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Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

fourlightyears.blogspot.com

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Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#51

Post by femto »

pedalpete wrote: post #2

Disclosure, I work for data61, a major recipient of the gov't new innovation strategy. I'm also Canadian and have worked in technology in SF, LA, NYC, Vancouver and Santiago Chile. I have a very different perspective on this. Australia has had more than just one Atlassian. They've also got Campaign Monitor, BigCommerce, Canva, Where 2 (became Google Maps), Envato. Australia is also growing Freelancer (I don't believe…

I'm on the other side of the divide: entities partnering with CSIRO (now part of Data61) to collaboratively bring research to market. On the technical front, they are great, if a little condescending at times.

It's on the "business" side where they are difficult to work with, potentially to the point of killing the venture. For a government organisation, who you might think would be on "your" side, they are as hostile as any competitor. You typically end up bound by a one sided contract, as CSIRO have enough lawyers to out lawyer any small company. You have to be careful sharing information with them, as they tend to patent their research before revealing it to their partners, and after the fact you find out that the stuff you were collaboratively discussing and contributing to is now "theirs" to be licensed back to you. There is also potential for them to do a "spin out", in competition with your existing collaboration, and then it is a bun fight to get the organisation to see the potential for conflict.

I think it can be traced back to the government's push for CSIRO to pay its own way, and past successes. Since the WiFi patent bonanza, CSIRO/Data61 has "gold fever" and every industry interaction is locked down tight, to ensure that CSIRO gets a pound of flesh. Frankly, I don't think the WiFi bonanza would have happened with today's environment, as the lawyers would have smothered the life out of the project with up-front demands. As it was, the commercialisation was done largely independently of CSIRO, by partners whose names are not on the patent, and CSIRO got their cut after the event.

I'd guess, data61 is a good source of support if you're inside the organisation and spinning out. For those external to the organisation, my guess is that the costs outweigh the benefits, so better to go it alone. I'd love to hear of other people's experiences here.

Incidentally, the word I'm getting is that most of the "new" money is old money relabeled, but that's just the way Australian politics works.

Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#52

Post by polemic »

Hey Australia, why not consider moving to NZ?

1. You can already move / live / work here without any immigration hassle.

2. We have an actual UFB fibre to the home network rolling out now that actually works.

3. Local and central government is pretty keen to support the technology scene - from government grants (refer Callaghan Innovation) to local tech hubs. AND help to connect in SF (http://kiwilandingpad.com/)

4. Activity from successful early founders/employees from Xero and others.

5. We build for a global audience -- NZ is just too small to be your only market.

6. Simpler tax system.

7. Better coffee.

Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#53

Post by Veratyr »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #16

> In an age where the state of the art broadband to the home in the U.S.A. is 10 gigabits, Australia is currently building (it claims) a National Broadband Network at great expense that promises a blistering 12 to 100 megabits per second at the top end I know it mentioned "state of the art", but the vast majority of Americans would be lucky to get 100 megabits without breaking the bank every month. Many (most?) don't…

As an Australia->America expat, you have to compare to what we have now.

At the moment the highest grade connection attainable for most residents of Australia is ADSL2+, with a max speed of 24Mbps (realistically you're lucky to see 10). This usually comes with a bandwidth cap that varies based on the price you pay (e.g. [0]) as well as a contract. For a moderately high usage household (streaming video, YouTube, downloading video games), you'll usually have to pay ~$90 for one of the better performing providers (such as Telstra) or ~$80 for one of the lesser providers without a cap (e.g. TPG and the like which often offer unlimited but have plenty of congestion issues). Further, if you're not in a metropolitan area, usually you pay an extra $20-$30 monthly premium.

Compare that to the US, where most (or many) [1] households have access to 50-100Mbps cable for a reasonable (I pay ~$75/month for 150Mbps in a Comcast monopoly area) price.

America isn't great compared to what could be but it's a whole lot better than Australia.

[0]: https://www.telstra.com.au/broadband/home-broadband

[1]: http://www.broadbandmap.gov/speed

Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#54

Post by NamTaf »

regecks wrote: post #4
andrewstuart wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key point of the blog post is that any tech company that succeeds in Australia does so purely on its own two feet and that governments are at best mildly supportive of technology and at worst actively hostile. Turnbull destroyed the fibre to the home NBN and I can't see high speed ubiquitous Internet access coming any time soon. Imagine if 95% of Australian home - including ones in the country areas - had super h…

I really don't understand the NBN meme. I've worked for small tech companies in Australia my entire (not so long) career, and access to high internet speeds has never ever really been a problem. When you're a programmer, what is the difference to your work between 10 and 100mbps, really? Yes, regional areas should be upgraded from dialup/slow sattelite to at least 10mbps. What kind of impact will that have wrt the OP…

>I've worked for small tech companies in Australia my entire (not so long) career, and access to high internet speeds has never ever really been a problem. When you're a programmer, what is the difference to your work between 10 and 100mbps, really?

