Govtech: The $400B Market Hiding in Plain Sight
Veterans will dominate in a lot of these contract bids because they have veterans preferences and many get disability points on their contracts, too. The federal employment system heavily favors veterans and oftentimes lowers standards of employment just to bring in more veterans into companies. Then add in that companies can be essentially paid extra for hiring a veteran on certain contracts and you are left with a heavy bias for employees and leadership whose primary experience in organizations is the old school, rigidly hierarchical military.<p>Trying to work with some of these guys in a start-up setting outside DoD space is no more frustrating than trying to work with a corporate developer that&#x27;s never had any job besides at IBM their whole lives. It doesn&#x27;t mean they&#x27;re bad or unintelligent, but the rigor and emphasis upon certain organizational structures and workflow processes are just plain useless knowledge in a start-up focused upon execution.<p>There&#x27;s a lot of cultural horrors that will keep out motivated, smart folks from working with the government. I&#x27;ve spent well over 10 years of my life hoping to be the change that I was recruited for, but it&#x27;s just not enough to be smart and motivated as much as well connected to incumbents that are fighting very hard against change because their very expensive meals and Mercedes S500s depend upon keeping things as stable as possible. This is the precise opposite mentality of the technology giants in industry.