
YC's request for startups: Government 2.0 - simonebrunozzi
https://blog.ycombinator.com/request-for-startups-government-2-0/
======
Alex3917
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](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 place market
mechanisms that are able to better reward entrepreneurs for solving them.

~~~
berberous
I didn't watch the linked video, but aren't things like education and
affordable housing also problems that governments have been tackling for
decades without much progress and even often making things worse?

For example, economists are almost uniformly against rent control, which many
cities try to implement. And the flood of government money encouraging
educational loans seems to have made college costs spiral.

Personally, I think both the free market and the government can do good and
can do bad. Sensible policies and entrepreneurs can help these issues, and bad
policies and bad companies can worsen them.

~~~
Alex3917
The government is in charge of determining what types of businesses are
profitable though, so even areas where the government hasn't been effective
usually still require better government policies in order for the markets to
be able to offer solutions. There are certainly problems that businesses can
ameliorate given current government policies, but it just isn't realistic to
think that we can solve every problem on our own by routing around government.

~~~
ibeckermayer
Exactly right. I can give you a perfect example from a project I'm working on:
[http://openinsulin.org/](http://openinsulin.org/)

We're working to make medicine more affordable, focusing on insulin in
particular. Insulin has been around for decades, it's easy to make. Technology
has been improving, things should be getting cheaper. Instead, insulin
continues to rise [1]. People with diabetes need this stuff, if they don't
have it they'll literally drop dead.

The left wing "solution" to this problem is to force taxpayers to subsidize
it, and perhaps impose price controls. The right wing "solution" is to puke
some cookie cutter line about the "free market" and America's incredible
"innovation" in drug development, exposing his skin-deep understanding of what
those terms mean. (Later, he'll throw a fit about how so many millenials want
socialized medicine).

So our startup idea is to create cheap small-scale insulin production
hardware, except the second we try to pay back investors and become "for
profit", we get regulated like any other drug manufacturer. That means we need
to hire an army of lawyers, go through a multi-year multi-million dollar FDA
approval process for all the production equipment etc., and open ourselves to
patent lawsuits and other weapons of corporate thuggery that the big-time drug
companies are so willing to wield.

If we manage to make it through that gauntlet of fuckery, god knows if we'll
actually be able to sell it for any cheaper than the status quo. I'm open to
being told I'm wrong about this problem, but from my understanding there's
simply no way to solve this problem without massive regulatory reform.

[1] [https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/11u1Lqm70xFl0kWTtrt6kAEhrSE=...](https://cdn.vox-
cdn.com/thumbor/11u1Lqm70xFl0kWTtrt6kAEhrSE=/0x0:1903x757/920x0/filters:focal\(0x0:1903x757\):format\(webp\):no_upscale\(\)/cdn.vox-
cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8500453/ioi150073f1.png)

~~~
kaushikktiwari
This is really cool--did you hear about how a bunch of hospitals are coming
together to manufacture generic drugs that are marked up by PBMs--I imagine if
something like that where a stakeholder with input in the buying process can
come in and guarantee like a monopolistic market for an upstart..the drugs are
going to be cheaper but the fact that the hospitals themselves are consumers
means people can take long term bets without fear of losing money

~~~
ibeckermayer
Hmm that's an interesting avenue. I've heard of that briefly somewhere but
haven't put any thought into seeking out partnership. Thanks for the tip.

------
thomasjudge
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 Marijuana licensing, Senior & Long Term
Care services, ...) but there are many other areas yet untouched.

~~~
tyre
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 improved—changes that, in my
mind, have to come from within—building better products just doesn't matter
all that much. (I say this as someone who co-founded a YC-back company
building software for local governments and burned out after 2.5 years trying
to sell into them.)

~~~
yeahitslikethat
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.

~~~
tyre
And they almost literally cannot go out of business. The incentives aren’t
there.

I don’t know. I sincerely hope someone figures it out. We could improve so so
so many things

~~~
empath75
the government isn’t about efficiency, it’s about fairness. (In theory).

------
gioele
If anybody is planning anything that combines laws, versioning/revision
control and public access to legal resources, please get in touch with me. I
have quite a bit of experience in that field that I'll be happy to share
thoughts and talk shop.

~~~
bytematic
I have been dreaming about a government system of laws that uses open source
version control with a github-like ui, maybe even a constitution. If I had my
own country, that's how I would do it.

~~~
dymk
I think as long as we base the kernel of the Government on Rust (for a
fearlessly concurrent Government), we'll be in the clear. Also protects
against terrorist memory tampering.

Congress could submit new laws to Blockchain to combat tampering and ensure
proof-of-work.

My startup is working on Artificial Intelligence to predict laws that model
cities like San Francisco or New York would want to implement in the face of
acute social woes, so if Government 2.0 could provide a RESTful Lobbying API,
that'd let the People move fast.

~~~
scarejunba
Bit of an old joke, no? I think the "descent to the absurd" style here doesn't
make sense because there is a concrete reason for what he's saying: lowering
the barrier to suggesting changes in laws in a more structured form.

You could point to the diff and talk about it. Worthwhile, I think.

~~~
dymk
Absurd? I'm just as serious about what I'm proposing, as I am about a "Github-
like UI" for the foundations of our country.

~~~
scarejunba
You're just being silly now. No one's saying "merge the PR to change abortion
laws". They're talking about tooling to look at proposed differences clearly.

