entirely orthogonal to DOGE's actual goals and what they are doing so far.

Sure, maybe there is broad support for making government more efficient, but that is not in any way what Elon Musk is trying to do. So if there is broad support for DOGE those people are entirely wrong to believe they are aligned with Elon, and entirely wrong about supporting DOGE as the means to achieve their goals.

That being the case, these same people cannot be trusted to understand our government and how it functions and where the inefficiencies are. If you support the DOGE mission you do not actually support making the government more efficient, so alluding to that support is a red herring. Worse than a red herring, it shows that their anti-government views are not based in reality and facts.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#193

Post by skissane »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #181
skissane wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There will be inept people, waste, corruption, people stealing, etc. but there will also be the vast majority trying to do a good job and feel satisfaction in their work. It doesn't matter if its the federal government or a private corporation, its simply a trade-off of the organization structure. Private sector entities can have less “dead wood” because it is easier to get rid of people, and because there is a str…

> Private sector entities can have less “dead wood” because it is easier to get rid of people. Its not though, its the same layers of documentation, paperwork, upper management approvals, legal and HR approvals. The only exception being blatant policy violations like drug use, etc. where immediate dismissal can be done. If you are talking about mass layoffs, for large corporations they still have to file paperwork fo…

Government employees have greater legal rights to challenge their termination than private sector employees do.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#194

Post by nobodyandproud »

modeless wrote: post #68
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #19

Privatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle age…

The difference is private companies that accumulate too much waste and useless things can fail and be replaced. The exception is companies propped up by government regulation. The problem with modern big companies is that the exception has become the rule. Regulation is so pervasive it's become a "what the hell is water" situation. People don't even recognize that the dysfunctional companies are protected from failur…

> The difference is private companies that accumulate too much waste and useless things can fail and be replaced.

Only—and this is a critical detail—if the market is competitive.

Otherwise, a government entity answerable to elected officials at some level is more efficient.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#195

Post by moogly »

readyplayernull wrote: post #166
1970-01-01 wrote: post #94

D+ grade headline. His full offer and message: “If you worked for 18F and got fired, Group together to start a consulting company,” wrote Cuban. “It’s just a matter of time before DOGE needs you to fix the mess they inevitably created. They will have to hire your company as a contractor to fix it. But on your terms. I’m happy to invest and/or help.”

Something tells that's an intended feature not a bug, that they will re-hire personel, re-buy assets like all those EVs, re-rent offices, but next time it will be with gov-aligned providers, and the cost will be the same for less.

Destroying is quick and easy. Rebuilding is not. What damage DOGE can do in a year can take 20 years to restore.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#196

Post by dcow »

davepeck wrote: post #189
dcow wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they will prove effective. I believe the government is in need of disruptive change. I welcome the effort.

For what it’s worth: I believe they will prove ineffective at best, damaging at worst. I believe disruptive change should be undertaken with a deep understanding of the history of an organization and a clear-eyed accounting of its successes and failures. I see no evidence of this. I believe the current effort is, well, a bit more like a recklessly wielded chainsaw.

If Twitter was a failing business and Musk didn't have a proven track record, I’d be a lot more skeptical in general. If the nuclear staffing cuts weren’t immediately rolled back, I’d feel more concerned about the ability of the wielders.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#197

Post by afro88 »

mola wrote: post #178

Every privatization of utilities I saw (not US) always devolved to being priced higher, being given legal monopoly, workers earn much less, quality degrades. A single "business man" gets super rich

18f wasn't a utility though. It was a digital agency / consultancy inside the government. Still shouldn't be shut down IMO, but lets call and apple an apple.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#198

Post by [deleted] »

modeless wrote: post #68
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #19

Privatization is what a lot of people believe is the answer, thinking that there is so much waste and useless things the Federal government does. These people must have never worked at a large corporation. I have a relative in the federal government and we would share stories because the dysfunctions are basically the same. Any large organization of humans working uses a pyramid organization since like the middle age…

The difference is private companies that accumulate too much waste and useless things can fail and be replaced. The exception is companies propped up by government regulation. The problem with modern big companies is that the exception has become the rule. Regulation is so pervasive it's become a "what the hell is water" situation. People don't even recognize that the dysfunctional companies are protected from failur…

[deleted]

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#199

Post by conception »

plagiarist wrote: post #185
microtonal wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is private companies that accumulate too much waste and useless things can fail and be replaced. Even if that is true, in some areas companies' interests strongly misalign with that of citizens. An insurance company earns more by rejecting customer declarations. An ISP earns more by giving customers less bandwidth for a higher price. A toll road company earns more by doing as little maintenance they ca…

The theory of capitalism leading to efficient markets makes a great deal of assumptions that are simply not true in the real world. Even for elastic goods that nobody needs to participate in at all, let alone an inelastic good like healthcare where people will pay pretty much anything for themselves or their family members to continue living.

People also equate capitalism with free markets and attribute a lot of the success of capitalism mistakenly because of it.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#200

Post by blactuary »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #139
alephnerd wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no denying that there's bloat, but going in with a chainsaw is not a conducive or efficient way to reduce bloat in an organization. If you want to use the "private sector lense" (which I do not think is valid for a govenenent bureaucracy), there's a reason why when I've participated in M&A events, we would spend a year doing due diligence and understanding the organizational and financial structure before ini…

Indeed. The chainsaw approach will only produce an even less effective civil service, and one in constant crisis. If you want to actually improve governance (and we really should because it is in fact often quite dysfunctional), you don't come in with the notion that it is intrinsically rotten to the core and the very idea of governance is flawed by nature. You start by motivating people to improve. Which you don't d…

Every accusation is a confession. Elon and his band of criminals know that if they were in government they would try to get a make work job and grift, direct money to their own businesses and friends, etc, so they assume that all civil servants are like that
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