Re-Build

A respected Venture capitalist giving a hard-hitting message on Sociology ?

That's a first for me atleast, and definitely a first for most people during these Covid times witnessing webinars after webinar on the same narrative of “cash is king; valuations will be down, blah blah….” - from actually people who directly or indirectly have a big role in the way things have evolved until now

Clear takeaways for me from the article - 

1. Western nations or so called developed economies, for no dearth of money / technology prowess / so-called institutional resiliency, failed to deliver to its citizens a safe and healthy country to live in
2. Crux of this deteriorating situation are the blatant gaps in the systems driving health, finance, public administration
3. A part of the reason, though the article leans towards all of it, is the lack of will on part of the “powerful” (resource hoggers) and the lack of demand / accountability from the service consumers
4. To stay clear of being called a leftist post, the author clearly challenges public institutions to come clean and deliver to the promise of universal access to world class health, education and utilities across divisions of society
5. Like a clarion call, the article ends by calling people to regroup and have the voice of service consumers (ordinary citizens) heard louder and demand more from the people representing you

So far so good... I don’t think many people could have said it in that clear terms from the vantage point that he is in. I would like to take this narrative slightly forward and add -

a) The quote of Peter Drucker comes to my mind... "Culture will eat Strategy for breakfast". Come to think of it - isn't this what a cultural anthropologist will conclude at the end of Covid episode and take count of the fatalities !! More empathetic, grounded, content and culturally strong societies have rallied around their administration to ward off the flooding waters from the neighbourhood

b) Politics and governance are intertwined in almost all spheres of life and whether they add value to a change / innovation process or not - they definitely add layers of inefficiency 

c) Each country could have seen it coming much before C-19, when say number of deaths in USA without adequate health coverage were rising or when in a country like India urban reforms never built systems to protect the urban poor from daily wage swings, provide social security or created enough jobs to meet the demand of an exploding populace 

d) Enough incentives (hidden I must say) engrained in the policies that allow for protection of vested interests be it the insurance lobbies in US or the vote-bank politics in developing nations like India that make sure that a certain percentage of population remain in the eternal need for education, food, shelter - to ensure that they get elected back on promise of it. It is like a nation needing an enemy nation to bolster its defence spends

e) It would be suicidal, in my view, for nations to look inward and build everything onshore and lose the advantages of resource arbitrage - cost, innovation, talent

I always pause myself when I tread the boundaries of idealism, but in this article … what the heck !! Re-Build....

1. Revving up an economy and public service organisations need to start from redrawing the nation’s P&L to simply identify the priorities for public spending, sources of income and simplify the process of transfer of income / resources to fulfil that priority. Easier said than done - you would say. In my dreams I never thought of sending money to a person using a sms / phone number - did you !
2. Restructure the subsidies and benefits completely to identify the actual citizen groups which need support
3. Like the value-added tax approach, tax the honest tax-paying citizen at one point of economic activity than kill his appetite to spend and save 
4. To do all of the above effectively and to deliver a functional administrative machinery without the “hidden incentives” - reallocate human talent from pockets of bureaucratic bulge and create new jobs in roles that will define new standards of service delivery
5. Last but not the least, what stops the VC community (going back to where this article started from) to fund companies which will “truly build” to plug the institutional gaps than chase companies bleeding away wealth in lieu of a valuation multiple

P.S - Have always wondered which sane person would write 1-2 lines over and above a great piece of article s/he wants to share. Can't believe I wrote such a lengthy one inspired from a piece by a celeb influencer in the VC space.

[Photo credit: Home Water Softener Reviews]