Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 454 posts

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#201

Post by jay-barronville »

It’s so interesting that here on HN, on virtually any political topic, virtually the entire commentary is one-sided, and virtually all comments providing dissenting views are simply downvoted and/or flagged out of existence (often with no actual counter-arguments).

On technical topics, this place tends to be so awesome—I learn so much by just reading the comments—due to the intellectual diversity of the viewpoints, but on anything even remotely touching politics, it turns into an entirely unwelcoming echo chamber.

I guess one could argue that this is a pretty good representation of how divided our country is (for those of us who are Americans), but I think it’d be so dope if the same folks who tend to have these great intellectually diverse discussions on technical topics could also do the same for the topics affecting us all (i.e., politics), but I guess that’s just wishful thinking.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#202

Post by lesuorac »

skissane wrote: post #159
lesuorac wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh yeah, and I’m a government employee of the state of Virginia I mean this thread is on the federal government not state governments so your link isn't really relevant. Federal government employees cannot make more than the VP ($235,100). So if you know a role that pays more than that it pays less in the federal government. (There is some hand wavey-ness around locale pay and stuff but we're not talking 2x).

> Federal government employees cannot make more than the VP ($235,100). So if you know a role that pays more than that it pays less in the federal government. (There is some hand wavey-ness around locale pay and stuff but we're not talking 2x) Medical specialists (certain types thereof) and surgeons employed by the federal government (VA, DOD, etc) commonly earn $3xx,xxx or even $4xx,xxx - which is less than they’d g…

VA Clinicians are exempt from the cap - https://www.veterans.senate.gov/services/files/3512D245-DA89...

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#203

Post by c_moscardi »

Worth noting that there already exists an ecosystem of these sorts of contracting firms (nava, skylight, truss I believe, forgetting even more) that, basically, pitch themselves as the antidote to beltway banditry

People from the federal civic tech nexus started them up over the past decade as they termed out of 18F, USDS, and PIF

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#204

Post by ineedaj0b »

xivzgrev wrote: post #5

They built / manage login.gov? Oh boy. It’s one thing if Twitter has bugs. It’s another thing if people have bugs while trying to login or signup to government services. Or hackers finding vulnerabilities and no one to fix them?

twitter /the infrastructure web part/ is run sooooo much better post elon. and we get ui updates and feature improvements regularly. that never happened before or took years

-user with largish account since 2013

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#205

Post by skissane »

alephnerd wrote: post #120
blactuary wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has Germany had one of two major parties spending decades trying to undermine government to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy that government is bad by definition? We are 45 years into an intentional effort to sabotage public services to convince people they don't work, to cut taxes for the wealthiest people who don't want to fund them

Germany has issues as well becuase it's been a de facto austerity state since 2009 due to their debt break, but the American administrative structure is very different from Germany's, so it's an unfair comparison in either direction. The only countries remotely similar to the US might be Canada and Australia.

> but the American administrative structure is very different from Germany's, so it's an unfair comparison either direction.

> The only countries remotely similar to the US might be Canada and Australia.

Like the US, Canada and Australia are federations - but Germany is too. Unlike the US, Canada, Australia and Germany all have parliamentary rather than presidential systems

So I’m not sure what you are suggesting that Canada and Australia have in common with the US but Germany doesn’t (obviously English and a common law legal system, but I doubt either makes a big difference to government employment)

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#206

Post by fleventynine »

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.

Unfortunately, there isn't enough competition for this to be true. In many markets the largest incumbents are able to build a moat to stop smaller, smarter companies from competing. Sometimes this is regulatory capture, but it can also be that the market is a natural winner-take-all market, and in that case well-thought-out regulation can be necessary to enforce competition.

Venture capitalists shy away from funding companies that want to compete in a well established market. They view it as a race to the bottom with no huge payout.

Once a company is large and well established, it can be as bloated and inefficient as any government, and it will extract rent with it's IP, real-estate, and means-of-production for decades before it has to worry about failure.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#207

Post by rawgabbit »

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…

In technology we see this is not true. Windows blue screens and brings the economy to a halt. Azure and windows is riddled with security gaffes. But everyone looks the other way.

Google search is nothing but ads but the majority still use it.

A clue to why this dysfunctional market exists is all the tech CEOs pay homage to the Oval Office and shove monies into untraceable PACs thanks to Citizens United.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#208

Post by sensanaty »

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.

Have we really already forgotten "Too big to fail"? It wasn't that long ago that those words were uttered and the US gov't bailed out failing private companies with taxpayer money.

And on the topic of profitability that pops up in these discussions, what about public transport? Healhcare? Power plants? Nuclear weapons maintenance? Should these be "profitable"? Is profit supposed to be the be-all-end-all state for everything? Because from where I'm standing, profit incentives make the world an actively worse place when it's free from oversight and regulation. If it were up to Nestle, the entire planet would be a giant reservoir only they could draw water from in order to produce soda. If it were up to Chiquita, all of South America would be a giant banana plantation to the point where they funded actual paramilitary organizations to achieve that goal.

The most profitable route for most companies is the route that is objectively worse for everyone involved minus the shareholders that reap the profits from their antisocial, short-term-minded destructive behaviors.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#209

Post by tmoertel »

consumer451 wrote: post #174
modeless wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. The US healthcare system is evidence that this is an overly simplistic view. In a not for profit healthcare insurance system, every dollar not spent on patient care is considered waste, and we work to decrease it. In a for profit healthcare insurance system, every dollar not spent on patient care is consi…

> In a not for profit healthcare insurance system, every dollar not spent on patient care is considered waste, and we work to decrease it.

That’s cute. But the reality is often closer to this version:

In a not for profit healthcare insurance system, every dollar not spent on patient care is considered waste, so we give it to ourselves and find a way to call it patient care.

Re: Mark Cuban offers to fund former 18F employees

#210

Post by atlgator »

garrettdreyfus wrote: post #47
kingstoned wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's generally a myth that government employees are somehow receiving low total compensation and they could do better in the real economy. Here's one government employees providing stats and experiences about what it is like to work for the government: https://www.betonit.ai/p/the-joy-of-government-employment

This post says very little and you can look up almost all public salaries.

What good is knowing their salary if you don't know what their skills and experience are? How can you say they would make more in the private sector? You're just trading one set of assertions for another and neither of you have data to back up your claims.
Post reply on HN