Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UK's hardware talent is being wasted

josef.cn

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 1001 posts

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#231

Post by tomcam »

bell-cot wrote: post #74
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…

> Unfortunately the UK has not been... 20 years, or 112 years? Consider just how far the UK's place in the world fell between 1911 (George V ascended to the throne of the global superpower; his Royal Navy was launching 2 to 4 new capital ships per year ) and 1948 (3 years after "winning" WWII - and basics such as food, clothing, and gasoline were still strictly rationed).

Sugar was rationed in England until 1953, and meat until 1954. Pretty rugged times.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#232

Post by torginus »

mhh__ wrote: post #140
James_K wrote: post #77

God, this place is such a sh*thole (literally if you count the sewage in the water). It's depressing. Every week, X is going downhill, Y is failing, we're out of money. I am so hopeless about my country's future. I feel that this is our century of humiliation.

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.

I heard the joke that the man who contributed the most to modern London's urban planning was called Adolf Hitler.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#233

Post by tomcam »

rgmerk wrote: post #109
wbl wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a man is tired of London he is tired of life.

Or maybe he’s just tired of a specific kind of life which might be fun in your early twenties but is less appealing when you’ve got kids and can’t enjoy the nightlife and culture anyway.

https://www.samueljohnson.com/tiredlon.html

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#234

Post by coastermug »

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.

People need examples of success in their network. Most people have frankly never met or heard of anyone who founded a successful startup- and therefore would never think of taking on such a risk. I agree that in some places there is a sense of malaise, but if we are to believe founders are a 1-2% outlier of the population, I don’t see why America’s 1-2% should be so much more ambitious than the UKs. I think it’s more a cycle induced by lack of funding.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#235

Post by James_K »

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.

You should understand that the American situation is, in fact, much worse than ours in many ways. For instance, the average American pays a 40% tax rate compared to our 25% once you account for healthcare.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#236

Post by mrtksn »

nicoburns wrote: post #220
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.

> 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 crea…

> 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

Isn't this due to different types of Christian traditions? AFAIK In some, it is considered that the wealth is given by the God to the virtuous ones and they are merely guardians of it and responsible to use use the wealth in a virtuous ways and therefore getting rich is encouraged and the rich are treated with respect?

There's something similar among some Muslim sects too, in Muslim majority countries it is not uncommon to believe that the God chose someone to be rich and there's more to that person that the eye can see therefore must be respected. Some religious communities even get so obscenely rich and you can see poor servants having a religious experience when their leader arrives with an a luxury car.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#237

Post by sofixa »

CalRobert wrote: post #211
fxtentacle wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Idk about the Netherlands, but in France you can take your unemployment benefits for 3 years upfront as a capital investment in a new business. And there are various grants and aid you can apply for.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#238

Post by DoingIsLearning »

BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #134
bsnnkv wrote: post #115

I left the UK for the USA in 2020. It was only last week that another HN commenter finally opened my eyes to the fact that since I have left the UK, I have become someone with the ability to take things from 0 to 1.[1] I do not believe I could have achieved what I have in the last half-decade if I had stayed in the UK. There is something deeply rooted in the UK's contemporary culture (which I cannot yet fully explain…

Anecdotally, the British people I have interacted with in a business setting seem to have a dearth of ambition. These people weren’t depressed, but I sensed a kind of defeatist cynicism. As an American I realize our culture encourages taking risks and we are remarkably forgiving of failure. In fact, we seem to congratulate people for the fact that they tried in addition to overlooking the failure. I’m not sure if thi…

It really starts at a young age.

I remember playing (my) football (your soccer) in school and my neighbourhood as a kid.

If you were going to strike you needed to be pretty sure that you can score or that you can take the heat from your team mates if you fail.

In contrast watching kids play sports in the US, everyone is constantly trying to lift each other up after failure.

These small cultural differences easily add up in how you carry yourself in business.

Negativity seems to be culturally frowned upon in the US (what a downer). Positivity seems to be culturity frowned in Europe (naive 'happy go lucky' kind of guy).

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#239

Post by CalRobert »

sofixa wrote: post #237
CalRobert wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Idk about the Netherlands, but in France you can take your unemployment benefits for 3 years upfront as a capital investment in a new business. And there are various grants and aid you can apply for.

Can you get unemployment if you quit?

Annoyingly, in 20 years of working I've never been fired or laid off.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#240

Post by ctz »

GamerAlias wrote: post #40
refrigerator wrote: post #19

This is spot on. All the smart and ambitious people I know who studied (non-software) Engineering at university in the UK have ended up going into software engineering via self-teaching or finance/consulting because the only hardware engineering career paths seem to be working for Rolls Royce in the middle of nowhere with terrible pay, or alternatively working at Jaguar Land Rover in the middle of nowhere with terrib…

Preach. My friend is a gifted passionate Aerospace engineer (top in his specific stream at Cambridge) and basically is withering away working for the above 2 firms. The location is grim being far from others and generally far from other young exciting people. Additionally in his org, there just isn't a sense of excitement/ urgency which leaves him with little to do. Prioritising career for a career that's not there W…

My impression is that top aerospace people do not now work in aerospace, but in Motorsport.
Post reply on HN