Why Is Government So Bad at Working With Startups with Kateryna Frolova

I recorded this conversation with Kateryna Frolova, Head of the Global Government Technology Centre Kyiv, on my first morning in Ukraine, after a night of Russian bombing. We were both running on a little less sleep than we would have liked. But the conversation we had gets at a problem that reaches far beyond Ukraine. Governments everywhere love talking about supporting startups, entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses. Actually working with them to solve public problems is much harder. Procurement gets in the way. Government and startups operate at different speeds. Smaller companies struggle to navigate the system. Governments struggle to identify, test and adopt new solutions. Everyone agrees collaboration would be useful, yet making it happen remains remarkably difficult. This is exactly the problem Kateryna and her team are working on in Kyiv. We talk about how government can build better relationships with entrepreneurs, how to create the conditions for collaboration rather than simply talking about it, and why this matters increasingly as countries think about technological and economic sovereignty. Kateryna’s own story is also part of a much bigger Ukrainian story. Like many young Ukrainians I met, she had built a promising international career before returning home out of a sense of responsibility to her country. She went on to work inside the Ukrainian government before moving into her current role helping government innovate from the edge of the system. There is a lot here for governments well beyond Ukraine. If we can figure out how governments can genuinely work with startups, SMEs and entrepreneurs around shared public problems, we may unlock an enormous source of innovation that today remains largely untapped. I hope you enjoy the conversation.