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I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

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Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#81

Post by kranke155 »

brianmcc wrote: post #67
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #43

Sounds like the author is upset that Brexit has closed the valve on the pipeline of cheap labour from EU workers. There's no shortage of talent in London trust me, it's just that you're going to have to start paying more than a pittance to get it. Brexit so far has been a positive thing for tech workers' salaries.

"cheap EU labour" tends to apply more to fruit pickers than AI PhDs I suspect

Nope. Eastern European brilliant minds would flock to London and get paid far lower salaries than they were worth. Ukranians, Lithuanians. The legacy of communist math is alive and well - they were generally better than any western european talent you could get and cheaper. They would always get the top jobs, but the regular influx of new blood meant salaries were stuck.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#82

Post by kergonath »

agent008t wrote: post #24
aigo wrote: post #5

> Almost my entire R&D team who received PhDs from British universities had them funded by the European Union Well, there you go.

Was the UK not a net contributor to the EU budget? And therefore, why cannot the UK fund PhDs more effectively than the EU? I would've thought being less removed from the universities and research groups would make funding more effective.

Short answer: the UK and the EU have different priorities and the Tories are not interested in giving money to get more fancy “intellectuals” (who tend to be foreign and liberal).

Also, for now Brexit is costing more than the money that was supposed to be saved.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#83

Post by kergonath »

aigo wrote: post #69
maccard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the suggestion that was made to many industries and regions, yes. In reality it seems that those funding sources are not being met, e.g. Cornwall [0] and the red wall [1] [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-55279468 [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-levell...

The top-rated comment on this FT article [0] spells it out really quite clearly. English regions used to receive funds of £1 billion a year from the EU regeneration fund for poor regions with the final year om 2018 the final figure being £1.12bn of the £8.4 billion total over the seven year period. For 2018, this worked out to be Midlands (£190m), Yorkshire (£143m), Cornwall (£95m), the north west (£88m) and the nort…

> p.s the comments section on the FT is probably the best on the internet, apart from maybe here

My impression as well. The articles are also good, but bear in mind that both have a noticeable neo-liberal point of view.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#84

Post by kergonath »

agent008t wrote: post #49
user568439 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the Brexiters logic, but it turns out UK was not only contributing to the EU but also trading. Now it doesn't need to contribute anymore but it also lost exports, access to talent and so on.

Fine, but my point is there is no reason for Brexit to be a net negative when it comes to the funding of PhDs - if anything, it offers an opportunity to be more effective at funding. Same when it comes to the specific issue of access to talent - nothing in principle stopping the UK from making it extremely easy for talent to come to the UK.

> Fine, but my point is there is no reason for Brexit to be a net negative when it comes to the funding of PhDs - if anything, it offers an opportunity to be more effective at funding.

This works only if you assume that the amount of money stayed the same. For now, there has been a flux of capital and business moving over to the continent. Trade decreased as well. This can change in the long run, depending on the policy of the Bank of England, but for now Brexit is a net loss in British government funding. Besides the fact that the money that was supposed to be saved was also supposed to be spent simultaneously on the NHS, infrastructure, and developing the “northern powerhouse” (of cards, unfortunately, as the North of England gets shafted again).

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#85

Post by kergonath »

agent008t wrote: post #53
mvc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And therefore, why cannot the UK fund PhDs more effectively than the EU? I always assumed the whole raison d'etre of Brexit was that Conservatives wanted to avoid the obligation of paying into funds like this. Sounds lovely in theory but leaves less government money available to companies with social/professional connections to the cabinet. Funny to see the red wallers finally realizing that too now.

I still think the whole divide over Brexit was less about the principle of it, but more about whether you are more aligned with the current EU political leanings or with those of the current UK ones (reflected in its Tory leadership). If you are more aligned with the EU political leanings, you would want them to be able to force the UK government to do what you believe is the right thing. If you are more aligned with…

> I still think the whole divide over Brexit was less about the principle of it, but more about whether you are more aligned with the current EU political leanings or with those of the current UK ones (reflected in its Tory leadership).

