Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly this. Great Britain colonized huge parts of the globe and had an empire. They were kings of trade and the world. Now they are just a surveillance nanny state and hollow shell of their former self.
I regularly see opinion pieces in the British Press advising young Brits to get out. In 2022 one writer wrote 'Britain is fed up, bitter, and practically broke – and it’s all going to get worse' and indeed it still is and getting worse. One basic problem: an unsustainable welfare and health system and overwrought bureaucracy. Today I learn that one major bank is considering leaving the UK in view of excessive 'red ta…
UK's hardware talent is being wasted
321–330 of 1001 posts
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#322I see this in the USA too - electrical engineers fiddling with css to make buttons dance, published computer scientists working on trivial systems for massive data centers billing systems - the tech market does always seem inefficient, and yet, at some point the market is going to have more knowledge and expertise than it needs, especially if AI predictions play out. What happens then?
Thats a big if. Big tech has enshittified everything its touched for a long time now.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#323If my salary had been my only or even my main objective, I would have taken a very different route in my career. Sure, for some people it is, but there are other factors as well. But if you're from the UK, young and independent, and money is your main drive, what's keeping you from moving to the US, at least for a couple of years?
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#324Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#325As 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…
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?
Doing soldering of prototypes? Good luck finding a landlord that would let you do it. The moment they hear "fumes" is a nope, fire hazard, safety risk and won't let you...
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
you’ve got kids and can’t enjoy the nightlife and culture anyway Having kids while living in the centre of a large city is great, as there is so much culture that is aimed at parents and children. When my kid was small we went to museums and concerts and events all the time that were aimed at kids. There were also several different parks, playgrounds, pools and similar activities to choose from all within easy access…
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#327God, 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 PM himself defines working class as people with no savings. It's horrid.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#328Easier said than done, Europe doesn't have the money for that (partially because all the exit money circulates in American VCs).
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Switching to % change - EU beats US. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...
The EU gets a boost from the inclusion of Eastern European economies that have been fast growing from a lower base.
If you compare the US and the UK to the four biggest EU economies, the US is doing best by far, and the UK is doing better than three and worse than one:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 wa…
There's also a very strongly egalitarian way of thinking, as in pretty much everybody is interchangeable. So, if someone does better than somebody else, it's likely because of something "unfair" (or luck) and not thanks to being more competent.