Comments on: Lessons from the TSA on how to launch a startup

By: btsiv

btsiv — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 04:10:00 +0000

I have been traveling to a series of meetings for a couple of weeks so I never got a chance to read the responses to my post.

And yes that means I experienced the difficulties and discomfort of TSA no less than 20 times in the last 2 weeks; including a few extra times one day when planes were cancelled and I had to leave and return to an airport a few times.

When GigaOm ask me to contribute this piece (unpaid I assure you), I was aware of the disagreements with the TSA and its policies. I have not only read every book there is about it that I know of; I get the opportunity to hear first hand opinions everytime someone hears I was there after 9-11. The last time I had to discuss it was with a 80 year old still active iconic entreprenuer in the Southeast who hates taking his shoes off. I also got the opportunity to tell him at least this changed, little kids and “old” entreprenuers don’t have to take thier shoes off anymore.

In fact, I am a big believer that while the process of creating the organization from scratch was a momumental startup task and something I definitely learned from during my modest experience being part of it 10 years ago; there are just as important lessons about how an organzation must refocus its mission and “grow up” as over time.

Kip’s book Permanent Emergency is one of the most honest and accurate books not only on the early startup period but over the whole TSA story and its successes, failures and fundamental challenges. It is very worth taking the time to read.

In terms of the lessons: no not everything applies to a start up anymore than the ideas in Moneyball all apply or for that matter some of the other experiences people often apply. But I did feel there were useful lessons. I certainly took a few away as did a number of other people involved early who went on to or returned to the entreprenurial world. I find lessons as an startup guy and investor all over the place and I hope to keep learning new ones until I am 80.

In the meantime, please consider that most any American in those weeks after 9-11 wanted/needed to do something that helped and alot of them ended up filling that need by helping do things like create the TSA. And while based on a emergency flawed bill and full of mistakes as it grew up (what start up isn’t); the quick start up of the TSA did get people flying again.

I appreciate the thoughtful comments and no I am not a big believer in government controlled systems with no competition. If there is going to be something approaching monopoly out there I hope is is some commercial enterprise I am lucky enough to invest in when it is just a grand idea and a few people with some passion.

Sorry for the typos and grammar. I wrote this on a small screen where it was hard to review and besides that everyone knows my spelling is terrible.

By: Rocco Giuliano

Rocco Giuliano — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:57:49 +0000

The average salary of TSA PR flacks is 103K. This is publicly availabel info and should outrage taxpayers. Their responses to criticism are unvarying BS about “multiple layers of security” etc etc ad nauseum. And Blogger Bob is a buffoon. No brilliance in evidence.

By: Rocco Giuliano

Rocco Giuliano — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:53:13 +0000

What a crock. If TSA were a business, it would gone bankrupt years ago. GAO routinely lambastes this bloated bureaucracy for gross inefficiency and insiders refer to it as the Terrorist Support Agency. It should be disbanded and the money spent on intelligence, law enforcement, and incident response.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:52:33 +0000

The TSA is a terrible example to use for this story. The operate a monopoloy to start with so there is absolutely no competition. They have zero customer service skills and there is absolutely no consequence (reference monolpoly), and they hi-jacked an existing business entity when the job was federalized. And last I checked, they still have security breaches on a regular basis. Terrible comparison. Totally apples and oranges. Sounds like Bo’s comments yesterday regarding business owners and how they owe their success to someone else. Pathetic.

By: John Coe

John Coe — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:26:06 +0000

A little early for an April’s Fool article. I travel constantly and the TSA in every major airport I’ve gone through are routinely officious, discourteous, arrogant, and often times go out of their way to be downright cruel. Just perfect advice for a start-up

By: Becky

Becky — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 12:51:07 +0000

Mr. Smith, I know an awful lot about the TSA, having written about it for 7 years in publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Barron’s. Nothing the agency’s perverts do surprises me. But your article…wow. You take shilling and propaganda to new lows.

Abolish the TSA.

By: Tac Anderson

Tac Anderson — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:23:40 +0000

Obvious shortcomings of the analogy aside, this was a very clever article. It does make you think about the TSA in a different way and to their credit, they’ve always used social media brilliantly.

By: guest

guest — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 09:22:25 +0000

meaningless, pointless article. TSA is niot even a valid example, for that matter, you can consider anything instead of TSA.

By: Robert Hollis Weber

Robert Hollis Weber — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 03:37:22 +0000

Bill, Mr. Smith seems like little more than a troll looking for attention but I’m glad you took the time to say this. Everyone needs to be reminded, as many times as it takes, that, far from being a model to emulate, TSA is a national embarrassment and disgrace.

By: John Dickenson

John Dickenson — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 22:07:06 +0000

I’m shocked that this author gets to write a paid post on GigaOM whose standard is usually pretty high.

I see no analogy between the TSA and a startup. Unless the author suggest we leave the business of startups to the fed govt?