It doesn't seem absurd to me to have a diff, watch that evolve as new versions
are proposed by people, and then finally watch what goes in. Obviously ground
truth is still in the books, with laws debated in parliament or congress or
whatever, but this acts as a shadow tracking that movement. Even if the act of
passing were to end with a merge in of whatever law is debated, that's still
hardly troublesome. It only increases transparency and doesn't remove any
checks or balances.

Bit hysterical of a reaction for a rather minor request, in my opinion.

~~~
dymk
You were able to discern a lot more detail from "Github-like UI" than I was,
so kudos to you! I guess I'm just bad at reading into really presumptuous
details like that when they're not there.

Interesting that you're calling me silly or hysterical for simply proposing a
fearlessly concurrent Government built on Blockchain technology. After all,
we're going for Woke Government 2.technotopia, not Broke Government
1.capitolhill.

------
jakelazaroff
You're investing in these companies, right? You expect them to make themselves
— and you — money?

The problem is what happens when we get to ways to solve the problems these
companies are tackling, _without_ the companies. If we enact universal
healthcare, will Gusto pivot? If we structure our economy to remove the need
for food stamps, will mRelief shut down?

Or will there be attempts to entrench these problems so these companies still
have something to solve?

~~~
halfjoking
It reminds me of an op-ed about Imperfect Produce destroying local food coops.
Their whole pitch to investors is they're environmentally friendly but in
practice they are actually entrenching the agribusiness industry by competing
with better alternatives:

[https://newfoodeconomy.org/imperfect-produce-ugly-food-
waste...](https://newfoodeconomy.org/imperfect-produce-ugly-food-waste-
commodification-community-supported-agriculture/)

Startups need to make money, and it will always be way more profitable to sell
software to those with power/money than those who are disadvantaged.

------
CPLX
I have a request too. I’d like to see a reduction in the power and influence
of unaccountable billionaires over our public policy.

I wonder if the people who write things like this have processed the fact that
they are no longer insurgents, but the entrenched establishment with a very
bad history of exploiting the masses for private gain.

Any sane person should instinctively distrust the idea of giving valley tech
startups and private equity firms more power over the mechanics of government.

~~~
tootie
I think this is not the real root of any particular problem. I think
entrenched power is good at exploiting weakness in the system. The fact is
that the major pro-wealthy policies aren't snuck in as obscure riders to
normal policy. Candidates run on a pro-wealthy platform and people cheer for
it. The question is why are voters so easily convinced to vote against their
interests.

------
Slam7min
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 example, our city manages the issuance of
more than 250,000 permits annually, a road network of more than 10,000 lane
miles, and an annual capital infrastructure budget of nearly $1 billion.

There is a very real need for better IT systems that can be customized to meet
the needs of differing legacy systems and data structures by municipalities.
If our city is any indication of the industry, there is an insane amount of
waste and mismanagement that can be attributed to poor/legacy systems or data.

~~~
yeahitslikethat
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.

~~~
Slam7min
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

~~~
mdorazio
It's kind of sad that the exact same list of issues applies to many Fortune
500 companies I've worked with.

------
JohnFen
I have to confess, this effort makes me very, very nervous.

I already think that business has replaced too much of what government should
be doing, and has too much influence over what it hasn't replaced. Also, given
the activities coming from the tech industry over the last decade or more, I'm
even more nervous that this is aimed in that direction.

Increasing the amount of that doesn't seem wise to me.

~~~
Uhhrrr
Bleah - government shouldn't be the default actor in a space unless it's
absolutely necessary. It's actually a good thing if community problems can be
solved by smaller organizations which don't need tax money or coercive
measures to get things done.

~~~
save_ferris
I disagree with this.

There are many spaces that can be maintained either publicly or privately that
when privatized don't always result in the best outcomes for consumers. A good
example are private utilities.

I had a relative that sold his house in a municipality in east Texas and moved
to a new development in central Texas. He intentionally chose a house just
outside the nearest municipality to avoid paying local taxes. It all seemed
great until he got his first water bill from the private water company, only
to find that his water bill was astronomically higher (2.5-3x more). His other
private utilities were a little higher than what he paid previously, but he
was particularly upset about the water.

The water company isn't some multinational corporation, but they have a profit
incentive, zero competition, and they control the water infrastructure, so the
community there doesn't have much leverage in that scenario.

~~~
Uhhrrr
I find this thoroughly unpersuasive. A 2.5x water bill in exchange for no
municipal taxes and no zoning laws and other picayune regulations?

~~~
save_ferris
I have no idea what the zoning situation is for him. The bottom line in his
case was that he thought he was saving money by staying out of the
municipalities, only to find that his total cost of living really didn't
change at all.

On top of that, public utilities are accountable to the public, while private
utilities are accountable to shareholders. There were no obvious economic
reasons for the incredible disparity in price, other than one utility had an
incentive to profit while the other didn't.

------
astuary
Disregarding the misaligned incentives of for-profit enterprises delivering
the kinds of services that are traditionally handled by governments, what
evidence is there that technology can materially improve many of these
services?

Many of the needs listed in the post (housing, education, food security, etc)
are largely challenges of resource allocation. I'm skeptical that a web app
can somehow make landowners willing to encourage increasing the housing stock
in a city.

~~~
mwseibel
It is hard to predict how a small startup can grow to address a huge problem
until after they do it. What we want to do is back the founders who are at
least trying to solve these problem.

------
YjSe2GMQ
I'm genuinely doubtful that people would want a tech-associated fund to try
and mess around running the government. I mean tech doesn't get much of good
press lately.

Not that I agree with that sentiment, but "something needs to be done with
Facebook!" is one of the few things that both US parties seem to agree on.

