points
10 months ago
| 5 comments
| HN
These initiatives always end up the same way: bureaucrats distributing taxpayer money to the socially focused careerists at the top of large companies and academic institutions (perhaps after they’ve left and founded a startup). It’s just so engrained in the European way of thinking that you need to ”be someone”, not ”understand something” or ”be able to do something”. It’s sad, but that’s how it is.
zppln
10 months ago
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> you need to ”be someone”, not ”understand something” or ”be able to do something”

This very succinctly describes the entire management class here in Sweden... The public sector is run by incompetent people who have to buy consultants to do anything and the private sector is led by the same kind of people to the point where actually competent people avoid going into management. I wonder how long we can keep this up.

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hulitu
10 months ago
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> The public sector is run by incompetent people who have to buy consultants to do anything

No, this is just the definition of state corruption. They could have competent people, if they wanted to.

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cess11
10 months ago
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The public sector isn't allowed to hire people and do things that could be perceived as competing with the private sector, which drives paying consultancies for things like software development as soon as the result could work as a product (i.e. more than one government body would want an instance).

Procurement ("lagen om offentlig upphandling"), one of the big wins for the right, is also fundamentally broken in that a lot of the public servants involved are fresh graduates that soon gets poached by private corporations and the organisational response is to sign long term contracts with huge corporations that supply many different things and are also allowed to bring in subcontractors for the things they don't. This effectively destroys any possibility of commercial competition.

It's purposefully designed this way by conservatives.

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hulitu
10 months ago
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> The public sector isn't allowed to hire people and do things that could be perceived as competing with the private sector

That's the problem, isn't it ? The holy capitalist cow stands no competition.

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cess11
10 months ago
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I consider that to be a problem, but for our local 'owner families', i.e. oligarchs or wealthy dynasties, it's not. It allows for very efficient capture of public institutions and a kind of glacial stability that makes people in power feel more safe even though some of them have to switch roles every three to ten years or so.

Historically regimes like this tend to incite a lot of violence, either through criminal organisations as people seek fame and fortune outside the paths controlled and largely captured by the elites, or through militant revolution that might turn into civil war. I consider it highly irresponsible by our large unions and mainstream labour parties to having given way to this situation, they should have 'learned from history' as the tankies of old put it.

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carlosjobim
10 months ago
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Leave Sweden is the solution for people like you who don't appreciate how things are arranged. You can be much more successful in a more mature economy where there is a better connection between productivity and career opportunities / renumeration.
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bgnn
10 months ago
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Very nicely put! I have been in discussions with these type of people, several times, to start a company in semiconductors and quantum computing. I was often the only one who can "do" things and it was not appreciated. Academics didn't have the time or will to start a company (and had no industry experience), but wanted to have more than 50% of the shares because the government or EU gave the money to them, in return the university wanted 30% cut because they bring "a prestigious name", bug companies forced on you by EU funds did't want shares but they wanted control (board seat) and IP rights. All these were for <500k seed fund which would barely cover couple of engineers salary for a year!
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bjornsing
10 months ago
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That’s the typical racket, yes. 20 years ago I saw it as an unfortunate consequence of policy mistakes. But now I’m more inclined to see it as the intended purpose of these systems. ”It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”
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constantcrying
10 months ago
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It is not like this is the first time the EU has flushed enormous amounts of money into a non-existing sector. The results, especially when compared to US venture capital are abysmal at producing actual products, especially products which could feasibly rival the US tech sector.
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cess11
10 months ago
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I don't recognise this description. To me it seems rather easy to just grab some cash off EU or swedish public investment campaigns by having a credible business plan and a project description that fits the campaign.

Research departments at large corporations with the right contacts can get campaigns designed for them, more or less, which I disagree with but it's not like it fits the picture you give.

The EU also does relatively much of "startup" funding through public credit, which is nice, because bad business ideas are killed fast if they can't beg their way into years and years of burning someone else's money, which we due to the private investment sector also had some of until the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the rate hike.

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bjornsing
10 months ago
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> Research departments at large corporations with the right contacts can get campaigns designed for them, more or less, which I disagree with but it's not like it fits the picture you give.

Not sure what you mean... It fits perfectly with the picture I’m trying to convey.

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cess11
10 months ago
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It's not particularly bureaucratic.
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bjornsing
10 months ago
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I’m using the word ”bureaucrat” mostly as a derogatory term. The problem as I see it is actually a lack bureaucracy. It arises when you hire ”bureaucrats” and tell them ”you are now a general do-gooder who can do whatever you want, like an angel investor but with public money”. The systems that are bureaucratic (in the real sense of the word) actually work pretty well. Sweden owes a lot of its prosperity to a generous unemployment benefits system, for example.
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JumpCrisscross
10 months ago
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> These initiatives always end up the same way

By “these” do you mean anything European, or something specific to this structure?

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bjornsing
10 months ago
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I was primarily referring to EU initiatives. But the national ”innovation system” here in Sweden is pretty much the same. It’s a cultural issue, not an organizational one, IMHO.
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bgnn
10 months ago
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EU government funds are also similar.
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