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MTS · 2 min · Oct 22, 2026

Understanding local power can solve the GovTech business problem

SR

Sunil Rajaraman

Founder & CEO, Hamlet

Theo JaffeeHost · Co-founder & host, MTS
One of the first members of a16z's new media team; earlier hosted the Emergent Ventures-backed Theo Jaffee Podcast.
Sophia DewHost · Host, MTS

About this segment

Rajaraman argues that GovTech needs to understand how local officials and residents think, not just clean data or streamline procurement. Campaign donations show that even volunteer offices can attract outside interests.

From “Why Local Sentiment Kills Data Center Projects | Hamlet CEO”, Oct 22, 2026. Watch the full episode

“I've seen council members raise from large companies well why would they do that maybe there's a data center that needs to be built in that community”

SRSunil Rajaramanat 11:53 · MTS11:53

Takeaways

Local stakeholder psychology is central to Hamlet's approach.
City council and school board seats can attract campaign money.
Developers may have interests in local decisions.

Watch 2:23 from 9:56

In this episode

14:17Local data centers face different community objections2:38
9:56Understanding local power can solve the GovTech business problem2:23
2 more moments in the full episode

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Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

9:59
Could you then become the data layer for what's happening in local politics in America? I would love to become that. I will say this, you know, because that vision exists for a lot of companies in this space. I think if I had to kind of think about, you know, the problem, there's sort of like the mission driven version of me. And then there's the business problem. What's happened is I think a lot of GovTech companies have gravitated toward the same business problem, which is, oh, you know, we're going to scrape and clean data or we're going to make it easier for you to bid on projects, things like that.
10:36
And that's all fine. There's some really great companies that are going to be built like that. I have this fundamental belief that if you figure out what the people are about and you know psychologically how a city council member, a planning commissioner, a school board member thinks and how the public thinks, it's not only going to solve the mission problem, but it's also going to solve the business problem. And so I know that that's sort of like an esoteric answer, but it's like, it's not, it's, it's less transactional than you think. We have to, we got to think bigger. Yeah. Well, one, I agree. And I hope that's true. Is there any insight that you had from actually you ran for city council yourself i'm assuming this is something that's important to you fundamental product design principles about talking to the users and that
11:17
you're helping is there anything specifically that you've learned that's made you realize that hypothesis might be correct you need to know and i bet so first of all i just challenge you uh and really think deeply about this as you're watching this do you know who all your city council members are and school board members are no idea absolutely i would say i'm a pretty informed voter like i vote on all my elections and all that stuff and i don't really know until like a week before i start voting so that's a that's a real problem you need to know that city council members even though they're volunteer positions typically they raise money from interests for their campaigns and so I've seen council members raise from large companies well why would they do that maybe there's a data center that needs to be built in
12:03
that community uh the national association of realtors might give to a candidate i'm not saying these organizations are good or bad i'm just saying there's more money in it than you think even though they're volunteer positions wow and uh that is not something that's widely known