~~~
chuckgreenman
There are people who want to improve government with technology, just because
it's an uphill battle doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.

Also, governments are big spenders. Plenty of incentive there.

~~~
Noos
The real motive is your latter point, to capture evergreen money through
government spending. Trying to find opportunities to be the vendor of choice
in new ways.

------
ghobs91
A startup working on a secure digital voting system should be one of the top
priorities here. As it currently stands, this is what the voting experience is
like:

\- Always on a weekday, so if you have a job and then a family to take care of
after work, good luck finding time.

\- Long lines, so that even those who find time are discouraged by standing
around in November weather.

\- The countless cases of voting locations in minority areas conveniently
having broken machines or other barriers that prevent them from voting.

This environment has essentially optimized the experience for one group:
retirees who have the time and energy to prioritize their day around voting.
It's no surprise that legislation often favors this specific group as a
result.

My high-level vision of how digital voting would look:

\- A secure open source app that verifies your identity before letting you
vote.

\- Every candidate on the ballot would have a bio detailing their policies and
views, to be filled out by them.

\- A digital approach would make it easier to eventually adapt the system to
involve things like ranked voting.

This would allow everyone to vote whenever and wherever they want, no relying
on external factors like those mentioned above. It also provides one
consistent place for every voter to see the same information about the
candidates, rather than placing that task in the hands of media and their
inherent bias/interests.

That's my 2 cents, I'm excited to see how startups tackle this.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
IMO there's no such thing as a secure digital voting system. Complexity is how
vulnerabilities and exploits get into in-use systems. You want things as
simple and obvious as possible, and that means using and counting physical
objects of some sort.

After all, it's much easier to notice a hundred thousand pieces of paper
getting added to the vote-counting system than flipping some bits that
represent a hundred thousand votes.

The voting system definitely needs improvement, but a digital app is
absolutely not the way to go. Vote-by-mail solves nearly all the issues you've
brought up, and seems to me to be a good intermediate step.

------
byoung2
_refreshed the Request for Startups_

I didn't see the link in the article, but here is the list mentioned:
[https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)

------
laurenWWH
I have been working a project to create a place where youth can exhibit their
writing talents outside of the standard educational system. Exceptional
students exist in all schools, but in districts like Oakland, their work never
gets visibility. We Write Here
([http://wewritehere.com](http://wewritehere.com)) aims to fix that.

Student created content has way more relevance than what the government can
mandate. Eventually, we will expand beyond writing. I was a K-12 teacher for
the past 10 years, and know this to be a critical need. I have been building
this for the past 6 months, and we have gotten 200+ submission, and published
and awarded 25+ amazing students.

Does this fit under Government 2.0? Even otherwise, would love to hear what
the community feels about it.

------
atlasunshrugged
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!

~~~
dnautics
'at least representation that felt they had to actually do right by voters'

What is the mechanism by which you propose to enforce this? Who gets to define
"do right by voters"?

~~~
atlasunshrugged
Not sure the exact definition, I meant it more as the politician would have to
do what they said they would do when they were campaigning (as in fulfill
their promises). The enforcement mechanism is what I think is most lacking
today - even when politicians break promises they often still get reelected
(hence the Congressional reelection rate compared to voter approval). The
pessimist in me says it has to be purely based on money because money is what
really talks, but maybe there's another mechanism too

------
tptacek
There were better ways to word this and a better name to give it.

~~~
idlewords
And better people to run it.

~~~
visionaryturtle
Why is this not run by PG or SAMA?

------
lifeisstillgood
I have been banging on about this sort of thing for ages

[http://oss4gov.org/manifesto](http://oss4gov.org/manifesto)

I have come to the conclusion that commercial offerings in the government
space are just fucking over the taxpayer and should be replaced by open source
services maintained in specific ways

\- OSS for gov should be seen as a pro bono "year out" for professionals on
their journeyman year

\- OSS needs to be funded at government level _for development_ and _for ops_
separately. Something like a kickstarter / auction for features and for
support

\- this oss suite gets to become well known and cross supported - because so
many small companies work on it they can become a matrix like support network
- no worries that there is not a single huge supplier "supporting" their crap
source, here comes a "Guardians of the Galaxy" web of small ships all able to
pick up the load from another because they all know this big code base

\- This is partly "let's bring _our_ government into the digital age, but more
importantly its "let's bring all governments" \- including those not so
democratic. Look at how the GDPR just made itself the default. Now think of
every small interaction with government being designed with individual agency
in mind. this is potentially the biggest act of cultural "laying down of
rails" since the Napoleonic code. Shall Western democracy do it?

\- remember "developer hegemony" \- this is where such firms would do well

Any way - bed time so not well put but it all popped into my head so wanted to
share

------
jpmattia
Having been part of the startup community in both Silicon Valley and greater
DC, I think this is a much-needed and brilliant effort on the part of YC. I
hope it pays off in spades, both for the public and YC.

That said: My hat is off to anyone who manages to cross the divide between
silicon valley culture and govt bureaucracy culture. Navigating the
differences in those world views is not for the faint of heart.

