21–30 of 261 posts
Summary: He received free money from EU. Now that he could not get enough from UK government, he is leaving.
This is misleading. Their staff having EU-funded PhDs is very different from receiving free money from the EU.
Beyond that, I believe that Europe’s (particularly Britain’s) negative cultural attitude towards sales is a major inhibitor to building tech champions on the same scale as the US or China. In my thirteen years of working in the UK, I’ve learnt that in British culture sales and selling is viewed negatively. The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from…
What it doesn't do well is spaff money indiscriminately at any old idiot with an idea. Even less so to someone with a crap idea.
Despite the article author's claim, most of the startups in the generation that I joined (2018+) have focused on getting a decent business model, rather than hyper growth above all else.
They also had to do much more with significantly less. There was less VC money sloshing about compared to the west coast, so we had to be very careful in how we optimised.
To back up the point that John is making, "Technical purity" above all else is a symptom of leadership not explaining the business needs well enough. (or not putting in place an engineering team with enough pragmatism to translate business to tech. )
Beyond that, I believe that Europe’s (particularly Britain’s) negative cultural attitude towards sales is a major inhibitor to building tech champions on the same scale as the US or China. In my thirteen years of working in the UK, I’ve learnt that in British culture sales and selling is viewed negatively. The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from…
> Almost my entire R&D team who received PhDs from British universities had them funded by the European Union Well, there you go.
Are there any European websites in the Alexa top 50? https://www.alexa.com/topsites For all I know, Europe mostly missed the internet. Will the same happen with AI, data centers, solar, crypto and biotech?
Summary: He received free money from EU. Now that he could not get enough from UK government, he is leaving.
I work for a company head-quartered in one continent, listed on another and I work in a third (the UK) - and sales are based all over. Not for one moment saying there aren't local issues/idiosyncrasies - but I'm unsure how moving your company solves them, and article seems to overlook all manner of problems: Aren't you going to lose staff when you move? Is everybody going to have to get up really early to talk to Eur…
Moving to NYC/silicon valley is going to mean fishing in a very over fished pool. There is a reason why "meta", Google and amazon are expanding engineering over here and the wider EU: lots of (comparably) cheap talented labour.
Even if you don't loose staff, operating an engineering team over large distances is a challenge unless you know what your doing.
Given that he's blaming the engineers for concentrating on "technical purity" when I assume he was in charge, I suspect he's not really of the right mindset to be responsive enough to make the changes needed.
Still, best of luck. I look forward to the updates on progress.
Beyond that, I believe that Europe’s (particularly Britain’s) negative cultural attitude towards sales is a major inhibitor to building tech champions on the same scale as the US or China. In my thirteen years of working in the UK, I’ve learnt that in British culture sales and selling is viewed negatively. The linked HBR article talks about self-promotion not sales. That seems quite different to me. And speaking from…
London does sales well, if you want a sales office you open it in london. What it doesn't do well is spaff money indiscriminately at any old idiot with an idea. Even less so to someone with a crap idea. Despite the article author's claim, most of the startups in the generation that I joined (2018+) have focused on getting a decent business model, rather than hyper growth above all else. They also had to do much more…
It's pretty common in Europe for people to get a socially-funded education then go off to the USA. It's called brain drain and has been happening for a while, not sure why this guy needs to write an article pretending that's not what's happening here.