YC's request for startups: Government 2.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#131

Post by atlasunshrugged » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #49

maxxxxx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has to come from politics. Capitalism unregulated will pretty much always lead to a few accumulating more and more and increasing their power.

Indeed. Want to fix government? Run for office or work in government. Anything else is polishing brass on the Titanic. Hat tip to the USDS and 18F [1]. Hard working people making an impact. YC: Why not consider hiring lobbyists to enable existing, impactful teams more velocity? [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/444159-congress-shoul... (Congress should grow the Digital Services budget, which more than pays f…

What about a solution that makes it easy for any small group to hire lobbyists? Something like Kickstarter campaigns for cause areas where you want to get something done (eg. prison reform) so you create a campaign and get people to contribute; it hits a minimum threshold and the platform hires a lobbying firm to work towards the goal. Of course, with lobbying there are no guarantees anything happens, but would be interesting (sorry this isn't very thought out, I'm just reading the threads here and this came to mind)

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#132

Post by marknadal » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #5

In Andrew Yang's recent panel at Monetery Tech Summit, he was making the case that most of these are problems that the free market doesn't reward solving: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhNpbPhFwRc&t=957 These are all important problems, but there have been people working on them for decades already without much progress. What we really need is for either government to tackle these problems itself, or else to put in…

Incorrect.

The free market can reward this, with certain incentive structures ( https://hackernoon.com/wealth-a-new-era-of-economics-ce8acd7... ).

It is Capitalism that doesn't. Neither does Socialism. :/

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#133

Post by boucher » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

SRasch wrote: post #86

nabnob wrote: post #28

The solution to income inequality is not going to come from venture capitalists and private companies. I have an idea for a non-profit that tackles a systemic problem, but I can't help but look at some of the other yc grads and think that their companies seem hopelessly out of touch with the problems they're trying to tackle. Promise is mentioned as "tackling mass incarceration", but their company seems geared more t…

I think you're making a category error by thinking of companies and countries as completely different. In the global world countries can be seen as sort of quasi-companies that happen to have monopoly control on a particular area (a monopoly that is slowly dissolving with the internet) + force. There are many ways a company can help solve problems that we tend to think of as government problems. 1. Government also bu…

But they are completely different.

On the most basic level, governments are responsible to their citizens and their only purpose is to serve those citizens.

Companies are responsible only to their shareholders, who may or may not be their customers. Their only goal is to earn money for those shareholders.

Companies get to pick their customers, governments do not.

The examples you give are instructive. Intuit spends a tremendous amount of money lobbying against improvements to the American tax system that would benefit everyone, because that would mean fewer profits for them. Fedex competes in some ways with the USPS, but USPS provides a government mandated service to every remote region of the country, which a private company would not do, because as a country we decided that service was an important function of government. Plus, Fedex actually uses USPS for a significant percentage of their deliveries.

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#134

Post by atlasunshrugged » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:24 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #40

petepete wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in agreement. The problems of government are best solved by pairing civil servants, the ones who know how to run the country, with enthusiastic, well-funded teams. The end goal should be open, accessible projects built with open accessible tools. https://gds.blog.gov.uk/

And here in the states we have the USDS and 18F doing great work. The just need more funding. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F

Do you have any knowledge about how Code for America is doing? My understanding is that they're more on the citizen engagement side of things and have built a few cool solutions. Maybe we need more orgs like that (or need to contribute more resources to them)?

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#135

Post by yeahitslikethat » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

tyre wrote: post #119

thomasjudge wrote: post #51

As someone who works in technology in the public sector at the state level, let me just say that there is tremendous greenfield opportunity for software startups within existing government programs. Probably every program that government runs requires one or more systems to administer it; these are often painfully legacy systems. We are starting to see startups in some of these niche line-of-business areas (Medical M…

100% agree. The problem is not that there aren't opportunities to improve but that getting those into the hands of users is often nearly impossible. Public officials are not incentivized to improve software or even services. People vote based on emotions and the downside of fucking up a software upgrade is far more politically damaging than the upside of fixing it. Until the procurement and purchasing process is impr…

I had the same experience. Too many hoops to jump through. No one trusts the decisions public employees make so there's too much Red tape.

Sales is too expensive.

The value to the public might be millions. The software value to the organization is nil.

Their attitude:

Oh we can process applications 10x?? Why bother? The people will wait. They always have. Why change it now? Staff won't want to learn something new.

