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UK's hardware talent is being wasted

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Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#241

Post by porker »

CalRobert wrote: post #210
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…

I lived in Ireland for 10 years. It's not the same as the UK but there _is_ cultural overlap. Every time you shared a new idea with _anyone_, even things as simple as "I want to buy a site and build a house on it", the first thing you hear is how that's a bad idea, you will fail, it will never work, and you need to leave it to "professionals". Not to mention the whole idea that trying to be successful is "notions" an…

(UK resident, born and bread) Yes this drives me absolutely mad. I'm a poor risk taker and can come up with all those reasons something's a bad idea, but when I've made up my mind to take the risk I want supportive people around not people who would rather you never tried anything outside their "comfort zone".

And the problem runs in families. This is not therapy but every time I talked to my parents about an idea it would be dammed with faint praise or I'd be told I'm wasting my time. It's taken 20 years to work out that the more they dissed an idea is the better it actually was.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#242

Post by ttoinou »

bowsamic wrote: post #180
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.

Well it’s not necessarily a good thing. In Europe we are traditionalists and we retain a lot of spirit (Geist) by not striving for pure progress

What is this spirit we retain that US looses ?

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#243

Post by graemep »

r_thambapillai wrote: post #87
bell-cot wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

Very true, although I suppose a significant fraction of the decline at that time might be a result of the end of the Empire, which given that there are simply no such successful Empires anywhere in the world anymore was almost certainly inevitable. By comparison, the performance of the UK in the last 20 years vs the US or the Nordics is a singular tragedy.

Not greatly different from Germany or Nordic countries, or EU average, and better than France or Japan.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...

Its a Europe wide problem.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#244

Post by jampekka »

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).

Interestingly people, especially poor people, were better nourished during the WW 2 rationing than before the war. Also e.g. universal healthcare was establised post-war.

Is number of war ships, or billionaires, a good measure for a country?

https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/food-thought-rationing-...

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#245

Post by Cumpiler69 »

bowsamic wrote: post #179
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?

Also even the safe job wage in the UK is perhaps only 2/3 of in Germany for example

What do you mean by that?

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#246

Post by porker »

eru wrote: post #191
chii wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Deepmind is still in the UK they dont mean location, they mean ownership of the equity.

Yes, but what does it matter? Google has equity owners all over the world, but we still treat them as an American company, too.

Profit goes out of the country, reducing investment and rich UK people to invest in new UK companies. It's the same problem with many of our companies being sold to foreign investors: profits are taken outside the country (as we did to other countries in the 19th century and earlier) so our labour enriches other countries while our country gets poorer.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#247

Post by CalRobert »

porker wrote: post #241
CalRobert wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Ireland for 10 years. It's not the same as the UK but there _is_ cultural overlap. Every time you shared a new idea with _anyone_, even things as simple as "I want to buy a site and build a house on it", the first thing you hear is how that's a bad idea, you will fail, it will never work, and you need to leave it to "professionals". Not to mention the whole idea that trying to be successful is "notions" an…

(UK resident, born and bread) Yes this drives me absolutely mad. I'm a poor risk taker and can come up with all those reasons something's a bad idea, but when I've made up my mind to take the risk I want supportive people around not people who would rather you never tried anything outside their "comfort zone". And the problem runs in families. This is not therapy but every time I talked to my parents about an idea it…

What nobody tells you is that doing nothing is also very risky.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#248

Post by Cumpiler69 »

lobochrome wrote: post #166
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.

Well - care to be joined by the Germans? It's the reason I am now living in Japan...

What made you move from Germany to Japan?

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#249

Post by CalRobert »

Earw0rm wrote: post #227
CalRobert wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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://…

Accurate. In fact, the only post 1972 thing you ARE allowed to do is pave over your front garden and park two Jeep Cherokees (neither of which actually fit in the available space) on it.

Ah yes, it's a delight that the pavements are now covered in SUV's too because they're too big to park legally. Very in keeping with the distinct cultural heritage of the area.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#250

Post by jandrewrogers »

Earw0rm wrote: post #206
kjellsbells wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So good to read this and feel...validated, somehow. The UK is culturally a very difficult place to start and run a business. There's a crabs in the bucket mentality that I didnt have words for before I'd left the UK for a few years, but now when I visit or do business there is absolutely everywhere. One business thing that really strikes me is that people in the UK treat bankruptcy as a moral failing, as if you cheat…

Depends on the bankruptcy. Nobody is going to shed tears over investors losing out. Speculate to accumulate, risk and reward. But IDK how it works in other countries, UK bankruptcies also means customers, unsecured creditors (often other small businesses), and the State (payroll taxes) also lose out. And it leaves a bad taste when a company run at high risk of bankruptcy ("oh but we're a Start Up") screws over their…

In the US, most of those suppliers understand the nature of startups and are accustomed to working with them, fully aware they are likely to fail. The deals are structured appropriate for those realities and some suppliers specialize in or have a preference for startups.

In the UK, many suppliers still treat startups like an exotic beast, or worse, a corner shop. US business has a familiarity and comfort with startups, due in no small part from being an increasingly prominent part of the American business landscape since the Second World War. It is the water they swim in.

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