
Civic Tech Startup OpenGov Raises $25M, Adds Marc Andreessen to Board - sethbannon
http://recode.net/2015/10/15/civic-tech-startup-opengov-raises-25-million-adds-marc-andreessen-to-its-board/
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3pt14159
(Nothing personal, Marc)

This is comical. Marc Andreesen is the least OpenGov-style person I can
possibly think of. He is literally the definition of the American Oligarchy.
When confronted with the Snowden revelations he said both that:

1\. Everyone knew that the government was doing this. 2\. That Snowden was a
traitor.

Snowden's treason was only possible if the public _didn 't_ know what has been
going on, so really this is code for "us guys with investments into company's
that the INT organizations have contacted know what is really going on; we
don't need a pesky whistle blower leaking it to the public".

OpenGov my ass.

"If you look up in the encyclopedia 'traitor' there's a picture of Ed
Snowden."

That is fucking Andreesen. He's not on our side. He's the enemy, in the same
group as the banks that are corrupting our governments.

I get political realism / anarchy in international relations. I really do. I
get how every telegraph ever sent is recorded in some American or British INT
station.

But publicly shaming someone that validated that we essentially live in 1984
as a fucking traitor / criminal is despicable.

Some of us can't be bought. Some people don't care about money so much that
they'll keep silent about assholes ruining our democracies.

Andreesen is just the one we have on record. Half of fucking wall street and
Washington think like him.

And if you find this comment downvoted just remember that our intelligence
agencies have tools to manipulate internet discussions:

[http://www.mintpressnews.com/new-snowden-docs-reveal-
british...](http://www.mintpressnews.com/new-snowden-docs-reveal-british-spy-
tactic-to-social-media/194034/)

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throwaway18384
I'm very happy for OpenGov, a note:

I interviewed with the team and learned about their projects. Speaking
candidly, I was ecstatic and optimistic about a "civic" startup, that has
potential to bring tech break throughs to neighborhoods and local governments;
however their current projects didn't seem that exciting, they rubbed me off
more as projects any appropriately marketed consulting shop could take.

~~~
grinich
Working with government is the ultimate schlep startup.

~~~
tyre
That hasn't been our experience at all.

1) You're working on something meaningful.

Look at what OpenGov is doing: making government financial data more
transparent and accessible. Compare that with your average Yet-Another-Food-
Delivery startup or "bringing the blockchain to an industry that doesn't need
a blockchain."

2) The people you work for are unbelievably appreciative.

Every local government office we work with is so thankful for what we do.
Basic features — scheduling an email reminder, scoping by geography,
autocomplete — blows their minds. This goes back to (1), since you're helping
them accomplish really meaningful objectives.

3) If you keep the hiring bar high, your team is incredible.

Passion is something you hear a lot about in the Valley, but how passionate
can you really be about SnapChat. Maybe there are interesting challenges, but
get a group together that wants to take on government and you're guaranteed to
jump out of bed in the morning.

Precisely _because_ most people see working with governments to be a schlep,
the ones who do self-select for passion.

~~~
akjetma
may have been a reference to this essay

[http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html)

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tyre
This is a great sign for the entire government technology space.

The potential for impact is massive. If we can save 1 hour per week for each
of the 10.5 million local government employees, that unlocks 273,000 years of
human potential every 12 months.

To rekindle love for public service, Seneca Systems is hiring in product
design, front, and back end engineering.

Ruby, Elixir, React, Postgres, geospatial mapping.

[http://seneca.systems/careers](http://seneca.systems/careers)

~~~
maresca
If you've ever worked for or with a government entity, you'd find that saving
time or money isn't a priority. In fact, departments try to spend as much as
their budget as possible for fear they won't get as much next year.

~~~
tyre
We hear that assumption a lot, but it hasn't been the case in our experience
(working with Chicago, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore, etc.).

At the local level, budgets matter. Even if you're going to spend your entire
budget, spending less on tools frees up more budget to spend on other things.
Things like community events, more staff, creating programs to engage or serve
under-represented groups, commissioning cross-departmental studies.

Saving time absolutely matters. The common belief is that local government
employees are lazy or incompetent. Again, we've never found that to be true.
Many of them came into public service to serve their communities — no one gets
into local government for fame or fortune — but were beaten down by the
bureaucracy.

They are motivated to do good and better back office tools help them achieve
their goals.

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maresca
I was really hoping this project would be legislation voting and tracking for
the people. I vaguely remember a project from 5 or so years ago that was
called Open Gov based around legislation. Did OpenGov pivot? Maybe it was
called something else.

~~~
davidmooreppf
Indeed, our non-profit project OpenGovernment.org, launched in Jan. 2011, is
still available in open-source code for legislative tracking:
[https://goo.gl/ThcG00](https://goo.gl/ThcG00). This includes the GovKit Ruby
gem, which aggregates open government data with social context to make
legislative info more accessible. We're always looking to re-boot
OpenGovernment.org (OG for short) to focus on contacting state-level elected
officials and discussing issues in the news on the open web - more about our
goals of open data at every level of gov't:
[http://opengovernment.org/pages/about.html](http://opengovernment.org/pages/about.html).
And yes, as Derek said, check out Councilmatic for city-level transparency and
engagement.