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#136

Post by Slam7min » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:28 PM UTC

yeahitslikethat wrote: post #130

Slam7min wrote: post #126

Municipal Government Employee here (from a top 15 US city). Municipal & State IT systems (particularly around cyber-security) are atrocious (See Atlanta, Baltimore Ransomware). Many of our (and our peers') systems are a hodgepodge of paper, excel sheets, legacy systems, and new off the shelf systems. At the end of the day, government maintains a strong role in the operations of cities, counties, and states. For examp…

I've tried so many times to work with government entities. It's a complete mess. It seems the only people who want to fix the problems don't work there or are fine with the problems.

Yup, we're a hot mess to work with.

Challenges:

- Procurement rules that require RFP/RFQ to obtain software and limit departments' abilities to get low cost, easy-win solutions.

- Older, non-tech savvy workforce

- Administrations that focus on high visibility IT projects (to public) without thinking about the not sexy foundational issues that are needed. Also politics.

- Siloes between departments that result in many types of systems that don't talk to each other.

- There's so much to do within government and so much that can be improved that the people who get things done are often overburdened. We're both understaffed and overstaffed at the same time. (not enough project managers!)

- Startups try to sell us solutions on problems that are only a small part of a bigger issue

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#137

Post by zxcvvcxz » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

>We believe this mindset is the result of increased family debt, stagnant wages, and a lack of government commitment to provide equal access to the basic services families need to thrive. These services include access to quality education, affordable housing/healthcare/food, physical safety, accurate news and information, a social safety net, and a livable environment.

Absolute nonsense.

We are wasting more money than ever on publicly funded and shared services, and are taxed more than ever. We are moving individual and family money into large bureaucratic holes of un-productivity.

We need LESS government and more incentives to have stable nuclear families, the original drivers of wealth and stability and growth for human civilizations.

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#138

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #131

toomuchtodo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Want to fix government? Run for office or work in government. Anything else is polishing brass on the Titanic. Hat tip to the USDS and 18F [1]. Hard working people making an impact. YC: Why not consider hiring lobbyists to enable existing, impactful teams more velocity? [1] https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/444159-congress-shoul... (Congress should grow the Digital Services budget, which more than pays f…

What about a solution that makes it easy for any small group to hire lobbyists? Something like Kickstarter campaigns for cause areas where you want to get something done (eg. prison reform) so you create a campaign and get people to contribute; it hits a minimum threshold and the platform hires a lobbying firm to work towards the goal. Of course, with lobbying there are no guarantees anything happens, but would be in…

Stripe Atlas for Political Action Committee creation and maintenance essentially? I would throw money at that. I don't entirely agree that money is speech, but I also don't believe in bringing a knife to a gun fight. Or perhaps Upcounsel for lobbyists.

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#139

Post by nickpsecurity » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

boucher wrote: post #133

SRasch wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're making a category error by thinking of companies and countries as completely different. In the global world countries can be seen as sort of quasi-companies that happen to have monopoly control on a particular area (a monopoly that is slowly dissolving with the internet) + force. There are many ways a company can help solve problems that we tend to think of as government problems. 1. Government also bu…

But they are completely different. On the most basic level, governments are responsible to their citizens and their only purpose is to serve those citizens. Companies are responsible only to their shareholders, who may or may not be their customers. Their only goal is to earn money for those shareholders. Companies get to pick their customers, governments do not. The examples you give are instructive. Intuit spends a…

"On the most basic level, governments are responsible to their citizens and their only purpose is to serve those citizens."

In the US, the default is to appear to support citizens while doing a mix of what lobbyists pay for and actually serving citizens. The mix favors the rich folks' lobbyists whenever there is a conflict. The leaked Citigroup memos called this a plutonomy, a capitalist form of plutocracy.

Re: YC's request for startups: Government 2.0

#140

Post by atlasunshrugged » Thu, May 23, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

I can't help but feel that with better representation (or at least representation that felt they had to actually do right by voters) then we would be in a much better place and many of these problems would be solved through legislation. I know this is glossing over many things like lobbying, gerrymandered areas, favoritism for incumbent candidates, etc. but I really think there's something to getting more people elected who represent the people and have a serious interest in passing legislation that actually helps people and solves major societal issues.

Maybe political training for "everyday" people who pledge to vote the way the majority of constituents want them to (I think there was a YC startup back in the day that had a software platform for something like this)?

Maybe a political donation platform like Crowdpac that only unlocks donations to a politician if they've voted a way they promised to on an issue?

Maybe a way to help bring more people to the polling station during elections to make them more representative of the population (many poorer voters can't make it as in the U.S. these are often during weekdays, have lines, etc. and they can't afford to take off work or the Uber ride to get to the location)

I've been researching the area and am looking to jump on something full time (currently working for the Estonian govt but will move back into the private sector soon) but haven't landed on a final killer idea so more than open to kicking around ideas with anyone who is interested!