I feel like there's important context here, such as this company was founded before Trump entered office, and the government weather balloons were so inefficient that a private company thought they could compete with free data.
Government weather data is exactly the kind of thing that should be private.
Problem is there is no money in this for the private market, so the government will have to pay 10x more to get a patchwork of private entities to do the work the government was already doing.
If we don't get these people out and revert all they did there won't be much of a future for this country that isn't becoming another failed economy with a few places being a little bit better than the others. The US will be a third world country soon.
This is an anti-pattern. Doing the work that the government should be (and was) doing and then selling back the data to them or others when the data should be (and was) public domain is absolutely terrible for society.
Just to put it in perspective: it costs $300–500 to produce a single atmospheric profile with current balloon infrastructure. The U.S. launches ~180 a day—that’s at least $54K daily. Not exactly “pennies.” :)
And the government already buys the helium, radiosondes, and ground systems from private vendors—so the money’s going to private industry anyway. It’s just inefficient.
With 50 of our systems doing 4 profiles a day (which is no where close to max scale), you get the same volume of data for way less. And on top of that, because we reach remote and oceanic areas that aren’t being measured today, the data is also more valuable!
Also, the data you’re referring to isn’t inherently public domain. It becomes public when the government buys it and redistributes it. That’s true whether they pay for the infrastructure themselves or buy the data directly from a company.
I'm glad you have come up with something more efficient. The problem has nothing to do with efficiency. You are welcome to make a government contract to sell them equipment or data as you wish.
My problem is with baseline services that have already been stopped that you claim to want to replace. This data feeds all of our weather models and should be done with existing infrastructure until congress changes things. The data must be freely available.
The fact is that the data is available for anyone anywhere and is a valuable resource for scientists everywhere. Your current goals might be laudable right now, but that is not going to be the case when you have to pay back an investor 100x in 5 years. You will do everything you can to lock that data up and make it as expensive as you can. You will have no choice.
By this logic anything could become government run but never transition from government run to privately run, creating a ratcheting mechanism that would eventually lead to ~everything being government run!
The pro case for privatisation (that I happen to believe in) is: you were paying for it anyway, via your tax dollars, having it private leads to competition and stronger incentives to improve/cut costs meaning it will net cost you less.
You are oversimplifying here. I ALREADY paid for the weather balloons and they are no longer being launched. This is not privatization in the way that you seem to think it is. This is explicitly against the will of the people.
I'm fine if they want to make new weather balloons and sell them to people to launch for whatever reason they want. Selling what by law should be public data is anathema.
There is a key difference, privatization means a flat cost, whereas public means an income based cost.
About 30% of Americans get (NWS) weather data for free. They pay no income tax yet receive the same level of public benefits. On the other hand, a handful of Americans pay millions for weather data, and receive the same thing as those who paid nothing.
For a private service though, it would just be $20/mo or whatever for everyone.
I have no issue with it if it is part of a legislative/regulatory framework. This is not inside of any framework. There has been no conversation about privatization of NOAA or any of its functions. These things need to be explicit as part of a democracy.
The current regime has upended that process and has created a situation where the government has no choice but to outsource data gathering to third parties. This is corruption and not in the spirit or the letter of the law.
This startup is attempting to take advantage of an illegal situation which is just ridiculous.
I'm happy if they want to sell fancy weather balloons to anyone that they want, even the government, but selling data back to the government that should be already collecting the data in the first place BY LAW is just corrupt.
It's not - it actually the core mechanism through which the "Weather Enterprise" works. Over 20 years, an important report from the National Academies [1] laid out how an enterprise comprised of public, private, and academic sector interests could work cooperatively to bolster the public good that is weather and climate information and services. It has always been the domain of the federal government to provide core, foundational data products (including forecasts and raw weather observations of many modalities) for both bolstering academic research as well as private sector innovation. The government's mission in the enterprise leaves plenty of room for private sector players to extend, complement, and supplement the foundational services provided by the public sector.
Sorcerer fits perfectly into the existing framework of the weather, water, and climate enterprise (WWCE). They produce complementary data and ensure that the government has access to it - even if the government must procure it (which they're happy to do - no one expects that these companies should give away all their data, gratis). But they could potentially greatly extend the core global synoptic observation system that powers conventional numerical weather prediction, especially for organizations which are more flexible and can work with broader data sources.
This is the WWCE working well. The real concern is on ensuring continuity - making sure innovative companies like Sorcerer can persist, in perpetuity if necessary (or at least the data products they collect and produce).
