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Charlief's avatar

Would be fun to see you in the US. OMG. Those pompous Americans wouldn't know what to do with themselves.

I bet someone like Peter Thiel would be worth talking to

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Tom M's avatar

Thanks, Dom - v interesting.

I work for a smallish tech startup. I joined ~4 years ago, when we were a rabble of kids in a room. It's now doing pretty well (certainly not unicorn, but valuation tens of millions £)

Despite having a truly exceptional (really 0.001%) CTO and experienced director, in the early days, we were a mess. A total shambles. Lacking direction, changing priorities each day, putting out fires, appeasing shareholders etc.

Of course, in a small company with little to lose, this isn't disastrous. With few customers or major institutions signed up, hardly anyone was reliant on us. We could afford to make lots and lots (and lots) mistakes, and that's how we learned. Today, it's a much better operation.

My question is - if a major government dept was replaced by a startup organisation, would the "success through failure" startup mentality be tolerated by those reliant on its work? Indeed, would it even be morally acceptable? If you were to replace DWP, for example, with a new startup, there would undoubtedly be serious interruptions to UC payments on which people survive.

How can the initial disruption, chaos and failure of the startup be justified (or tolerated), even if it proves more successful in the long term?

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