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

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#791

Post by naijaboiler » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:03 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #721

Earw0rm wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do poorer countries manage to avoid getting outright bankrupted by social care? Why is it such a black hole money-pit in the UK particularly?

It’s a black hole money-pit everywhere. There is no return on spending money for people who will never be productive again. The only way that kind of wealth transfer works is with a growing proportion of workers, but that has long not been the case in many developed countries. The solution for all these countries (even the US) is to dismantle all wealth transfer to old people. It might be the only way to incentivize…

The west is caught in a web of its own creation. We have basically incentivized the countries to get older by taxing the young to subsidize the rich.

Unfortunately, there's no easy way for democracy to correct this. older people vote and are wealthier. Both of those mean they have large political power.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#792

Post by chronic7300690 » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:06 PM UTC

soVeryTired wrote: post #769

wcfrobert wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US outsourced its manufacturing to China in the name of comparative advantage. Bob bakes bread, Alice grow apples. Everyone is better off because of specialization. In Thomas Friedman's latest nyt column, he refers to China's manufacturing dominance as a play to de-industrializing other countries. It may just be globalization is incompatible with political realities.

Or… Bob makes bread, Alice grows flowers. Alice needs bread; Bob likes flowers but can go without if he wants to. Who’s going to come off worse if they have an argument?

> Who’s going to come off worse if they have an argument?

The US.

But 4 year election cycles and quarterly earning reports are incompatible with long-term planning.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#793

Post by bluGill » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:09 PM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #742

bluGill wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The us generally would do 95% in the safe s&p500 and the other 5% in high risk things. The exact numbers varry of course but that is a good rule of thumb for good future growth.

Ok makes sense. But that feels like a strategy Europe could do as well. It doesn’t sound absurd or too risky. How come we don’t do it?

That is a great question. Also ask why you don't even if nobody else does.

i have some ideas but my insight to europe is limited so I'm at least half wrong.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#794

Post by chronic7300690 » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:10 PM UTC

heraldgeezer wrote: post #581

freddie_mercury wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent a decade in a low-wage country and the number of people who were "glad" to spend even half that much time there -- paid handsomely! -- could probably be counted on one hand. Virtually the only people who stay longer than 3-5 years are ones who end up founding their own businesses there. Raising children away from your native culture isn't the deal breaker you imply. There are international schools (though, wi…

So everyone fully admits that these countries are in fact "worse" in every way?

> So everyone fully admits that these countries are in fact "worse" in every way?

Considering money is the universal currency? Yes. Worse in every way.

Churches ask for donations. Women marry rich men. You can buy politicians. You can buy more expensive healthcare treatments.

Can you do that in a worse SEA country?

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#795

Post by itissid » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:11 PM UTC

ashergill wrote: post #663

> The reality for most graduates is even grimmer: > • £25,000 starting salaries at traditional engineering firms > • Exodus to consulting or finance just because it's compensated better This is _exactly_ my career so far. The key thing about the British economy is that while most things operate in a free market, construction is centrally planned by councillors who are incentivised to block most development. So the wh…

I remember seeing tons of shipping containers repurposed as offices all over london last year. Was that a way to ease/get-around this real estate issue?

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#796

Post by RobotToaster » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:11 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #734

tomhoward wrote: post #519

I don’t think it’s just a UK thing, or that it’s much easier to start a hardware startup in the USA. I think it’s more that the bar for getting a hardware startup off the ground is much higher than a software startup - everywhere in the world. Personally I’ve been trying to self-fund and bootstrap a hardware startup (based in Australia but I’m reasonably well connected in Silicon Valley as I’m a YC alum). I’ve had pl…

> That’s not the kind of thing young, unproven founders can pull off, anywhere. The UK, with a comprehensive social safety net, should be more willing to take small risks. I know it's now what happens, but it'd be important to understand why something that should be actually isn't.

UC seems almost specifically set up to prevent people on it from starting a business, with it's look-through provisions and capital limits.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#797

Post by sylware » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:11 PM UTC

jononor wrote: post #781

sylware wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, look at RISC-V, the most promising hardware is from the USA. It is not yet on the latest silicon process, but with the latest GPU, I guess we could run the latest games, until the game devs recompile and QA a bit their games (obviously on elf/linux)

Most promising by what definition? And what subset of applications/markets are you considering? In the microcontroller space, China is leading on RISC-V. EspressIf, WCH, et.c are already shipping units at scale. Of course these are low value chips, but the volumes are large. The combined shipments for microcontrollers are in tens of billions of units annually. The technology choices in the space changes slowly (32 bi…

Look at risc-v official web site, some company called sifive and their UEFI workstation boards.

And I want to be able to buy a USB-C RV64 SOC (without ARM blocks) with tons of GPIOs for my future keyboard controller.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#798

Post by dukeyukey » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:11 PM 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.

This isn't my experience at all, and I've been in London tech for 8 years now. I'm not entirely sure what "low respect" means here, but anywhere I've worked the company is pretty wary of knarking of their developers because we can just up and find another job basically immediately. We get paid a fair bit too - not sure compared to finance, but not hard to hit the 95th percentile or so.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#799

Post by dukeyukey » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:14 PM UTC

GasVeteran wrote: post #433

dzhiurgis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what. Quality of life in rural UK is worse than rat race of London?

Depends what you mean by "Quality of Life". I literally won't go to see friends because that would mean travelling to London. I hate the place. It is expensive, hostile, dirty and everyone is rude. I live on the outskirts of the peak district. I can walk/cycle less than 30 minutes out of town and be walking along the old canals, through old villages and get amazing views of the countryside.

To be fair I live in Zone 2 and I can be on old canals and villages (albeit now subsumed into London) in ~20 minutes walking. I grew up in rural Wales, and as nice an upbringing it was, there's a reason I have a single family member left, who's trying to move away!

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#800

Post by pclmulqdq » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 6:16 PM UTC

As a former hardware engineer and a lover of all things hardware, the only country that isn't currently wasting its hardware talent is China. The rest of the world has been spoiled by the easy money in software.

Only China has produced a stable flow of hardware startups, and they have generally been very impressive.