41–50 of 118 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should have thought about what could happen _before_ selling ARM. TBH seeing them crying is sad and pathetic.
Who is "them" in your scenario? The entire British public? They didn't get a say in the matter. It was a small group of politicians and business folk. And as always, they are not the ones crying now because they made bank in the deal, no doubt.
It's this short sighted argument. If Nvidia "destroys" Arm then they just end up flushing a billion dollars down the drain. ARM's is important because it's what everyone uses. Once Nvidia destroys it nobody will use it and therefore Nvidia will gain no leverage. If anything, once Nvidia buys ARM it will have to keep it alive.
People who say that Nvidia "gonna destroy ARM" know nothing about Nvidia. All their history Nvidia live on lock-in integrations and for profiting from that they need ARM alive and thriving. A lot of open source folks might hate it, but Nvidia is R&D heavy company. Every year they come up with many new proprietary technologies that help them to keep perceived leadership and also keeps everyone locked-in into their tec…
Lock-in is not a driver of innovation, it's a brake on it.
It's this short sighted argument. If Nvidia "destroys" Arm then they just end up flushing a billion dollars down the drain. ARM's is important because it's what everyone uses. Once Nvidia destroys it nobody will use it and therefore Nvidia will gain no leverage. If anything, once Nvidia buys ARM it will have to keep it alive.
The best play would be to take the Intel approach: run ARM independently, and just build best-in-class integration with Nvidia GPUs / features. Substantial anti-trust concerns are avoided, while building exactly the moat you want: no competitor can afford to compete with the level of integration investment.
The UK is actually the one that has ignored and destroyed ARM (and Imagination Technologies) and it has been compared to 'selling off the crown jewels' [0] to SoftBank which was welcomed by a UK government cabinet minister in 2016 as a 'big vote of confidence in British business.' [1] Actually, SoftBank got ARM at a special Brexit discount. For them, they saw it as the best deal of 2016 and for the UK, you might as w…
Would be curious on any Brits' opinions on if this (failure to support revolutionary technology) happens more there, and if so then why. Recognize biases of hindsight, but it seems like private equity markets in Britain aren't interested in technology at the requisite scale. There's an incredible historical tradition [1], but the majority tend to be either developed with the help of a (1) few angel investors (and the…
1. In terms of sensible investment, what I've seen is that success breeds success - one success creates wealthy individuals with experience that can lead or by part of the next round.
2. UK markets are quite conservative, cautious and by and large dominated by people who don't understand science and technology, compounding the problem. They tend to want to drip feed money rather than go for the big win.
3. Following on from 1 & 2. There is a culture of selling early, rather than building really big, and if you don't have anyone big in the UK to sell to then it goes abroad.
4. UK government appears to welcome, nay have pride in, the acquisition and destruction of some of the UK's biggest companies by opportunists.
5. UK business leaders typically lack global ambition, nay ego/hubris.
6. UK stock market is rather short term, preferring dividends to inward long term investment - the sort of investment typically required to grow.
So what you get is lots of interesting small to medium size companies - often started in concert with the strong UK academic sector, and/or diaspora from previous successes - and very few transitions to global players.
ARM was one of the few - that's why it's so disappointing to see it sold first to Softbank and now possibly NVidia.
The only silver lining is any change is likely to create a diaspora eager for new opportunities - so in the case of ARM - lots of experienced well off engineers ( more able to take a risk ) in one of the worlds best academic centers of excellence.
The UK is actually the one that has ignored and destroyed ARM (and Imagination Technologies) and it has been compared to 'selling off the crown jewels' [0] to SoftBank which was welcomed by a UK government cabinet minister in 2016 as a 'big vote of confidence in British business.' [1] Actually, SoftBank got ARM at a special Brexit discount. For them, they saw it as the best deal of 2016 and for the UK, you might as w…
I attended a talk in the UK at Google Campus in London by Eric Schmidt. At the end of the talk there was some Q&A and one very apparently angry and frustrated member of the audience asked something along the lines of 'Do you think it's fair for Google and other big American Tech firms to keep buying up innovative and valuable British and European companies!?' Eric Schmidt immediately replied 'Well if you don't want u…
Why is it the US's fault that they consider tech to be valuable to their economy and national security and we don't? What's stopping us from doing the same?
