[gopher1]

Can you elaborate on this? Because there were plenty of projects funded by no-bid government contracts that failed. Likewise, plenty of government R&D dollars have also gone toward efforts that have failed.

Nobody bats 100%, but it all becomes worth it when they hit on something very big, like the micro-processor or the internet.

[logfromblammo]

Different people define failure in different ways.

In business, if you fail, your assets are liquidated and recycled or transferred to your former competitors, your customers go elsewhere, and you lose the ability to command economic resources.

In government, if your contract fails, your company/team/department/bureau/whatever still exists, and is still eligible to fail again the next year. There might be a reshuffling of personnel, if anyone is watching, but there is no real penalty for failing to deliver.

The important thing about business failure is that resources are reallocated away from the people who created the failure towards those less likely to fail (in the same way). This mechanism is not usually present with government.

[avmich]

I've got perception that bureaucrats are reluctant to change things for the very reason the new things can come worse - and those specific bureaucrats will be held accountable, in one way or another. In other words, I doubt there is no reason to try to do better.

May be incentives as a whole are different enough - say, lesser, if we can compare - with government-baked projects rather than with privately backed ones.

Could it be so that government is less efficient, but only on some projects where it can have good competition from private resources? May be government is better - or actually the only option - with some other areas, where you just can't find private backing?