From your interesting article... this is the point in a nutshell.
"Many, many years ago, I worked for an e-commerce startup here in Silicon Valley, and I ended up (sort of by default) in charge of trying to open up the government market for what we were doing. It involved meeting with a slew of all-too-slick, ex-politician, ex-military "consultants" with no technical knowledge whatsoever, who, for $15k to $25k/month retainers plus a (large) cut of any deal, would drink hard liquor and promise to "connect" us with big companies with government connections, and then help us sneak past the government bidding process to get no-bid contracts. It was an eye-opening experience that highlighted for me that getting government contracts in the tech world was very much about who you knew, rather than any actual knowledge, skills or experience. While this was quite a long time ago, it would appear that little has changed."
When success is not based on merit and quantifiable things such as sales and profits...
it becomes all about who you know and back door payments and corruption.
As Willie Brown once said the problem with San Diego is that its politicians sellout for too little.
Which is kind funny in terms of economic thought.
The projects which get approved are the ones which generate so much profit they can pay off politicians.
Quote from Fractals 'R Us:
The buzz is that the Demokratz didn't trust anybody enough to farm out the programming work to the private sector like an ordinary business decision would lead them to do. It was a political decision, they didn't want any contractors being subpoenaed by Republicans. They hired the people that did their campaign website and their cronies...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...t-internet-native-companies-to-build-it.shtml