Not necessarily. As a socialist, I really don’t align with the “current EU political leanings”. I also realise that the EU is still useful for several things, and that leaving it would be at best counter-productive.

Replace “the EU” with your country. You can be in disagreement with your current government without wanting to secede. That’s the same with the EU, really: for all its warts and idiosyncrasies, we are better united than divided.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#86

Post by kergonath »

SassyThrowaway wrote: post #70
aigo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote in my post about funding can no longer happen. The EU only funds research at EU universities, and UK universities aren't that any more.

Historically, Israeli computer scientists have been able to apply and win ERC grants. That said, I have not checked if anything has changed for the UK in this regard, hence why I am curious.

AFAIK, unless this changed British scientists can apply to Horizon Europe funding, which includes ERC grants. However, there is some uncertainty as this is related to the trade and cooperation agreement, which looks a bit shaky right now.

One of the problem was that the British government does not keep its word, so people are wary of putting British colleagues only for their funding to get pulled at the last minute because lord Frost wants to annoy the EU.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#87

Post by ageitgey »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #80
ageitgey wrote: post #9

I run a US-based start-up with a distributed team, but I personally live in London. I'd say a lot of this is true. I don't personally know how Brexit has or hasn't affected talent availability yet, but everything else lines up with my experience. US investors throw money around and European investors are much more traditional. But I'd like to offer a different perspective on this quote from the article: > I am not al…

How do you manage a company from across the Atlantic? What does your tax situation look like? Do you personally enjoy living in London or are you there in spite of your interests?

1. One day at a time. But in all seriousness, a good co-founder and team. Also, we started the company during COVID which I think made the VCs less worried a about a full remote situation.

2. US citizen but UK tax resident. So two income tax returns. It's a pain, but thankfully the tax treaty means one offsets the other and it works out in the end.

3. Personally want to live in London

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#88

Post by exdsq »

jgrahamc wrote: post #50
eganist wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks; I googled it and the press was heaviest in April 2017 for a new London office, so this is a helpful correction for me. Though deeper inspection found 2013 ( https://www.facebook.com/Cloudflare/posts/10151742549255432 ), so I probably should've just googled harder. It also changes the equation substantially since the rest of my assumptions were based on 2017, though I wonder how much the environment also chang…

Cloudflare's London office remains large and important. We've built up Lisbon as an alternative location in part to give folks a choice between London and a continental European city and in part because we are hiring so fast it's good to hire in multiple places.

Why not just open to remote hiring across Europe then, rather than be location-dependent?

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#89

Post by Brakenshire »

kergonath wrote: post #82
agent008t wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the UK not a net contributor to the EU budget? And therefore, why cannot the UK fund PhDs more effectively than the EU? I would've thought being less removed from the universities and research groups would make funding more effective.

Short answer: the UK and the EU have different priorities and the Tories are not interested in giving money to get more fancy “intellectuals” (who tend to be foreign and liberal). Also, for now Brexit is costing more than the money that was supposed to be saved.

The UK has actually remained a member of the EU's science funding programme after Brexit as part of the exit deal, although that membership has not been formally ratified yet.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#90

Post by Brakenshire »

aigo wrote: post #68
SassyThrowaway wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not understand that point at all. The author writes: "The loss of this funding and scientific exchange is a major loss for British and European academia — and innovative companies who need to hire the best scientific and technical talent." But what is it exactly that the UK lost [funding-wise, science-wise] due to Brexit?

The quote in my post about funding can no longer happen. The EU only funds research at EU universities, and UK universities aren't that any more.

This isn't true, you don't have to be a member of the EU to be part of the Horizon programme, which is the EU's science funding mechanism. Membership of Horizon was part of the Brexit deal for the UK, although it seems to be uncertain now as part of the wider disputes.
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