I wonder how you move a company with about 200 employees to a different country and time zone.
Fire UK engineers, hire US sales people.
I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
161–170 of 261 posts
Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>What it doesn't do well is spaff money indiscriminately at any old idiot with an idea. Different philosophies. In US you throw money at ten stupid ideas hoping that even nine will be dead, one will be successful and see extreme growth, making you very rich. It's more of a gambler's approach. I don't know if studies were made but I suspect US based startups who survive to see a large growth while in EU even the growt…
> It's more of a gambler's approach.
Wrong. The cultural difference comes from differing appetites for risk. VC's aren't gambling on their portfolio companies, they expect each and every one of them to turn into rocket ships. If there's no potential to become a rocketship, they don't invest, simple as that. Stupid ideas don't get investment.
That VCs understand that it is highly unlikely that each portfolio company will actually become a rocketship, just means that they appreciate that each investment in the portfolio carries high amounts of risk. Europe doesn't have the same appetite for risk.
Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
#163Trying to start a business in the UK: "What are you doing? You'll fail! You'll go bankrupt! You'll be homeless! Why don't you get a nice civil service job with a government pension?" Trying to start a business in the USA: "Rock on, bro! You're going to be the next Zuckerberg/Gates/Bezos!"
>Trying to start a business in the USA: "Rock on, bro! You're going to be the next Zuckerberg/Gates/Bezos!"
Same person, few years later: "I don't care you are homeless and have nothing to eat. I didn't force you make stupid things. Get of my lawn, I'll have guests later!"
Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Just opening for “work from anywhere” has right to work, legal and tax implications for the employee and company. So we’ve taken an approach where people can work where we have a legal entity.
We also do believe that time in the office is valuable and prefer employees be “near” the office so they can work together with other in the office as needed.
But this isn’t set in stone. Maybe totally remote would be great for us, we’ll experiment and see.
Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
#165Are 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?
We are dumb, here in Europe. We don't know anything about Internet or computers on this side of the pond. We did't make any advances in science and technology. US did everything by itself, without importing brains from other countries.
We are humbly grateful the Usians gave us Google Ads, Facebook, iPhones and PornHub, things which are absolutely essential to any being not living in a cave.
Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
#166A little off-topic, but I find it strange to brand the company around the "Eigen" name when it's already a super well-known C++ numerical library: https://eigen.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
#167Not sure I get the part of talent pool. Exactly which part of AI research or development can't be done as remote work?
Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there's a difference between where companies are listed/head-quartered and where the work is done (e.g. Google seems to have 4 separate offices, just in London). Or consider India, where huge amounts of dev work is done - but nobody can name an "Indian web brand" (internationally). Only actual European brand I can think of that's made global impact is Spotify. Europe seems to do better on the less fancy consu…
A couple more European examples: - Wise (formally TransferWise) - Skype - Deliveroo - JustEat
Nokia, UIPATH, SAP.
Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
The web was invented in Europe. Still, you’re right, few big internet successes in Europe. Problem is almost entirely addressable market size.
What hinders Europeans to address big markets?
It's hard to finance a business the way you can in US.
If two start-ups tackle the same problem, the US startup can get 100x more money. Guess who will be the winner?
Do you believe Elon Musk could have launched Tesla and SpaceX in South Africa?
Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
The web was invented in Europe. Still, you’re right, few big internet successes in Europe. Problem is almost entirely addressable market size.
What hinders Europeans to address big markets?
Another reason would be language and legal requirements.
I work for the software division of an international wholesale chain, based in Europe. For the checkout process, not only we have to translate everything in tens of languages, but we have to implement many legal requirements in price calculations, taxes, discounts, money laundry, invoicing and so on.
Even a single country like India is a headache because they have different legal requirements in each Indian state.
When you add countries from Europe which aren't in EU, countries from Europe which are in EU but have different legal requirements, countries from Asia, it can become really complex.
And we are just a handful of people and not payed a lot.