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Comment by mirceal | Hacker News Reader

a country is not a startup. actually most things are not startups.

if things didn’t work out for you in the US that’s fine, just don’t assume you can see the future

Unrelated, there is a trend here. Estonia has been marketing and operating itself like a startup. Many are following it with lithuania introducing e-residency and government services to non-citizens.

It's even more common with island countries where you can buy passports or government services otherwise not available to non-residents in elsewhere without even visiting.

It's 21st century and governments are startups attracting capital and skilled workers (employees).

marketing? maybe. operating? doubt it. if the country you’re a citizen of would say “let’s see how this quarter goes. if thing don’t work out we will reach the end of our runway and all that property you bought is going to be sold to the highest bidder without consulting you” you’d think they are a bunch of clown. “Also, it’s called Estonia today, but it may be Germany tomorrow and you cannot stay here unless you are a German citizen”. Bananas! + Instant uprising against the government.

I defined the limited area they act as a startup above. They are providing government services that are usually only available to citizens to everyone for money.

I know that you mean well, but I feel this is a bad-faith argument. The president at the time was specifically saying he wanted to run the government like a business. From many friends who worked in government, that actually happened to some extent.

I never claimed to see the future, only similarities to things I’d seen before, from friends in government to the news.

I get where you’re coming from and the argument is not in bad faith.

A startup looks to turn an idea into reality and make it self-sustainable and profitable. They will ofter make compromises in order to accelerate their growth (and some things that VC make them do make zero sense if you’re not considering the hyper growth scenario).

A country, imho, offers a framework for its citizens and does not optimize for government growth or government profitability. They don’t need yo justify their existence and don’t need to be profitable to accomplish their mission. This framework offers a multitude of “services” and enables businesses and private citizens to exist + offers them stability needed. By any means it’s not a startup and should not be looked at through the lens of a startup

Ah, yeah. I don’t think a government is anything like a startup. It should be making decisions that span generations. I was mostly referring to “culture smells” rather than anything business-like.

Why not? It is very young (on countries scale) and burns money of investors without producing much value. Typical startup.

The US is one of the oldest countries in the world. It’s older than Italy, for example.

Only if we’re considering strictly the entity.

If we’re considering the land then they’re all the same.

Exactly. People often think European countries are old. The nationalities sure, the political systems such as they are now were born after ww2.

Even the nationalities are debatable. A lot of the national identities didn't form until the 18th or 19th centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_da...

Highly debatable. However, I think most citizens would consider their nations age date of acquisition of sovereignty, not from the date of the current form of government or any other standard.

Anyway, calling United States one of the oldest countries in the world is about as defensible as calling it one of the newest countries in the world. I just don't see the data for it.

There is no data for it, its definitional. The two definitions skew the perception of the answer. Perhaps you care about stability and somehow you've got a correlation between length of government standing and your perception of stability. What defines a country?

haha

imho, that’s not what makes a startup.

in your analogy: who are the investors? the US not only burns the money, it has the ability to print more money. between the petrodollar and the military supremacy the only thing that can topple the US are internal factors.

You mean just like every other country in the world?

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