Regulators and industry have always had somewhat of an incestuous relationship. Often the experts in fields like telecom have to come from industry and often times they have an eye on their future career. The FCC, FAA, FDA, Defense, all are plagued with this problem. Unless we are willing to pay comparable to industry, the regulators will be a revolving door.
It's not just money. Modern regulatory agencies are highly technical. People outside the industry simply lack the necessary experience to be effective. The intersection of people who have the relevant technical experience, who don't come from industry, and who want to work at the FCC or FDA is very small. Usually when regulatory positions aren't filled with industry people, they're filled with career bureaucrats. Would you want an agency full of career bureaucrats to oversee say the software industry?
> Regulators and industry have always had somewhat of an incestuous relationship. Often the experts in fields like telecom have to come from industry and often times they have an eye on their future career.
It's kind of hard to see how it could work any other way. Suppose, for example, we want someone to head the FAA. It seems obvious you want someone with a vast knowledge of the aviation industry.
Are there really many people who have that vast knowledge and are NOT working in the aviation industry? We're basically supposed to look for someone whose career has nothing to do with aviation, but has somehow, perhaps as a hobby, become one of the country's top aviation industry experts?
Yes, it is kind of a conundrum in a way, in a lot of ways you really need the real world experience of the industry people but that implies a little bit of a conflict of interest. I guess if there was a way to have someone have a career as a regulator, but again, perhaps that limits their experience and knowledge....
