Also, just want to add, if we can adapt to a more commercial platform in the acquisition sector, it would completely upend the defense industry. We have already seen them have issues with a lot of what they are providing sole source, and a lot of them have been doing it for a while. Lockheed, Northrop and Raytheon almost exclusively make all their money from the Government.
They have gotten very comfortable with not competing and jacking up their prices. The data is all over the place. If you allow players into the acquisition realm who have to go out and compete against other industries every day, it would be a complete game changer. If Lockheed/Raytheon/Northrop had to compete against companies like Microsoft, for instance, they would get absolutely destroyed.
We have also tried to organically grow industries with things like Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) where smaller R&D companies or even just dudes in their garage get funding to grow prototypes that have the potential to be real difference makers. It's a 3 phase project (white paper, prototype, low-rate initial production). Phases 1 and 2 have to be with a small business. Phase 3 (post-lobbying) no longer requires the entity to be a purely small business. The problem is any small business that usually makes headway is almost immediately purchased by the Big 5 after Phase 2. Lobbying has also resulted in the company maintaining exclusive IP rights to the end product now for 20 years (used to be 5). So if BIG BIZ purchases that innovative company, they now withhold access to that IP data, even though the Government essentially paid for it.
Anyways, I'm going down the rabbit hole now. Just thought I'd share.
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