>Yes, regional areas should be upgraded from dialup/slow sattelite to at least 10mbps. What kind of impact will that have wrt the OP?

If you could also include my place, 5km away from Brisbane's CBD, to be upgraded past 5Mbit that'd be pretty sweet too. And to achieve that I have to deal with slightly unreliable internet - rock solid is probably closer to 4-4.5Mbit.

(You greatly overestimate the ubiquity of high-speed internet even in capital cities. It's not just the outback that has terrible internet.)

Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#55

Post by catmanjan »

ajdlinux wrote: post #49
voltagex_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving to Sydney for a job could be almost as expensive as moving to the States. I'm looking in Melbourne but the market down there seems like a mess right now. Couple that with the falling Australian dollar and moving to the US and getting paid in USD doesn't sound so bad.

The primary motivation for those I know who have moved to the Bay Area isn't the pay (although that certainly is part of it), it's finding more interesting work and being in the SF/SV culture. Personally, I don't like the start-up culture, and I happen to work at a place that does interesting things already, so I'm quite happy staying in Canberra.

Aren't you at IBM? I thought they stopped doing interesting things in the 80s

Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#56

Post by techdragon »

froo wrote: post #31
qzervaas wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many (most) of Australians don't even have the option of 10 mbit. When the new NBN is rolled out, most will have the option for 25 Mbps. This plan is due to be completed by 2020.

I've got a 100mbit Fibre connection. I live in an inner city suburb. It is continually dropping out (I get an average about 1 hour a week of downtime), my upload speed tops out at 35mbit (using iiNet's own tools) and for a lot of things like YouTube, videos can be sketchy, even on the more popular ones. Australian's really aren't missing out on much if this was supposed to be the standard.

If your fibre is dropping out... Something is really wrong.

Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#57

Post by dil8 »

d_t_w wrote: post #15
d_t_w wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't you hear? Coal is the future, get digging.

FYI non-Australians, I give you (former) PM of Australia, Tony Abbott: July 17, 2015 - "For the foreseeable future coal is the foundation of prosperity" http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/17/for-tony-... That just about sums up the amount of vision in Australian politics.

I believe he also said 'coal is good for humanity'[1]

The mininig industry has very deep pockets and huge influence on policy, so in turn other industries miss out.

[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-13/coal-is-good-for-human...

Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#58

Post by capnfabs »

Also an Australian, working in tech.

- There is a lot of good CS talent coming out of Australian universities. Lots goes to the Bay Area, some work at Google, Atlassian, Canva (in Sydney at least).

- As others have commented, it seems that there's less useless stuff with unrealistic projections that gets built in Australia. I'm not sure if it's because Australian culture has a strong dose of cynicism (which also probably contributes to some of the remarks in this blog) or because the landscape is indeed bad enough that only the really good startups can survive.

- There are some Australian policies that work pretty well in favour of getting individual startups off the ground. Policies that help startups get off the ground include study assistance (~AUD 200 week from government whilst studying, means tested), a similar unemployment support program, and subsidised universities. These only contribute to the success of individuals, however, they're not good for building an ecosystem.

- I've heard of a number of Australians travelling SE Asia and trying to get their v1 built from there. The internet is much better and your burn rate is much lower. Plus, the breadth of experience is probably good if you're trying to start something with international longevity.

Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#59

Post by PhilWright »

regecks wrote: post #4
andrewstuart wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key point of the blog post is that any tech company that succeeds in Australia does so purely on its own two feet and that governments are at best mildly supportive of technology and at worst actively hostile. Turnbull destroyed the fibre to the home NBN and I can't see high speed ubiquitous Internet access coming any time soon. Imagine if 95% of Australian home - including ones in the country areas - had super h…

I really don't understand the NBN meme. I've worked for small tech companies in Australia my entire (not so long) career, and access to high internet speeds has never ever really been a problem. When you're a programmer, what is the difference to your work between 10 and 100mbps, really? Yes, regional areas should be upgraded from dialup/slow sattelite to at least 10mbps. What kind of impact will that have wrt the OP…

My company has three sites in Melbourne and none of them have access to the NBN yet, or for the next couple of years. Two of those sites can only get around 3MB connections no matter how much money you pay. The copper connections are just that poor. Depending on where you are based if is like being in a third world country for Internet speeds.

Re: Atlassian's success reminds what a crappy place Australia is for tech business

#60

Post by froo »

techdragon wrote: post #56
froo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a 100mbit Fibre connection. I live in an inner city suburb. It is continually dropping out (I get an average about 1 hour a week of downtime), my upload speed tops out at 35mbit (using iiNet's own tools) and for a lot of things like YouTube, videos can be sketchy, even on the more popular ones. Australian's really aren't missing out on much if this was supposed to be the standard.

If your fibre is dropping out... Something is really wrong.

You're telling me. When we first moved into this apartment building, NBNco hadn't even hooked the building up correctly. It took 5 weeks of constant calling to eventually get an engineer to actually fix it (and in the process, get the entire building connected, it wasn't just us having issues).
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