Scott Kupor, managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), discusses efforts to design market structures that suit growth-stage technology companies.
Prediction Held up
Kupor: Federal workforce will shrink by 300,000 employees due to DOGE
“We've done a lot of work over the course of this year, a lot of which was catalyzed by Elon and the Doge team. As a result, we expect probably that we'll end up with somewhere around 2.1 million employees at the end of the year, so roughly about a 300,000 redu…”
Assertion Supported
Kupor: OPM introduces forced distribution, capping top executive ratings at 30%
“So one of the things that we're doing, we just put out guidance on this, at least with respect to what are called the SES, which are the most senior level people in government, is we are effectively doing a modicum of a forced distribution. And so we put out g…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Scott Kupor: U.S. government is unprepared for rapid technological advancement
“Technology continues to advance rapidly and, you know, just to be blunt, the government is nowhere near prepared for it. We just don't have the right talent here.”
Insight
Kupor: Federal culture treats risk as binary while ignoring upside
“We've kind of just embedded in the culture, this idea that risk is like this pass fail thing. Like you either have risk or you don't have risk. And if you have risk, God forbid, like, you should ever go there, basically, and so that to me was like the most eye…”
Insight
Kupor: Political weaponization of failure prevents a portfolio approach to innovation
“There's no concept I would say of a portfolio. Everything is a one-off project. And when a one-off project fails, then whichever party didn't sponsor it says, those guys are idiots.”
Assertion Supported
Kupor: 99.7% of federal workers receive performance ratings of three or higher
“So fours and fives, so the very, very top, is roughly 65 to 70% of people get a four or five. 90, when you add threes, fours, and five, that's 99.7%, ok? So 99.7% are a three or higher. 0.3%, therefore, is a one or a two.”