Launch HN: Sorcerer (YC S24) – Weather balloons that collect more data
You guys rock! Big fan
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"
"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...
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.
Government weather data is exactly the kind of thing that should be private.
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...
No one should fund this.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Weather reporting is a common good. It worked very well for pennies and benefitted the economy greatly. Why privatize it?
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.
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...
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.
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.