~~~
mwseibel
Thank you :)

------
nabnob
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 towards improving efficiency in criminal justice agencies. Do they
really think that an app that sends reminders is going to help failure to
appear rates? Crime, recidivism, failure to appear etc are deeply rooted in
poverty and hopelessness.

How does a reminders app fight any of those problems? People fail to show up
to court because they don't see the point, because they think the system is
stacked against them, because they can't afford to take the time off of work,
because they can't find child care, or because they don't have transportation.
It's ridiculous to suggest that an app that sends reminders of court dates
will make an impact on any of these problems.

~~~
Kalium
To be sure I understand you clearly, are you making the claim that making sure
people don't forget or lose track of court dates will help _literally nobody_
avoid going to jail?

~~~
lumens
People for whom forgetfulness is the reason they'd miss a court date are
likely solve their problem with a normal calendar reminder.

 _Literally nobody_ is probably close to accurate.

~~~
Kalium
One of the things I've learned is that a non-trivial number of people never
acquired what some might consider basic life skills. Like keeping track of
upcoming future events or adhering to a schedule.

For all the important systemic problems that parent rights points to as _very
important_ , most of them have also proven to be rather intractable. Helping a
few people whose major problem is that they never learned how to schedule
strikes me as much more tractable.

Sometimes helping people means having to choose between a minor-but-
addressable aspect of a large problem and a major-but-intractable one. Just
because someone thinks they've found somewhere small where they can make a
difference doesn't mean they have earned scorn for not being intimidated by
poverty and hopelessness.

Small changes can add up. They certainly do a lot more than giving in to
despair.

------
mwseibel
Hey folks - happy to answer questions about our new RFS.

~~~
nabnob
I have an idea for a non-profit that tackles a systemic problem, but the
companies you've listed 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 towards improving efficiency in criminal justice agencies. Do they
really think that an app that sends reminders is going to help failure to
appear rates? Crime, recidivism, failure to appear etc are deeply rooted in
poverty and hopelessness.

How does a reminders app fight any of those problems? People fail to show up
to court because they don't see the point, because they think the system is
stacked against them, because they can't afford to take the time off of work,
because they can't find child care, or because they don't have transportation.
It's ridiculous to suggest that an app that sends reminders of court dates
will make an impact on any of these problems. Have you encouraged the people
in Promise to talk to experts in this area?

Or is your approach with all of these systemic problems to just make some apps
that crunch data and send reminders?

It really does not make me want to apply, given that you are listing a company
like this as one of your bright, shining Government 2.0 examples. Not that I
would trust a bunch of VC's to tackle income inequality anyway, but it's
almost funny how terrible these companies are about missing the mark.

~~~
grandmczeb
> Do they really think that an app that sends reminders is going to help
> failure to appear rates?

Text reminders empirically reduce failure to appear by a huge amount[1]. Maybe
you don’t understand the problem as well as you think?

[1] [https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/text-message-
rem...](https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/text-message-reminders-
decreased-failure-appear-court-new-york-city)

------
blang
I honestly don't know what Gusto does that is different from companies like
ADP (established 1949), especially in being framed as Government 2.0.

------
hluska
I find this very exciting - it strikes me that this field could create some
tremendously valuable companies, whose impact upon society will be even more
valuable than they are. Great work and best of luck to everyone involved in
this general space!

------
jamesjyu
In a recent newsletter from Robin Sloan (sci-fi writer), he shares what he's
heard from a few engineers that work in China:

"The Chinese government is building an OS and, in the not-too-distant future,
the world will be split: those nations that adopt it, and those that don’t.
This OS isn’t just software – it’s also access to Chinese capital, investments
in infrastructure, and more – but it is ALSO software, a very capable suite,
and it includes the world’s best facial recognition software. The sales force
is out there now, signing up clients. This is happening."

Anyone else heard more details on this?

~~~
kaushikktiwari
most of the amazing facial recognition tech is actually israeli--and turns out
the biggest buyers of military foreign tech tend to be competitors of china,
so not sure how much legs this OS idea has, unless you mean small eastern
european republics signing up

~~~
kaushikktiwari
still love the OS idea--it found its home on a HN thread. The US has been
selling the word its OS for the most of the last century, some would say about
time another one showed up

------
newmac
"[..] the goal of making America a better place"

This sucks to see from YC. So many of us around the world look to YC as an
accessible version of American prosperity. America is an exclusive and very
rich club however.

A bigger impact than improving American government would be: Improving
American Democracy. Improving global government.

I know things have changed a lot in America in the last few years, but I
didn't realize how pervasive the nationalistic mental model had become.

YC: Do good in the _world_ , please.

~~~
AlexanderNull
America is in the world. Next question please.

Seriously though, there's millions of people here who have been left out of
the exclusive and rich club. The UN repeatedly dings the USA for the standard
of living of many of our citizens and our terrible legal/justice system. So
much of our government meant to help those people is either deliberately
underfunded or mismanaged and can use all the help it can get.

How the heck can we figure out how to help government abroad when we can't
even get our own right?

------
parthdesai
The irony when they talk about affordable housing but don't say a word about
AirBnb which is fucking over long term renters in popular tourist
destinations.

~~~
mwseibel
What about the hosts who use Airbnb to help them pay their rent?

~~~
parthdesai
Do you actually believe that?

