Dear Chris Sacca,

I agree 100% with everything you said. I work for the Government and I have seen it time and again. I have seen where using commercial, off-the-shelf technology, has been a helper rather than a hinderance. I am actively engaged in that fight from my little foxhole in the middle of nowhere. At the lower level is where the breakthroughs and innovation are happening. I think you, and many others, have echoed the fact that once a business scales to a specific size that innovation gets stifled in the process.

I was just thinking about this the other day how small special ops teams (who consequently have access to all the bleeding edge technology) work in very small teams and are able to accomplish some of the most astounding feats. We go back and forth on this issue in Government. Should we be an autonomous unit? Should we be a Brigade or Division sized element with embedded specialties? Should we be a combination? At some level I think we have gotten it right once in a while. The problem I see that plagues us the most is when we are doing it right and for no other reason than being bored or trying to squeeze more money out of the budget, we go and switch things back because one person high up in the channels saw it work great at some point in time instead of looking at the overall impact or effectiveness (regardless of the setbacks) of a specific methodology.

There are groups within the Government that are actively testing the best tech out there. These groups, for better or for worse, are pigeon holed silos of excellence. A term used graciously in the Government as a tag for people who are doing a thing (good or bad) in their own little world. Its no different for tech that might come out of Silicon Valley that doesn’t talk to other tech already on the market. Instead of leveraging all the solutions that might propel a specific technology they instead stonewall themselves into thinking that their tech is far too secretive or superior to even need any lever. Its a shame but the wholehearted truth.

I would love to share with you some forum discussions I see daily about the state of our tech in the hands of those who need it. It is really not even a tech problem in the Government as much as it is a procurement process problem. We have access and authorization to use certain off-the-shelf tech but three things stifle it: 1)People in the position to approve it, 2)people not being able to present the right tech in the right ways to those who approve it, 3)and the money people who are always trying to cut costs on something that can keep our people (Soldiers and civilians) safe.. and rather spending that money on some office supplies or some bullshit fleet of GSA vehicles we barely are allowed to use. Just my thoughts.