The US Startup Visa: A boon for dismayed, frustrated British entrepreneurs

I know a couple Brazilian ones that are quite frustrated too.

>> "This is a critical reason why most tech startups in the UK go absolutely nowhere. You can’t legislate against it. It’s built straight into the culture."

[Citation needed]

This piece is fairly short on evidence+numbers, and overloaded with sweeping generalizations.

>> " If you’re starting a new tech business, the only place — the ONLY place — you should be is Silicon Valley."

If you need to schmooze VC/need to work for a big company for a while so you can schmooze their M&A department/etc, then probably Silicon Valley is the best bet.

But if you just want to build a tech company that makes money, it doesn't much matter where you are.

>> "That is a traffic warden putting a parking ticket on the Bugatti. That is also a crowd cheering on the traffic warden. Why? Well it’s because each of the people watching will never, ever, ever have the capacity to even think about buying an £800,000 Bugatti. They know it. They know their place. Why should someone else be allowed to be successful enough to blow almost a million quid on a car? Yeah. Fluck’em! Rich B’stards!"

They're cheering because the car is probably in the way.

Jeez what a stupid 'article'. The author just comes across as someone who has failed and is blaming it all squarely on the 'culture' rather than any fault of his own.

And FWIW, flying out for a couple of days every 3 months is hardly a big deal. If the US had universal healthcare I think it'd be more appealing.

(Caveat): I don't really care about 'the scene'. I just sit in my office, do my own thing. I don't really need a 'tech scene', I've got one online :/

That honestly to me seems to be a much larger problem in the London startup scene. I'm out there pretty often and it's not bad -- there are a lot of investors both VC and angel, a good smattering of startups and altogether a great environment for starting a company ... and all everybody does is complain about how bad it is.

At the last TechCrunch meetup I went to there, there was a whole talk with completely bat-shit reasons on why the UK had it so bad and the US was so much better (e.g. startups couldn't do well because Brown isn't as cool as Obama).

I’ve worked out what annoys me about this article. It’s assuming that the point of a startup is to make you a ton of money rather than a ton of enjoyment. Sorry, but I’d go for the latter every day of the week. Maybe it’s the Britishness in me coming out :)

> In the UK, entrepreneurs try too. The first thing that happens is they become social outcasts. They’re labeled, with a bit of a laugh, ‘delboys’

what is this nonsense. (If anything I find high correlation between entrepreneurs and getting laid.)