What about the cities where Airbnb skirts the regulation and zoning and makes
it a hell for people living there? What about Airbnb filing a lawsuit against
cities when city wants an occupancy tax? If Airbnb was so serious about
helping hosts pay their rent, it would only allow one unit per person/owner to
be listed on the platform and honour the day limit imposed by some cities. You
and I both know it very well that Airbnb is nothing but a glorified hotel now.
There are studies out there that nicer neighbourhoods of the city where
Airbnbs tend to concentrate have seen more increase in rent compared to other
neighbourhoods.

I really liked, in fact love the idea of Airbnb if it functioned the way it
was supposed to be. But all it has done in desirable cities (speaking of
Toronto in my case) is take units off the market for long term renters who
actually live and work in the city, thus contributing to increase in rental
prices and make it tougher for people to buy their first unit since people are
investing money into buying x+1st property to Airbnb in it. I'll appreciate it
if you actually reply to this post, and i'm willing to discuss it further.

------
0xDEFC0DE
Note that none of those startups are currently tackling stagnant wages
directly, which is really what would fix a lot of the other problems listed
here.

I've worked for a company that paid millions for a contract and software that
ultimately wasn't used. There was tons of corporate waste that could be solved
by simple internal CRUD apps and a little user training, purchases that
weren't used much (if at all), projects that were bad from the start, and
apathetic leadership with a comfy golden parachute.

But why would I make a startup that encourages companies to pay their
employees more? Or fire bad leadership and bad employees? Or stop making
dumbass purchases? Or stop giving out golden parachutes and force leadership
to actually have skin in the game?

No business would hire that startup.

~~~
Kalium
More to the point, _how_ do you address an issue with hundreds of contributory
causes? It's so large as to be effectively intractable. It's akin to trying to
cure the common cold.

Of the issues you listed, dumbass purchases is by far the most tractable. It
aligns with existing incentives. It's something companies are broadly already
on board with. It might even be possible to contractually hook it in with
departmental compensation to boost wages with part of the funds when waste is
found.

Now _that_ sounds a lot more workable than "tackling stagnant wages". Might
just be me, though.

------
ackbar03
I don't feel like any of these ideas are going to be viable businesses...

------
pron
Here's a better idea: encourage talented young people to join civil service or
run for office. Companies can help government in many ways but have a
relatively low positive impact.

------
WilliamEdward
Companies already run the government. We need less of this, not more.

------
dominotw
> 57% of Americans believe that children in America today will be worse off
> financially than their parents.

I cannot seem to find this in the linked survey( seems to link to some
methodology about us-german relations). Can someone help me find it. only
google hit for this is this YC article.

> 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.

What is the basis of this guess?

------
westurner
There's money to be earned in solving for the #GlobalGoals Goals, Targets, and
Indicators:

 _The Global Goals

1\. No Poverty

2\. Zero Hunger

3\. Good Health & Well-Being

4\. Quality Education

5\. Gender Equality

6\. Clean Water & Sanitation

7\. Affordable & Clean Energy

8\. Decent Work & Economic Growth

9\. Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure

10\. Reduced Inequalities

11\. Sustainable Cities and Communities

12\. Responsible Consumption & Production

13\. Climate Action

14\. Life Below Water

15\. Life on Land

16\. Peace and Justice & Strong Institutions

17\. Partnerships for the Goals_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_Development_Goals)

------
rkagerer
I've been thinking about creating a platform for discussion of present-day
issues, built on a reputation-based contribution system akin to how
StackOverflow surfaces quality content.

The goal is to give average citizens a place to go to:

    
    
      - become informed about all sides of an issue in a quick and easy way
      - share a new opinion, or up-vote a remark that resonates
      - monitor and engage in affairs you care about while ignoring those you don't
    

I feel democracy in North America needs to foster more constituent
participation, and I think the internet can turn governance into a two-way
street.

Anyone could open an issue, no matter how controversial. Anyone can provide
their opinion, and one of the challenges is figuring out how to engineer the
site such that high-quality submissions float to the top while trolling and
inappropriate remarks sieve down to obscurity. Conflicting positions would be
grouped into major camps with the top-voted contributions of each equally
showcased (picture the Amazon review page with the most helpful positive and
negative review on top).

Each issue would have a section organizing fact-checked, unbiased research
presented from well-reputed sources (possibly distinguished through community
moderation) and make that work easy to cite. It would also track related,
real-world events as they occur (e.g. bills being voted on, court cases,
protests, breaking news, etc). We'd link to existing sites where it makes
sense (e.g. Wikipedia, Factcheck/Politifact, stuff like TheyWorkForYou, etc.)

The site would offer (but not require) to collect your demographics and share
anonymized stats with levels or branches of government you choose (e.g. local
counselor, municipal utilities, state, etc) or social researchers. You could
opt in to lightweight surveys from your representatives (targeted by
geography, demographics, or issues of interest) to help them gain more
granular understanding of the needs of their constituents.

This isn't fully fleshed out and I know it covers a lot of ground - too much
for one startup to do all at once. Some of it has already been attempted by
others. Would love to hear your thoughts on it.

One thing I became convinced of pretty quickly is in order for this to succeed
it needs to be built and hosted by a non-profit able to maintain a strong
public reputation for being unbiased.

------
adpirz
I'm on board with this. This sounds like creating products / software that
basically make public ops much better.

As someone with a background in education, this is what I wish more edtech
startups focused on. Yes, instruction is core, but so much of what's failing
in today's schools is bad ops -- hiring, sourcing, maintenance, managing
student data, etc. It's also all based on many legacy public systems.

------
MWilcut
If anyone wants to help Veterans, I am an attorney, 5+ years in assisting Vets
get VA benefits. I have A LOT of fully formed concepts, but amateur/hobby
technical ability. Most immediate goal is to compliment but go well beyond the
very minimal efforts that USDS has been doing for Vets directly the last 2-3
years. VA has coopted USDS into assisting the VA first, Vets only
incidentally. matt@deutermanlaw.com

