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Taking Risk

tomblomfield.com

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Re: Taking Risk

#71

Post by LAC-Tech »

dan-robertson wrote: post #64
oblio wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The talent arbitrage is absurd, physics grads with 1sts from top Russell Group unis fighting to be paid £30k/yr. That much?!? I'm joking, but I've always wondered with FAANG never set up large R&D centers in Southern Europe. They have good universities and salaries are extremely low, even lower than in the UK. Plus good weather & co. The actual Mediterranean climate :-)

Presumably because an ambitious young person in southern Europe would rather move somewhere like Zurich for higher pay rather than getting paid less in southern Europe? Who are those R&D centres going to end up hiring?

Europeans hate moving. They're not like the European diaspora, they will live within a days drive of Switzerland, all their life, and never even consider the concept of trying to make a life there to earn 2-5x as much.

Re: Taking Risk

#72

Post by Shrezzing »

SeanLuke wrote: post #30

> Along with UCL, these British universities represent 4 of the top 10 universities in the world. ... according to QS Global Surveys. A disreputable organization who won't open their data and whose rankings are based at least 50% on reputation surveys (!!), of which only 2% or so are responded to. Is it worth mentioning that it's based in England? I'm not saying the US should have more institutions. I'm saying that i…

The UK has an age-based advantage in this metric. Oxford & Cambridge are nearly 1,000 years old. Once you take that into account, the stat becomes "of the top 8 universities (ex. Oxbridge), 2 are in the UK and 4 are in the USA". Imperial is very high quality institution, definitely the peer of Berkley/Yale. UCL normally isn't thrown into the top 10 though - it'd usually appear in the top 25.

Re: Taking Risk

#73

Post by sgt101 »

This is, at it's heart, about markets.

In the USA a startup's market is, essentially, global - China. In the UK the market is, essentially the UK.

In the recent past it might have been argued that the market was the EU - but the reality is that the EU's market for services is fractured. The USA has the capital and power to enforce their companies access to markets everywhere (apart from China), the rest of the world does not.

Re: Taking Risk

#74

Post by dan-robertson »

DrBazza wrote: post #40

Financially, the UK is heavily centred around London, one of the most expensive cities in the world, so it's not altogether surprising that university students feel like they need a paying job that keeps a roof over their heads. Worse, the competition for rental property in London is ridiculous, which is the only choice in town for an ex-student. And London is where the VC people are. Also, in the USA 'bricks and mor…

Why does this rent argument not apply to SF/Silicon Valley? I think SF is more expensive than London, though typical pay in (non-startup) tech is higher.

Re: Taking Risk

#75

Post by oblio »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #71
dan-robertson wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably because an ambitious young person in southern Europe would rather move somewhere like Zurich for higher pay rather than getting paid less in southern Europe? Who are those R&D centres going to end up hiring?

Europeans hate moving. They're not like the European diaspora, they will live within a days drive of Switzerland, all their life, and never even consider the concept of trying to make a life there to earn 2-5x as much.

Everyone hates moving if their lives are good enough. They generally only move because they think their environment has structural problems that can't be solved within, say, 5 years. For example: bad healthcare, generalized low level corruption, bad infrastructure, bad air quality, no opportunities, etc.

Americans are probably the only developed people that will move en masse just to make a bit more money, and even that's because there's no language barrier and hardly any cultural barrier. Plus it comes with downsides, no support network in the new place, if you're out of a job... things can become extremely sketchy.

Re: Taking Risk

#76

Post by worstspotgain »

I think the "one thing that's not like the others" in the article are the crazy-high rankings of Britain's top schools. Universities are a bit of a self-perpetuating reputation scheme, and the UK has been punching well above its weight in that department.

Having worked with all Europeans, I can't say that I found the British to be skill or preparation outliers. Maybe just a little above the mean? Speaking English natively helps too.

That said, the UK was probably on its way to becoming the EU's tech hub, much to the chagrin of the French and Germans. Then 2016 happened.

Furthermore, the planetary economy has transformed itself, and has been consolidating around competitive advantage. Much of tech has massive scale economies. There's probably not enough 21st-century Britain to make it alone the way it used to in the 19th century. Its competitive advantage probably does not involve large-scale tech.

If you're a world-class tech graduate facing these realities, maybe you don't want to get marooned on an island.

Re: Taking Risk

#77

Post by cauch »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #58
cauch wrote: post #41

Something that was not really approached in this article is the underlying assumption that "entrepreneurship is good" and the difference of culture towards that. Start-ups can be seen as the things that bring society forward, or the things that create useless junk and enshitification from bullshit-talkers who just want to make money. It's not 100% the first in US and 100% the second in Europe, but the balance is just…

> I think that one aspect is just that US is more ok with bullshitters and con artists: they consider it's part of the game. Startups aren't any more fundamentally scammy than any other business trying to get your money. Oh sure, some are scammy, but that's true for big established businesses as well.

I'm not saying they are more scammy, I'm saying that the reputation score is computed differently in US and in Europe, and having a scammy aspect is penalizing the startups more in Europe than in US.

You can start from exactly the same facts: - X% are scammy - Y% are bringing something great - Z% are bringing yet another useless junk in shiny paper that pollute and had bad side effect - W% are making new discoveries - ...

In Europe, the first item will bring you -20 points, the second, +5 points, the third, -10 points, the fourth, +10 points, ...

In US, the first item will bring you -1 point, the second, +20 points, the third, -5 points, the fourth, +5 points, ...

So, at the end, the "goodness" of entrepreneurship is seen differently in the two sides.

I don't think institutions or other business are less scammy, or even that they are seen as better in Europe. Simply, if you score different paths, in Europe, the "entrepreneurship" path does not look that better than any other path, so why would you choose it.

Re: Taking Risk

#78

Post by goodfellah »

I have had the pleasure of being an immigrant visiting a startup event in England. To give you an idea of what this looks like: Five minutes in, an organizer comes up to me and informes me that the she was sorry but this event was invite only (I was invited).

At a tech meetup, most were happy to chat over beer, but every single one flat out refused to agree to a one-on-one, unofficial demo of my MVP.

I helped a startup debug and fix an urgent infrastructure issue on a critical customer-deployment, gratis. Their in-house guy had given up on it. Few months later I asked to sign up for a referral for my co, they stopped replying.

Doing a startup there is hard mode squared.

Re: Taking Risk

#79

Post by yobbo »

sofixa wrote: post #44
ggm wrote: post #23

Bankruptcy laws and social mores massively different. In the UK to go bankrupt is to be painted with indelible red shame dye. In America... going bankrupt means you are closing out the book on one failure to try another.

> In the UK to go bankrupt is to be painted with indelible red shame dye Is it? Do people generally know when someone (personally, or in this case, since we're talking startups, their company) goes bankrupt?

Your future employer, friends and family will know.

People in general don't keep track of other random people.

Re: Taking Risk

#80

Post by oblio »

sgt101 wrote: post #73

This is, at it's heart, about markets. In the USA a startup's market is, essentially, global - China. In the UK the market is, essentially the UK. In the recent past it might have been argued that the market was the EU - but the reality is that the EU's market for services is fractured. The USA has the capital and power to enforce their companies access to markets everywhere (apart from China), the rest of the world…

This is an awesome summary, it's the #1 item that causes this and I've never been able to put it into words so succinctly. Thank you!
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