UK's hardware talent is being wasted • Hacker News Board

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#211

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:25 AM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #208

mrtksn wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree, the problem in Europe is not regulations or anything like that - it is a mindset issue. It is one of things that europeans can learn from Americans. My hypothesis is that this is a combination of old money and class consciousness. In other words, the rich are risk averse because all they care is preserving their wealth and the working class don’t believe and can’t even imagine that more is possible.

In Germany, you can typically finance the first 1-3 years of your start-up through government gifts like "EXIST". That's why you don't need early seed investors.

Do you know any equivalent for the Netherlands by any chance? Everything I see is tiny amounts.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#212

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:26 AM UTC

itake wrote: post #200

bboygravity wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it also an income issue? I'm from EU and would be totally open to move to UK if there was an opportunity to make more there while working on something cool. But there simply isn't? Then there are US startups where I could likely make 2 or 3x what I make in EU or UK. So why would talent every consider moving to the UK to build a startup in 2025 anyway?

> So why would talent every consider moving to the UK to build a startup in 2025 anyway? A lot of people choose to start businesses near their friends or families.

Right, but that would mean not moving.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#213

Post by torginus » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:27 AM UTC

shermantanktop wrote: post #145

nextos wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent, this also applies to software. Except for DeepMind and a few other select places like Altos Labs, getting past £100k is hard , especially outside London. Unless you go into finance, of course. But then, you have to stick to London. Finance is like a black hole that sucks a big chunk of the mathematical, CS and statistical UK talent. They have very proactive recruiters trying to e.g. connect with Oxbri…

It’s shocking. Software engineers in the UK are treated like engineers in the US were in the 1960s. Low respect, low pay, while city boys strutting around in shiny suits snapping their fingers to get anything they want.

That's a weird statement considering I'd have guess the greatest amount of respect and adoration (not necessarily money) (non-software) engineers have gotten in the US would've been during the Space Race and Cold War years.

It was real respect for the trade as well, not some secondhand respect that people who make a lot of money and wield a lot of social influence get.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#214

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

This is an issue in most countries, not only UK.

The job market is not prepared to fulfill the promises the talent expects, and in places like SV, what you get is the STEAM version of Hollywood, where every waiter dreams of being the next movie star, and there can only be so much.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#215

Post by remus » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:28 AM UTC

Not to disagree with the thrust of the article, but I think they're wrong on

> Hardware is riskier than software: No longer true

If you're building hardware you need to source materials for the thing, manufacture the thing somewhere, store the thing somewhere and distribute the thing. All steps that either don't exist with software or are orders of magnitude easier. All this stuff costs money and adds risk, making hardware inherently harder and riskier than software.

Obviously building stuff is still possible, but if you're going in with a VC "how do we scale this to 100 million users in 2 years" mindset then there's a lot of logistics in there for hardware.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#216

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:29 AM UTC

Earw0rm wrote: post #184

mhh__ wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The good news is that a relatively small amount of aggressive planning reform (namely, firing everyone involved and never calling it "planning" ever again) will fix most of the (fixable...) worst aspects of modern Britain. We banned building stuff in 1947, we can undo it.

The problem isn't building stuff, it's building stuff where stuff needs to be. We built plenty of out-of-town shopping centres, business parks and industrial estates in the 70s, 80s, 90s. We stopped because it turns out they're, for the most part, shit. Given the choice, people will WFH and order off Amazon rather than go within a mile of these places. What we need is to tackle the vested interests in the towns and c…

BUUUT MuHHH PAAARRRKiiiiNNNGGGG!! (And house values). And we can't _possibly_ make the town look different than it did in 1972 because "heritage".

We're talking about a bunch of crusty old church biddies who will literally force you to put the most godawful, hideous house covering in the history of man BACK on your house because they're terrified of being reminded it's not the 70's.

(Sorry for the mail link) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2592033/Put-pebble-...

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#217

Post by Xiol32 » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:30 AM UTC

wakawaka28 wrote: post #91

bdangubic wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you switch UK and USA in your post and you are right

Lol the US is not without its problems but the UK is worse, hands down.

Try unfollowing Musk for a bit. It'll do you good.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#218

Post by cyberax » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:31 AM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #97

Discordian93 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that easy to get a work permit in the US unless you're truly exceptional or marry an American.

My cousin (an American living and working in France) married a guy originally from Morocco. After eventually realizing that they might want to move to the US, they couldn't, because he couldn't get a visa. It would have taken quite a bit of time- my cousin would have had to move back to the US first, established residence, and gotten a job and some other requirements. Only then could they have qualified to apply, and…

> It would have taken quite a bit of time- my cousin would have had to move back to the US first, established residence, and gotten a job and some other requirements.

That's strange. A spouse green card doesn't require the residence and there is no wait time for the spouses of US Citizens. However, the processing time (especially via consular processing) is ridiculous, around 2 years now.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#219

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:32 AM UTC

monero-xmr wrote: post #110

smartties wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be the case for most European countries, particularly here in France. We’re experiencing stagnation, or perhaps even a decline. Launching a product in Europe is significantly more challenging due to the market’s high fragmentation. I don’t have much hope for the future of tech companies in Europe.

It’s exhausting trying to explain this to American leftists. They believe the UK / EU is rich, their healthcare is amazing and “free”, and no one has to work more than 35 hours a week. They visit London and Paris once in 10 years for vacation and think they understand the economic order.

Ah yes, my fabulous Dutch healthcare basically consisting of being told "you're fine" and overpriced acetaminophen.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#220

Post by nicoburns » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 7:34 AM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #159

r_thambapillai wrote: post #51

As a Brit, when I was raising the seed round for my startup, UK and European VCs would consistently try to haggle you down on price while the American VC's were exclusively focussed on trying to figure out whether this could be a billion dollar business or not (in the end we raised a $5m seed led by Spark, and have done extremely well and raised more since). The UK lost Deep Mind - which could have been OpenAI!! -- t…

Completely agree, the problem in Europe is not regulations or anything like that - it is a mindset issue. It is one of things that europeans can learn from Americans. My hypothesis is that this is a combination of old money and class consciousness. In other words, the rich are risk averse because all they care is preserving their wealth and the working class don’t believe and can’t even imagine that more is possible.

> don’t believe and can’t even imagine that more is possible.

And/or don't think that more is better/desirable. I wouldn't consider myself working class, but I was definitely raised with the idea that making obscene amounts of money is actually pretty selfish/immoral and not something one ought to strive for. That doesn't preclude going into business. But it is pretty antithetical to the VC funding model and the creation of billion dollar businesses.

In general, it seems that the culture in America is that wealth is virtuous and confers status, whereas in Europe that at least isn't so universal and some circles it is even seen as shameful (consider that variants on socialism are still mainstream political ideologies in Europe).