~~~
chc4
I'm surprised to hear about this. USDS is paraded around as one of the poster
childs of how to pair tech with the public sector and effective government
work. Are there any posts about how they failed with VA benefits?

~~~
MWilcut
I was actually considering writing one but I have no established presence or
blog. I'm a full-time attorney but I've been following USDS work with VA for
years now. I am subscribed to every update in certain respositories.

In very very short terms, the tools have been designed from scratch without
primary stakeholders (veterans, their advocates) for 2-3 years and they are
just now considering opening up to stakeholder issues on their github.
Instead, they focus on VA employees say they need to accomplish their jobs or
even VA contractors.

Certain VA employees have publicly stated ownership of the USDS's work on
their behalf, it's "their" software and not the public's or Veterans', and it
is clearly designed as such.

I could give very specific examples all throughout the USDS VA Digital Service
github account but I'll just leave this nugget[0] (which I wrote) from October
2017. They just stated their intention to begin to incorporate stakeholder
ideas only a few months ago[1].

What would actually improve Veteran's claims processing starts with what
Veterans and their advocates can do - to SAVE government resources doing the
same thing or codifying it into complicated software on their end.

[0][https://github.com/department-of-veterans-
affairs/caseflow-e...](https://github.com/department-of-veterans-
affairs/caseflow-efolder/issues/624)

[1]see very bottom of [0]

------
sjg007
Some food for thought: [https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/22/18634612/anand-
giridhar...](https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/22/18634612/anand-giridharadas-
billionaires-philanthropy-zuckerberg-bezos-kara-swisher-decode-podcast-
interview)

------
motohagiography
The real disruptive techs for govt will be advances in things like fully
homomorphic encryption (FHE), data tokenization, identity (happening today),
privacy enhancing AI and other privacy enhancing technologies that facilitate
data sharing that is impossible today due to jurisdictional and legal issues.

One of the biggest things that is going to hit government that people haven't
articulated is the effect of Agile development on service economics.

Short version is, iterative development was designed for things that grow
revenue, so the cost of maintaining them using devops is minor when you are a
growth SaaS business. Waterfall methods were designed to be built by expensive
developers and passed on to cheaper operations groups for long term
maintenance lifetimes of a decade or more.

Keeping developers on staff to patch libraries, iterate on features and
maintain solutions that have fixed revenue/funding allotments is much more
expensive than most agencies understand they are signing up for.

Going to a cloud subscription model creates massive procurement problems with
vendor lock-in and competitiveness issues, and it also takes PII and sensitive
data out of their custody and control.

I think to understand government, you need to understand public sector
economics, which are centrally planned and do not reflect the reality of the
outside economic world.

------
greenstork
I think the key to improving the US government is to bring the system closer
to a one person, one vote situation. I believe the best way to achieve this
would be to do the following: 1) Abolish the electoral college and go with the
popular vote for the presidency. 2) Weight a senator's vote by the population
of their state. So a senator from California would have more voting power than
a senator from Alaska. 3) Draw congressional districts via an "I cut, you
choose" type system [1]

Our current system has a number of problems. Swing states in presidential
elections become the focus of presidential candidates and their platforms,
even though those states are not home to the majority of the US population.
Also, our current system creates weak links in the chain that are easier to
exploit. For example, if you are a corporation looking to block legislation
the most efficient means of doing so would be to contribute to the campaigns
of the senators from smaller states. The average amount raised in 2012 by
senate winners in California was $29.3M vs just $1.7M in Utah. It is much less
expensive to influence smaller senate races, but the voting power a
corporation would influence is the same. [2] If senate voting power was
weighted by population, corporations or other groups would have to influence
costlier senate races.

[1]
[https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2017/november/i-cu...](https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2017/november/i-cut-
you-choose-cake-cutting-protocol-inspires-solution-to-gerrymandering.html) [2]
[https://dposorio.com/822/the-cost-of-winning-a-senate-
race/](https://dposorio.com/822/the-cost-of-winning-a-senate-race/)

~~~
britch
Why do you need a start up to do this? How would a start up even do this?

------
hitekker
If you felt the need to write this footnote,

>1\. To be clear, we do not seek to replace the government and its
policymakers but seek to fund startups that create solutions that provide
Americans the foundations for economic growth

Why did you give this project such a provocative name? It's borderline
trolling.

