[Spooky23]

The ridiculous situation isn't using endangered wood, it's doing business with the government entity as a startup. And if you want to do business in Delaware, or Chicago, or the DoD, or Vermont, you need to figure out 50 other things.

Here's the thing -- all of these things are at some level logical. Companies shouldn't discriminate against people and cut down rain forests. But the proposition asked by this article and thread is "Why can't startups get government contracts?"

End of the day, to do business with big government entities, you need to spend many dollars on attorneys and lobbyists before you make a cent. And after closing the sale, you need to maintain staff to be SMEs on all of the various compliance regimes that you need to comply with. You need to be big to swim in those waters.