The government efficiency committee (DOGE) formed by Trump and Musk previously raised many questions about the U.S. government's use of funds, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently echoed DOGE's views. He believes that if the government solely avoids embarrassing moments on social media, it misses out on greater development opportunities. Vitalik argues that the government should adopt a venture capital (VC) model, willing to tolerate small-scale mistakes while focusing on carefully assessing large-scale plans.
The U.S. government spends a lot of unnecessary money.
DOGE previously stated on Twitter that the U.S. government’s use of funds is quite laughable, and listed some of the government’s 'ridiculous' uses of funds, such as:
Purchasing the design rights for a $28 million 'green camouflage pattern' for the Afghan National Army's uniforms.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent $5 million to help fashion-conscious individuals with a smoking addiction quit smoking.
Spent $510,000 in public funds to study how heroin affects the mating behavior of Japanese quails?
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent $3 million observing hamsters fighting?
Spending $1.7 billion annually to maintain the mosquito museum.
Spent $1 million to print official documents that nobody wants to read.
Spending $860,000 annually to pay for warehouse management fees, aimed at maintaining some unused waste.
Spent $500,000 to build a pancake house?
Spent over $80 million to promote the Super Bowl door-to-door.
Don't just fear making mistakes; focus on the potential of small trials.
Vitalik pointed out that when the government uses funds, a small portion of the plans often get magnified due to mistakes and are subsequently criticized extensively on social media. However, Vitalik believes that such mistakes only account for a very small proportion of overall expenditure. If the government overly pursues 'zero mistakes', not only will it give up many high-return innovative projects, but it will also allow truly inefficient and seemingly 'flashy' plans to persist without being reviewed.
Taking a cue from the venture capital model to pursue high returns, avoiding large projects from becoming sunk costs.
Vitalik advocates that the government should adopt a venture capital (VC) strategy for small public funding projects, which allows for mistakes in order to seize opportunities with potential 1000-fold value. He cites that the venture capital field is filled with many 'sunk costs' investments, but only a few successful cases can have a huge impact. He believes this model is also applicable to the allocation and management of public funds.
Vitalik emphasized that the government should focus on large-scale funding programs, such as national infrastructure or major policies, to avoid unnecessary resource waste and long-term sunk costs. For small trial programs, the government must accept a certain degree of failure risk and focus on stimulating innovative development.
(Trump nominated Musk and Ramaswamy to lead the 'Government Efficiency Department DOGE' to reshape the government structure)
This article where Vitalik agrees with DOGE questioning the U.S. government's use of funds: please emulate the venture capital model, allowing small mistakes for big opportunities, first appeared in Chain News ABMedia.