[BostonCard]

The $1 a year is stupid.  Warp speed has a budget of $10 billion and will influence federal spending of several times that.  Paying Slaoui 6 figures would be a rounding error.  Even paying him market rate is a small expense compared to the overall amount a stake.

I've had to fill out conflict of interest disclosure forms in the past, and they're not that impossible.  For someone like me, I have almost everything in index funds, and I was just required to disclose the funds (not their individual components).  For someone like Slaoui, he almost certainly has an accountant that can prepare the documents for him. 

If you own stock in companies covered by Warp Speed, it is a tailor-made recipe for conflict of interest. Even if you behaved perfectly, the other companies may not stand for it. For that reason, I think disclosure is sufficient.

Isn't this exactly why you shouldn't allow the conflicts?  Nobody is going to want to make waves about potential conflicts while they are still in the running, for fear of antagonizing Slaoui. But, as soon as the contracts are awarded to someone else, those companies may turn around and sue for a flawed process, which runs the risk of slowing down the whole thing.  Just look at what happened with the JEDI program and Amazon when Microsoft was awarded the DoD contract and untoward influence was alleged.

BC

[BostonCard]

The $1 a year is stupid.  Warp speed has a budget of $10 billion and will influence federal spending of several times that.  Paying Slaoui 6 figures would be a rounding error.  Even paying him market rate is a small expense compared to the overall amount a stake.

I've had to fill out conflict of interest disclosure forms in the past, and they're not that impossible.  For someone like me, I have almost everything in index funds, and I was just required to disclose the funds (not their individual components).  For someone like Slaoui, he almost certainly has an accountant that can prepare the documents for him. 

If you own stock in companies covered by Warp Speed, it is a tailor-made recipe for conflict of interest. Even if you behaved perfectly, the other companies may not stand for it. For that reason, I think disclosure is sufficient.

Isn't this exactly why you shouldn't allow the conflicts?  Nobody is going to want to make waves about potential conflicts while they are still in the running, for fear of antagonizing Slaoui. But, as soon as the contracts are awarded to someone else, those companies may turn around and sue for a flawed process, which runs the risk of slowing down the whole thing.  Just look at what happened with the JEDI program and Amazon when Microsoft was awarded the DoD contract and untoward influence was alleged.

BC