------
neilv
Will there be better outcomes for society if such efforts are pursued as non-
profits?

~~~
mwseibel
There are forprofits and nonprofits on our list.

------
kaushikktiwari
Love the debate on this thread whether startups can't meaningfully tackle deep
societal problems.

We are the working on building a free universal basic safety net for all:
[https://betterbank.app/](https://betterbank.app/)

Essentially it's a checking account+insurance policy, bank with us and if you
ever got hurt we will pay upto $5k in cash…use it for out-of-pocket expenses+
lost wages. It's free because we make money from debit interchange, targeted
at either uninsured young folks who find obamacare to be too expensive or
families with high deductibles.

Do we qualify as a profit minded start also doing good? If not, are there any
other models out there

------
edoceo
My team and I are working on software tools (GPL3) for government technology.
I'm excited to see these developments!

------
JabavuAdams
I don't see tech being a solution here. As a Canadian, this is one of the
areas where Americans and Canadians differ very noticeably. The US seems to
have a dogmatic / religious belief that government is bad, and that business /
private enterprise is the answer to almost everything. Even among HN Silicon-
Valley progressive types who are so similar to me, there's a difference in
mind-set. It's like it's in your milk, air, and water growing up.

------
zackmorris
I'm in my 40s and old enough to remember when the government ran just fine
(before the national debt grew to $3 trillion in the 80s). We grew up wanting
to go to Space Camp, and build human-powered airplanes, and hack into our
school to change our grades. There was none of this dour doom and gloom about
government overeach we have today. Fast Times at Ridgemont High and The
Breakfast Club demonstrated that our biggest problems were finding dates and
getting into college, not worrying which constitutional freedom the government
was going to take away next.

IMHO the problem happened when the propaganda machine began telling us that
the government is the enemy and can't do anything right:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA)

I know that many people still believe that today, but they are wrong. My
_personal_ evidence for this is the fact that our education, infrastructure,
and social safety net were all much stronger in the 80s than today. The catch
is, that they weren't strong for everyone. Women and minorities were largely
left out. The 80s were mostly about the growing pains of transitioning from a
1950's style nuclear family economy to a 21st century one where every human
being has equal dignity. That scared a lot of people, and resulted in AIDS and
the war on drugs, among a great many other social ills that
never.should.have.happened.

The _scientific_ evidence for the lack of justice and progress in 40 years is
the vast wealth inequality today. We're what, 2, 4, 10 times more productive
per capita than in 1980? But make less money adjusted for inflation? Someone
stole that money. And they did it politically. The catch there is that
politicans are the symptom of dysfunction, not the cause.

With all that out of the way, I think we can still have a vision forward. I
think that to get the USA back towards the top, we need to address every
ranking where we currently suffer: education, healthcare, infant mortality,
college/personal/national debt, environmental sustainability, being
overworked/underpaid, lack of transparency in government, on and on. We know
the problems, but our two major political parties have us deadlocked and
distracted so they can skim from us to line their own pockets and those of
their donors in order to maintain artificial scarcity and rent seeking to
bolster hierarchy.

Politics aside, there is a huge, untapped, public sector market that has been
starving for capital since 1967. There was a long term agenda to convert that
to a private sector market by means such as HMOs, the privatization of
education, and buildup of the military industrial complex without an
industrial superpower threatening us.

Personally I'd like to see money be shifted from those things back to the
public sector (We the People), but that's unlikely to happen because our
economy is made up of the middlemen it feeds now. Luckily with our increased
productivity, we can find a way to feed everyone.

Government is traditionally good at long term investment. So it's going to be
a shift for any private sector startup to go from short term thinking to long
term planning. But for example, there is nearly infinite opportunity in things
like the Green New Deal, distrupting the ISP duopolies, bringing the arts and
humanities back into education, big data/machine learning in medicine, new
forms of transportation, organizing labor/guilds, peace corps and legal
financial instruments to provide people the means to work off and/or settle
their debts, and so on. These are comparable to the federal budget, perhaps
$1-4 trillion annually in untapped opportunities.

------
graenxa
Who needs public services when you can have private for-profit start-ups?

I'm sure the new startups will always prioritize serving the citizens over
making money. After all, that's what private for-profit organizations have a
long track record of doing.

In seriousness: I'm sure the listed start ups do good work. There are ways
tech can help government and people.

Government 2.0 is awful branding. The idea that you can "upgrade" our
government with a handful of private companies is downright anti-democratic.
How about instead of trying to replace the existing government with private
organizations answerable to a few very rich individuals, you work with
existing democratic structures and try to improve them.

~~~
petepete
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/](https://gds.blog.gov.uk/)

~~~
monocasa
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/United_States_Digital_Service)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F)

