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I too experienced several million dollar efforts that went nowhere. Governments in general are not geared to think about returns on investment, but our current one is quite terrible.

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And I'll say, outside of the military, the public sector does not attract competence. There are exceptions, certainly. But the pay and the level of bullshit tends to attract those who either want to play politics, or who want a secure paycheck and benefits with little accountability, or just can't really perform at the level most private sector work demands.

I think government, in general, is built to be slow and deliberate, but as the pace of tech change has accelerated, the responsiveness of government hasn't kept up. Git was invested in 2005, for example.

ref: https://bhc3.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/consumption-spreads...

The government is geared towards risk aversion and ensuring that the friends of the people at the top are taken care of.

Results are secondary. This is possible because there's no accountability for not getting results.

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