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ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

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Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#61
post #15
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently; when ARM was first sold to Softbank, Softbank made several guarantees to the UK. Nvidia has made no agreement to continue those guarantees. > At that time, Softbank announced it had agreed to legally binding commitments to increase investment, headcount and preserve its headquarters in the UK. > It is not too late for the government to impose conditions, but conversations on whether to impose them or what…

I would assume Nvidia bought (by obligation) those commitments too? Otherwise it would be pointless having them in the first place, you'd just get out of it (if you wanted to) with some creative corporate governance. [I used to work at Arm, but not on creative corporate governance.]

Uhm, no...? The obligation was on Softbank, not on ARM.

> you'd just get out of it (if you wanted to) with some creative corporate governance

... aand you've just "discovered" how large companies routinely get out of their commitments to politicians.

Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#62
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income levels wise, Numbeo is just a mish-mash full of noise and can't be taken seriously to judge salaries of skilled professionals(that's what we're talking about right?) Sure, poor people have it better in Vienna because it's cheaper and has better social services than London but skilled professionals(developers and engineers) have it worse as underpaying is rampant in the tech industry there. Sources: me living t…

Do your friends on the similar level save more per month after all bills and taxes than you? Genuine question PS will they be saving more in the situation where both of you had promotions?

[deleted]

Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#63
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a high demand engineer, you're probably right but SV is special. If you compare London to NY or Birmingham to Altlanta the gap isn't really there. Esp check taxes and healthcare in the US. I've worked both and I'm living in NY based on what I saved when I worked in London, money wise the USA has been surprisingly bad.

You sure? I just did a quick search for EE salaries in London[1] compared to Detroit[2] (the closest large city to me) and Detroit comes out ahead by a lot. And I'm sure rent is cheaper. However, I agree that salaries are ridiculous in some cities. I'd love to give living in NYC or LA a shot, but the salaries I see for EE jobs are marginally more than what I make in the middle of nowhere. 1: https://www.indeed.co.uk/…

1) You are comparing London, the largest city and the capital of the UK, to Detroit, which is not the capital nor the largest city.

2) Check out numbeo https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/

Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#64
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is that crazy ? Because people think the big benefit of being at a European company that balances the worse pay is more vacation, more reasonable working hours, better work-life balance, working autonomy. But that's not true. It's the opposite. I get far better vacation, working hours, work-life balance, working autonomy at North American companies. And better pay. So what's the benefit of working for a Europea…

How much vacation did you take last year? What are your working hours?

[deleted]

Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#65
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure? I just did a quick search for EE salaries in London[1] compared to Detroit[2] (the closest large city to me) and Detroit comes out ahead by a lot. And I'm sure rent is cheaper. However, I agree that salaries are ridiculous in some cities. I'd love to give living in NYC or LA a shot, but the salaries I see for EE jobs are marginally more than what I make in the middle of nowhere. 1: https://www.indeed.co.uk/…

1) You are comparing London, the largest city and the capital of the UK, to Detroit, which is not the capital nor the largest city. 2) Check out numbeo https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/

That was the point. Despite London being a much larger population center with much higher cost of living, engineers are still paid more in Detroit.

Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#66
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Income levels wise, Numbeo is just a mish-mash full of noise and can't be taken seriously to judge salaries of skilled professionals(that's what we're talking about right?) Sure, poor people have it better in Vienna because it's cheaper and has better social services than London but skilled professionals(developers and engineers) have it worse as underpaying is rampant in the tech industry there. Sources: me living t…

Do your friends on the similar level save more per month after all bills and taxes than you? Genuine question PS will they be saving more in the situation where both of you had promotions?

Since parent comment was deleted here is my answer anyway:

I would say from personal experience, contractor earning 600 quid/day in London is more of an outlier than the norm, unless he is more like Principle level and working for FAANG type companies.

Your answer answers a question similar to mine but not quite what I was asking.

You take people A and B, person A lives in London, rents studio in the city centre, works as mid level engineer in a regular bank. Person B lives in Austria, rents studio in the city centre, works as mid level engineer in a regular banks. Who will have more money left after bills, food, taxes etc? Numbeo suggests that what you said is incorrect, as I pointed above but you might absolutely be right as well.

"Compare that to the likes of Monzo and Austria is at least 15 years behind." Many Monzo features(for example instant notifications when card is used) are not present in many, if not majority of UK banks.

Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#67

I've been doing a lot of thinking out loud today about the UK's lamentable state with regards to its technology industry today without much disagreement in my back channels – perhaps HN will have more interesting things to say? It feels like the UK's failings in the technology space are entirely cultural. Looking back at the 70s and 80s when the UK punched above its weight in the microcomputer space, UK tech companie…

I don't have easy answers - it's a complex issue and I don't think it's just about tech but about wider issues with British business in general (how many UK companies have tried and failed in the US?) Agreed on pharma but I'm not sure that there are many good examples of success stories outside of that space in e.g. finance.

Just to point out that one reason why Arm was so successful early on was that it looked for business everywhere in the world. I think Robin Saxby spent incredible amounts of time in planes travelling on sales trips. I'm don't think that this is true for many UK companies and / or they are not very good at it. This insularity means that firms are in no position to compete with the scale of US firms when they move into the UK market.

Edit: great interview with Robin Saxby, Arm's first CEO, talking about the early days of Arm here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO5PsAY5aaI

Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#68
post #33
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about health care costs. Education costs. Amount of vacation time. Pension.

Not sure if your comment is asking about those things or implying that what I said is incorrect. Healthcare costs: I personally do not have experience with USA healthcare system. In terms of UK healthcare system I have mixed feelings: key reasons(short list): 1) While it's free, getting many basic things(like blood, urine tests, ultrasound scan) is complicated if you have no symptoms. It's much cheaper and better for…

I was trying to search online to compare student debt in UK vs US. Any idea why the below link shows a high student debt in England?

From https://www.statista.com/statistics/376423/uk-student-loan-d...

> In 2020, students graduating from English universities will have incurred an average of 40.28 thousand British pounds of student loan debt...

From https://studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/

> It’s 2020, and Americans are more burdened by student loan debt than ever.

Among the Class of 2019, 69% of college students took out student loans, and they graduated with an average debt of $29,900, including both private and federal debt. Meanwhile, 14% of their parents took out an average of $37,200 in federal parent PLUS loans.

Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is why I'm not sure why I see so much US negative comments around here and this smug EU stance Because not only the (relatively) rich matter.

Sure but the US has plenty of advantages over EU and EU is quite bad in some regards as well (especially with regards to equality across the EU - US is usually grouped together but people seem to be talking west Europe and Scandinavian countries when discussing EU, meanwhile I just saw a report how in eastern Europe women are doing surrogate pregnancies as a paid gig because of their living conditions ... if you trav…

Romania is pretty bad too, but the whole point is joining the EU is to help IMPROVE all this, which it does. I have driven across the EU and the US and at the lower socioeconomic end, neither has much difference, except that the EU is committed to improving the lives of its citizens (as far as I have seen) through investment and legislation, and the US isn’t. Quite the opposite.

Re: ARM: Can 'crown jewel' of UK technology be protected?

#70
post #27
post #23

Isn't apple about to design their own cpu? I would be selling arm asap.

Apple has been designing their own CPU's for a decade, using the ARM ISA. Apple has a perpetual license to the ISA though, so they would not be a source of future revenue. Apple is also under no obligation to stick with ARM's roadmap for future products.

I know that, I meant their own new CPU with their own ISA. I am sure I read about that a while back.
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