Sometimes the entity your startup is disrupting is bad government

A lot of government regulation is ostensibly designed to preserve and protect the customer experience. The problem is, however, that regulation moves far too slowly, it can be corrupted by special interests, and enforcement is hard to scale. It often fails to live up to its intended promise.

Think of Uber. The medallion system and other regulatory conditions were ostensibly designed to protect riders from unsafe cars and unsafe drivers and from taxi companies flooding the streets with taxis. It failed. However, it created a number of unintended consequences and was ultimately hijacked by the taxi companies to create false scarcity and protect their business.

Uber‘s job was not to build a business that was respectful of regulation, but rather understand the original intent of regulation and create a technology framework that delivered an incredible customer experience - in a way that regulatory framework never could.

The regulatory system is now being forced to adapt.

Sometimes the entity your startup is disrupting is bad government.