Hacker News Reader

Comment by JohnJamesRambo | Hacker News Reader

"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away." -Ronald Reagan

I've got a lot of issues with him, but this quote is spot on.

One of my many issues with him is that his quotes are trite nonsense.

Not everyone is solely motivated by money, some of the most important work anywhere is in government, and there is fundamentally nothing preventing a government from getting the best workers for the job.

Reaganism is just pessimistically giving up before you even try, and when ~half of the two parties believe it without doubt, it's self-fulfilling. They believe that government cannot do anything well, and then set out to prove it.

Government work still gets some top-capability people, who want to do something more worthwhile than is available in most of business.

If you're into math/crypto, no better place if you're not also into fintech and you don't want to be babysitter in academia.

Depends on the government. Kennedy was able to poach McGeorge Bundy and McNamara (who also recruited Daniel Ellsberg, another member of the Harvard Society of Fellows) from the private sector, as well as enough scientists and engineers to put people on the moon. McNamara had worked for the government before that during World War 2, as well as the entire team of Manhattan Project scientists. The quality of applicants to government jobs took a tumble after the Vietnam era.

Singapore's government pays well enough to compete for top talent against the private sector, and I have no doubt that China is capable of staffing high priority government projects well also.

Isn't every job in China technically a gov't job? If the gov't owns all business blah blah

Reagan being in government shows how spot on the quote is.

I think this is easily refuted by large portions of our government, not least of which is our military. Even if a random Lt. Col. doesn't have enough software experience, they tend to all be damn impressive executives.

People are motivated by more than money. I certainly am, and would be far wealthier if I was only middling on career paths that use similar skills. In the end, talented people (and less talented people) have strong opinions about what they work on when given choices, and money is not the sole consideration.

That's just projection.

"I don't care about anything as much as money, so I know no one else does either."

it really isn't, there's plenty of very smart people in the gov and it's incredibly short sighted (just as reagan was) to assume that less money & more restrictions in how the job operates = lower quality worker

Reply on news.ycombinator.com