This is exactly the kind of thing that should be done by private companies, what are you talking about? This data should be something companies compete at to get better at
The reality is that the government is not doing it, so the choices are to sit back and watch things crumble or have private companies work to try to fix things. I agree with you in principle that its a sad state of affairs though.
I can see why that might be frustrating. What about this problem makes it the best fit for the government to handle? Is it prone to natural monopoly? There are lots of things that the government can handle and shouldn’t. Just because the government handled something in the past isn’t a reason in-and-of-itself for it to resume handling it in the future. I’m genuinely curious as I am ignorant of the space.
What private industry has been pushing for for decades is privatizing weather data so they can sell it at a profit. But weather information is a huge public good and has been provided by the federal government for decades. Privatizing it adds more costs to public research, and means that people who don't have money to spend on weather forecasting - those living in poverty and most at risk when it comes to life-threatening storms - will likely die in higher numbers from severe weather.
Related from 9 months ago:
Launch HN: Sorcerer (YC S24) – Weather balloons that collect more data
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41291219
Congrats, @tndl
You guys rock! Big fan
https://archive.md/gTnOw
Good timing
"At least 10 sites have suspended or limited weather balloon launches because of the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Weather Service."
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/weather-balloon...
Their agenda is to intentionally make government dysfunctional as a catalyst to privatize everything. It's working.
I feel like there's important context here, such as this company was founded before Trump entered office, and the government weather balloons were so inefficient that a private company thought they could compete with free data.
Government weather data is exactly the kind of thing that should be private.
Problem is there is no money in this for the private market, so the government will have to pay 10x more to get a patchwork of private entities to do the work the government was already doing.
If we don't get these people out and revert all they did there won't be much of a future for this country that isn't becoming another failed economy with a few places being a little bit better than the others. The US will be a third world country soon.
4 replies →
Next up is the postal service.
Google had something similar as well. I think they phased it out.
I believe theirs was to deliver internet
Welp. Good for them I guess, too bad weather reporting was gutted and is no longer a public good.
At this rate, we'll soon see YC startups raising money to maintain roads.
> At this rate, we'll soon see YC startups raising money to maintain roads.
That model has existed for hundreds of years. It's called a turnpike. There were hundreds of them in the US and UK. [0] Many still exist today.
[0] https://eh.net/encyclopedia/turnpikes-and-toll-roads-in-nine...
I can't access this site... it's behind a paywall
This is an anti-pattern. Doing the work that the government should be (and was) doing and then selling back the data to them or others when the data should be (and was) public domain is absolutely terrible for society.
No one should fund this.
Just to put it in perspective: it costs $300–500 to produce a single atmospheric profile with current balloon infrastructure. The U.S. launches ~180 a day—that’s at least $54K daily. Not exactly “pennies.” :)
And the government already buys the helium, radiosondes, and ground systems from private vendors—so the money’s going to private industry anyway. It’s just inefficient.
With 50 of our systems doing 4 profiles a day (which is no where close to max scale), you get the same volume of data for way less. And on top of that, because we reach remote and oceanic areas that aren’t being measured today, the data is also more valuable!
Also, the data you’re referring to isn’t inherently public domain. It becomes public when the government buys it and redistributes it. That’s true whether they pay for the infrastructure themselves or buy the data directly from a company.
I'm glad you have come up with something more efficient. The problem has nothing to do with efficiency. You are welcome to make a government contract to sell them equipment or data as you wish.
My problem is with baseline services that have already been stopped that you claim to want to replace. This data feeds all of our weather models and should be done with existing infrastructure until congress changes things. The data must be freely available.
The fact is that the data is available for anyone anywhere and is a valuable resource for scientists everywhere. Your current goals might be laudable right now, but that is not going to be the case when you have to pay back an investor 100x in 5 years. You will do everything you can to lock that data up and make it as expensive as you can. You will have no choice.
1 reply →
By this logic anything could become government run but never transition from government run to privately run, creating a ratcheting mechanism that would eventually lead to ~everything being government run!
The pro case for privatisation (that I happen to believe in) is: you were paying for it anyway, via your tax dollars, having it private leads to competition and stronger incentives to improve/cut costs meaning it will net cost you less.
You are oversimplifying here. I ALREADY paid for the weather balloons and they are no longer being launched. This is not privatization in the way that you seem to think it is. This is explicitly against the will of the people.
