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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

#61

Post by ajdlinux »

catmanjan wrote: post #55
ajdlinux wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Apparently mentioning the word "Canberra" magically summons people in comment threads

To answer your question, we still do interesting things :)

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

#62

Post by VelNZ »

polemic wrote: post #52

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…

As a kiwi living in Australia and quietly working on a bootstrapped startup, I'm keen to hear more about this. Is NZ really a good place for a startup? Is there any government support that doesn't involve giving up equity?

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

#63

Post by catmanjan »

ajdlinux wrote: post #61
catmanjan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Apparently mentioning the word "Canberra" magically summons people in comment threads To answer your question, we still do interesting things :)

I was here first :P (see above)

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

#64

Post by Gatsky »

Well this is all true, it could be much better. I think the point is though that relying on Australian Governments to make serious long term commitments to technology infrastructure is going to result in disappointment. The thesis that 'Labour was going to save us, and then the Liberal's ruined everything' is kind of an oversimplification.

The NBN was a great idea to be sure, but the Labor government that proposed it proceeded to sabotage itself over the next two terms due to extremely damaging and petty political infighting. In the end Tony Abbott had to just sit quietly while Labour burned itself to the ground, delivering us a conservative prime minister and policies that nobody really wanted. The NBN became a political point. If none of this had happened and Malcolm Turnbull was now in power trying to push the innovation agenda, who knows, maybe he would be proposing something similar to the original NBN.

Bad leaders with good ideas are as helpful as good leaders with bad ideas, as it happens. Good leaders with good ideas don't seem to exist in the current climate. And if you're just unpopular it doesn't matter what your ideas are (eg Bill Shorten).

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

#65

Post by manicdee »

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 would kill for 10Mbps. That would reduce download times by more than a factor of two.

I live in Canberra though, so it's not like high speed broadband is going to come near me in the next decade.

Bandwidth requirements are increasi year over year, simply because once people can actually use slick media-rich sites, they actually do use them. Once people can VPN in to the Windows-centric workplace, they will. Once office based managers can successfully video-conference their teams, they will.

Without high speed broadband, what hope is there for innovation?

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

#66

Post by dylz »

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…

I feel like 100 megabits down in the states is at least a somewhat-baseline anywhere there's a city or suburb (excluding rural areas). It's basically one of the lower tiers for ~$50-60/m for Comcast, TWC, ATT, Verizon, RCN, Centurylink, etc.

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

#67

Post by AlBentley »

polemic wrote: post #52

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…

What about R&D tax rebate?

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

#68

Post by AlBentley »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #7

R&D Tax Incentives are pretty much the only thing the Australian Government offers - http://www.business.gov.au/grants-and-assistance/innovation-... Massacring the NBN and generally not giving a shit about technology really highlights how out of touch the Australian Government is with the general population. We are among the highest adoption rates for technology (smartphones etc.) worldwide and give a huge amount of…

If you think your startup will only succeed with a fast internet connection you should probably find a better idea.

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

#69

Post by pedalpete »

femto wrote: post #51
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 hostil…

I've heard similar remarks before femto, and hopefully this will improve. Data61 is trying to build a network with the local start-up scene. I'm not entirely sure how this is going to work.

Partnerships is not my domain (I'm a developer/PM), so I can't speak to the legal and IP issues.

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

#70

Post by pedalpete »

voltagex_ wrote: post #34
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 Australian and want to escape to Vancouver (for various reasons, email me if you're really interested). Can you provide any pointers?

I'm Canadian, so I don't know if I can give pointers to moving to Canada. I've just dropped you an email, let me know if/how I can help you out.
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