with credit to Katherine Boyle
The biggest threat to American prosperity isn’t foreign—it’s domestic. It’s a mindset. A bureaucratic allergy to progress.
Folks, let me lay it out plain and simple: we have a clash of worldviews. On one side, a bloated, risk-averse government trapped in a zero-sum loop—where progress for one group is viewed as a loss for another. And on the other side? The private sector—dynamic, bold, and driven by innovation—that believes in growing the pie so everyone gets a bigger slice.
This isn’t just a policy difference. It’s a battle between stagnation and abundance. Between defending the status quo and building the future. As Katherine Boyle makes clear in her essay “Make Government Cool Again,” it’s time to bring entrepreneurial energy back to the public square—and fast.
In today’s polarized age, the government sector often approaches its role through a zero-sum lens. Political tribalism fuels a scarcity mindset that stifles innovation and entrenches inefficiency. By contrast, the private sector—especially through civic tech entrepreneurship—sees challenges as solvable and value as scalable.
Public institutions, once centers of bold problem-solving, have devolved into fortresses of process. Agencies now prioritize procedural control over outcomes. Compromise is seen as weakness. Reform is someone else’s responsibility. A 2023 Brookings Institution study found polarization alone cost the U.S. an estimated $100 billion annually in administrative inefficiencies. Talent flees the public sector not because it lacks mission—but because it lacks mission clarity.
Meanwhile, the private sector doesn’t wait for permission to solve problems. Civic-minded startups are launching platforms for SNAP enrollment, AI-based unemployment claim processing, emergency response routing, and public records digitization. Boyle’s own firm, General Catalyst, has backed founders building these tools. And larger firms—like Palantir, OpenGov, and even Amazon Web Services—have stepped in where government bandwidth failed.
“You don’t need a DEI task force to fix DMV wait times—you need APIs and someone who’s been awake in the last 48 hours.”
And let’s be real—if the government tried to build Stripe, it’d still be holding procurement meetings in year five and debating font sizes on the login page. Meanwhile, some 26-year-old in a hoodie with a Red Bull IV drip just shipped a working prototype that serves 10 million users and doesn’t crash on launch. That’s the delta.
While the bureaucratic state clutches its pearls over ‘equity audits’ and ‘stakeholder consensus,’ the private sector is busy solving actual problems for real people. Innovation doesn’t need a 500-page RFP. It needs a green light and some cloud credits.
But the private sector isn’t off the hook. Its win-win vision must still confront the reality that government is often the provider of last resort—for rural clinics, veterans, children, and marginalized communities. Private solutions without public values can drift into cherry-picking, leaving the hard problems unsolved. A 2021 OECD report found that privatized water services disproportionately raised costs for low-income households.
The real opportunity lies in partnership. Agencies like the U.S. Digital Service show what’s possible when talent, tech, and mission align. Governments can modernize procurement, adopt performance-based metrics, and welcome civic tech innovation—without surrendering control. McKinsey estimates that digitizing public services globally could save $1 trillion by 2030. In the U.S. alone, over $200 billion in annual taxpayer savings is within reach.
To get there, both sectors must evolve. The private sector must embed public interest in its product thinking. The government must stop treating innovation as a threat. In Boyle’s vision, a government that is “cool again” isn’t chasing trends—it’s empowering problem-solvers.
Let’s be honest: America didn’t become the greatest economy in the world by thinking small or regulating innovation into oblivion. It became great because entrepreneurs built first and asked permission later.
Katherine Boyle gets it—collaboration, not confrontation, is the way forward. If the public sector ditches its zero-sum reflexes and taps into the win-win spirit of the builders, we’ll unlock real prosperity. But it starts with one thing: trust the doers.
Growth solves problems. Innovation lifts all boats. And the best policy for Washington is still this: get out of the way.
The builders are ready. The question is—will government join them, or get run over by reality?