I'm fine if they want to make new weather balloons and sell them to people to launch for whatever reason they want. Selling what by law should be public data is anathema.
13 replies →
How's that working out for public health in the states?
Weather reporting is a common good. It worked very well for pennies and benefitted the economy greatly. Why privatize it?
1 reply →
There is a key difference, privatization means a flat cost, whereas public means an income based cost.
About 30% of Americans get (NWS) weather data for free. They pay no income tax yet receive the same level of public benefits. On the other hand, a handful of Americans pay millions for weather data, and receive the same thing as those who paid nothing.
For a private service though, it would just be $20/mo or whatever for everyone.
3 replies →
Do you mind elaborating?
I agree that weather data should be public but I don’t see why we should restrict innovation in the private market if there is demand for it.
Also more generally, I see no issue in the government outsourcing work to a competitive private market wherever possible.
I have no issue with it if it is part of a legislative/regulatory framework. This is not inside of any framework. There has been no conversation about privatization of NOAA or any of its functions. These things need to be explicit as part of a democracy.
The current regime has upended that process and has created a situation where the government has no choice but to outsource data gathering to third parties. This is corruption and not in the spirit or the letter of the law.
This startup is attempting to take advantage of an illegal situation which is just ridiculous.
I'm happy if they want to sell fancy weather balloons to anyone that they want, even the government, but selling data back to the government that should be already collecting the data in the first place BY LAW is just corrupt.
It's not - it actually the core mechanism through which the "Weather Enterprise" works. Over 20 years, an important report from the National Academies [1] laid out how an enterprise comprised of public, private, and academic sector interests could work cooperatively to bolster the public good that is weather and climate information and services. It has always been the domain of the federal government to provide core, foundational data products (including forecasts and raw weather observations of many modalities) for both bolstering academic research as well as private sector innovation. The government's mission in the enterprise leaves plenty of room for private sector players to extend, complement, and supplement the foundational services provided by the public sector.
Sorcerer fits perfectly into the existing framework of the weather, water, and climate enterprise (WWCE). They produce complementary data and ensure that the government has access to it - even if the government must procure it (which they're happy to do - no one expects that these companies should give away all their data, gratis). But they could potentially greatly extend the core global synoptic observation system that powers conventional numerical weather prediction, especially for organizations which are more flexible and can work with broader data sources.
This is the WWCE working well. The real concern is on ensuring continuity - making sure innovative companies like Sorcerer can persist, in perpetuity if necessary (or at least the data products they collect and produce).
[1]: https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/10610/fair-weather...
This is exactly the kind of thing that should be done by private companies, what are you talking about? This data should be something companies compete at to get better at
The reality is that the government is not doing it, so the choices are to sit back and watch things crumble or have private companies work to try to fix things. I agree with you in principle that its a sad state of affairs though.
This is an excuse for normalization of a state of affairs that cannot continue to exist outside of a proper legal framework.
Why can't private enterprise do weather?
There are many private weather companies.
1 reply →
I can see why that might be frustrating. What about this problem makes it the best fit for the government to handle? Is it prone to natural monopoly? There are lots of things that the government can handle and shouldn’t. Just because the government handled something in the past isn’t a reason in-and-of-itself for it to resume handling it in the future. I’m genuinely curious as I am ignorant of the space.
What private industry has been pushing for for decades is privatizing weather data so they can sell it at a profit. But weather information is a huge public good and has been provided by the federal government for decades. Privatizing it adds more costs to public research, and means that people who don't have money to spend on weather forecasting - those living in poverty and most at risk when it comes to life-threatening storms - will likely die in higher numbers from severe weather.
1 reply →
Better to put all the PE money to work on it than borrowing at 5%.
Flawed premise. Weather modeling is not an essential service of a government
Tell me that after your house gets leveled by a tornado and you don't get a warning.
Isn’t this the point of NOAA?
NOAA might not be around much longer! ... which is grim.
Will they have a sick electronic music track as they launch?
Congrats to the team.
I gotta say, though, these days I'm used these announcements all being "Two-month old FooBar startup announces $850M angel round at a $38B valuation"
What happens to weather balloons do they just drop out of the sky? Do they ever hit anyone? Are they just garbage the gets left on the ground?
Yes, I found one in a car park many years ago. Disposed of the balloon, but gave the radar reflector to the local school geography department.
We should be expecting more government services now going through YCombinator. Lots of profit to be made in the name of efficiency.