~~~
atlasunshrugged
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)?

~~~
AlexanderNull
Code for America continues to grow and release their apps in new areas of the
country. They've got their annual summit in Oakland next week (29th) and
they'll be looking to get more director level folks involved because of the
current growth.

------
tyre
I agree with the spirit of these but (venture) capitalism generally feels
unsuited to tackle the deepest underlying structural issue in the United
States and the world: poverty.

Growing up in poverty has strong correlation with traditional measures of
success (high school/college graduation) as well as being shown to affect a
child's IQ[1], working memory[2], language development[3], etc. At that point,
we can increase access to college and healthcare and whatever else, but the
damage has been done.

Education can do some good, but if the problems are environmental, if the
challenges are that children can no longer go to school because they need to
care for siblings/children of their own[4] or work to supplement their
family's income or grow up with PTSD from gun violence[5] or end up in jail
because they're taking advantage of the limited means available to them,
then…I mean I don't know. It feels like capitalist enterprises focused on
adults might not be the real solution here.

And please don't take this as criticism of YC. Their Basic Income project is
the most forward-thinking approach to solving this exact problem, but
precisely because it doesn't try to solve poverty through capitalist means.
The risks associated with doing business with people with low income means the
interest rates for lending (payday loans) are unconscionably high. Businesses
just aren't incentivized to help the poor.

I think it's going to require political action. Not only helping people
vote—YC's funded a number of initiatives here—but specifically supporting
candidates who will tackle poverty[6], who focus on the root of so much
suffering in our country and our world that is not directly solvable by
capitalism.

And in fact, Silicon Valley's greatest success stories are directly fueling
wealth inequality. Not only destroying jobs but centralizing wealth into a
small corner of the world. Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, etc. take wealth from all over
the world and centralize it into the Bay Area. When these companies IPO, the
vast, vast majority of that wealth created comes back to Silicon Valley.

Capitalism is not the answer to every problem, nor was it meant to be.

Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations about markets, but he also wrote The
Theory of Mental Sentiments about reducing suffering. Markets to him were a
tool in the pursuit of happiness, and sometimes that tool did not fit.

So I agree with the sentiment here, but believe there is more to be done,
perhaps more important or impactful work to be done, beyond the bounds of
capitalist enterprises.

[1]:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3052975/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3052975/)
[2]:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662958/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2662958/)
[3]: [https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~mfarah/Development-
povertyassocia...](https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~mfarah/Development-
povertyassociation.pdf) [4]:

Biggie Smalls:

> Yeah, this album is dedicated > To all the teachers that told me I'd never
> amount to nothin' > To all the people that lived above the buildings that I
> was hustlin' in front of > Called the police on me when I was just tryin' to
> make some money to feed my daughter (it's all good)

[5] Chance the Rapper:

> It just got warm out, this the shit I've been warned 'bout > I hope that it
> storm in the mornin', I hope that it's pourin' out > I hate crowded beaches,
> I hate the sound of fireworks > And I ponder what's worse between knowing
> it's over and dyin' first > > 'Cause everybody dies in the summer > Wanna
> say your goodbyes, tell them while it's spring > I heard everybody's dying
> in the summer > So pray to God for a little more spring

[6]: For this reason I believe that one of the greatest political tragedies of
modern American politics was the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

------
quantgenius
Income equality is not a problem as such. It's a natural consequence of
technology seeping more and more into society. In Shakespearean times all
musicians made money by performing. The best ones performed for the king and
made more money but all made money. With digital distribution, the best ones
can reach everyone, and everyone wants to listen to only the best ones, so the
best ones make a killing and other musicians turn into starving artists. There
is going to have to be a transition of people into professions that aren't
easily distributable or automatable. You don't need a startup to fix this.
This is precisely what capitalism is good at doing, though it does take time,
creates winners and losers and causes some segments of society a lot of short
term pain.

The big problem is that if you take into account all capital invested in the
financial industry, so investments in VCs, hedge funds, mutual funds but also
deposits in banks, financial firms have been a) generating lower rates of
return and b) passing a smaller percentage of those returns to investors.
Banks in the US keep/spend 60-70% of returns generated on all capital invested
with them. In Europe it's actually worse, about 90%. Couple this with the fact
that the middle class doesn't have access to and doesn't know how to do due
diligence on investments that generate higher returns (the better hedge funds
and VCs) and that policy makers have held rates extremely low for a very long
time, and you have we are now.

Even though people are not making a lot less from employment, their total
income (including returns on saved and invested capital) and net worth is MUCH
lower on a relative basis and it's clear that their children are likely going
to be worse off than them and they may not have a retirement. This in my
opinion is likely the cause of the appeal of Trump.

Both problems a) and b) mentioned above are not because the financial industry
is evil. It's because large parts of the industry, particularly the parts that
serve retail investors and depositors are obsolete in how they are structured,
for example the very idea of a mutual fund (including ETF) or indeed any
vehicle that pools capital, except in situations where material capacity
constraints exist, is obsolete because unlike in the 1950s where pooling
capital reduced transactions costs, it now dramatically increases transactions
costs and hence lowers returns.

The industry won't fix it itself because the best and most innovative people
working in areas serving retail get pulled into areas that can charge 2 and 20
and because doing so means they compete with their own most profitable
businesses. Most extant fintechs won't fix this because putting an API or web-
page in front of extant products doesn't solve the underlying problems.

I don't think the typical VC funded startup will fix this because there is an
extreme focus on going to market immediately and then iterating. If that's
your approach you are going to end up building a web front end to Vanguard or
an API to ACH and focus on marketing. Decent returns to VCs but you don't
actually fix anything or approach anywhere near the returns possible with a
higher risk approach. Extreme immediate focus on iterating is great if you are
a 20 year old who hasn't built anything yet. I don't think it works all that
well if you have a couple decades of industry experience, know what to build
because you are likely your own most finicky customer.

Full disclosure, I am working on fixing this. We (at different firms) built
systems that essentially took the US equity market electronic and early HFT
systems. That in some ways was a much simpler problem but it still took us 2
years of building and testing with our then employer's capital, essentially
serving as our own clients, before we went to our first external customer. We
are following the same process now, essentially coming up with a different way
of structuring our client's relationship to us, dealing with the regulatory
headaches that come from that, and developing novel algorithms to handle
investing for retail clients. If you are interested in this sort of thing, can
program well, love data science but understand that even when doing something
exciting you will spend 70-80% of your time munging data, get in touch.

------
pl0x
Come on YC, the silicon valley elites have destroyed so much of our society.
Do we really expect you to fix it? You all need to read Anand Giridharadas
"Winners take all".

