This is a weird article. The author has plenty of background and standing to comment on the topic.
But he's leaving out that many of the problems the government seeks to address are bigger than what a "startup" (his word) would ever address. A better comparison might be between governments and very large-scale enterprises -- not startups. A lot of his words have to do with software, when typically the problems governments address have to do with (in increasing order of difficulty) hardware, big infrastructure, or society, or other societies. The startup/government comparison is not parallel for other reasons too -- and it's exhausting to enumerate!
I mean it almost makes sense if the purpose of the company is to make it's employees richer, happier, and overall have a better life. And if you consider that ROIs that take decades or a century are still profitable. But I'm not sure of any company that operates this way because how can your product be employee well being?
Nobody's talking about the whole government being a startup. He's saying that government agencies can't be run like a startup. As far as scale goes, many government agencies are smaller than many successful startups.
But he's leaving out that many of the problems the government seeks to address are bigger than what a "startup" (his word) would ever address. A better comparison might be between governments and very large-scale enterprises -- not startups. A lot of his words have to do with software, when typically the problems governments address have to do with (in increasing order of difficulty) hardware, big infrastructure, or society, or other societies. The startup/government comparison is not parallel for other reasons too -- and it's exhausting to enumerate!