As long as we'll keep treating tech as some cost center instead of a core business while we keep pumping money to keep afloat 19th century industries who's ships have sailed long ago, then we deserve what's coming to us.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would be curious on any Brits' opinions on if this (failure to support revolutionary technology) happens more there, and if so then why. Recognize biases of hindsight, but it seems like private equity markets in Britain aren't interested in technology at the requisite scale. There's an incredible historical tradition [1], but the majority tend to be either developed with the help of a (1) few angel investors (and the…
A few observations from person experience of working in small startups, and large companies. Being part of companies that were sold, and being both ends of attempted takeovers, all in comparison to what I've seen in US companies. 1. In terms of sensible investment, what I've seen is that success breeds success - one success creates wealthy individuals with experience that can lead or by part of the next round. 2. UK…
Haha, me laughing then crying in underpaid German conservatism that dwarfs the British one.
You guys don't know how good you have it. Brexit aside, London is still Europe's biggest tech capital by a long shot and devs there can make way more than anywhere in Europe bar Switzerland.
The UK is actually the one that has ignored and destroyed ARM (and Imagination Technologies) and it has been compared to 'selling off the crown jewels' [0] to SoftBank which was welcomed by a UK government cabinet minister in 2016 as a 'big vote of confidence in British business.' [1] Actually, SoftBank got ARM at a special Brexit discount. For them, they saw it as the best deal of 2016 and for the UK, you might as w…
I attended a talk in the UK at Google Campus in London by Eric Schmidt. At the end of the talk there was some Q&A and one very apparently angry and frustrated member of the audience asked something along the lines of 'Do you think it's fair for Google and other big American Tech firms to keep buying up innovative and valuable British and European companies!?' Eric Schmidt immediately replied 'Well if you don't want u…
Many small and mid-sized business struggle or refuse to scale because it exposes them, their owners and management to taxes which cannot be escaped (by contrast small businesses can pay their staff in cash, and charge personal expenses to business accounts for VAT writeoffs).
Alternatively many European businesses are optimised to receive Government and EU grants and subsidies, not to compete on the international market.
Yes, the USA is unequal compared to Europe, but this might be the price worth paying for innovation and technological dominance: America's poorest are richer than the average Europeans:
https://www.acton.org/publications/transatlantic/2019/08/27/...
The solution is for Europe is to dramatically cut taxes (eliminating payroll taxes and reducing VAT to 16% across Europe should be a priority), increase the pension age to 70, and limit access to bachelor's degrees to the top 20% and Master's degrees to the top 10% (many Europeans spend their entire 20s at university, when they could be working instead).
The alternative is basically slow Demographic decline and descent in complete central planning, which Europe seems to be pursuing.
The UK is actually the one that has ignored and destroyed ARM (and Imagination Technologies) and it has been compared to 'selling off the crown jewels' [0] to SoftBank which was welcomed by a UK government cabinet minister in 2016 as a 'big vote of confidence in British business.' [1] Actually, SoftBank got ARM at a special Brexit discount. For them, they saw it as the best deal of 2016 and for the UK, you might as w…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would be curious on any Brits' opinions on if this (failure to support revolutionary technology) happens more there, and if so then why. Recognize biases of hindsight, but it seems like private equity markets in Britain aren't interested in technology at the requisite scale. There's an incredible historical tradition [1], but the majority tend to be either developed with the help of a (1) few angel investors (and the…
I think Paul Graham went to the UK once to try to find technology investors. Once. (Can't find that essay right now.)