The private sector is only "more competent" at a certain size. Google, Microsoft, Meta - they're all largely inefficient and only effective as it pertains to the dollars they spend in lobbying. All of these companies are largely wasteful with respect to the money they spend on executives and initiatives that go against their own customers. They mirror the USG more and more year over year.

One big difference is that public companies restructure when things aren’t looking rosy. Government organizations don’t often reorganize and structurally they don’t have much flexibility.