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How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

economist.com

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Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#121

Post by yladiz »

socalgal2 wrote: post #101
walthamstow wrote: post #26

I am completely biased but I think London is one of the best places to live in the world, everything considered. There's a guy on Instagram who spins a wheel for a random country and goes to eat that cuisine somewhere in London. There are maybe 1 or 2 places in the world you can do that. It's an incredible feat of human diversity to pack hundreds of global cuisines into a 10 mile radius.

I don't know London all that well, I've only spent about a month there. But in my limited experience the food scene didn't come close to LA, SF, NYC, Tokyo. As an example, the LA metro Area (LA, OC, SB), 46% latino, 27% white, 15% asian 7% african, 3% mixed There huge sections of those cities, several kilometers long where you drive for miles and see majority one culture. Several areas majority korean, chinese, japan…

I have the opposite feeling. I would put London and NYC on roughly the same level, but London definitely beats SF and LA in terms of variety, quantity, and quality for a lot of cuisines. Tokyo is also not as good, but it’s different because you can find high quality (higher than basically anywhere in the world), but low variety.

Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#122

Post by petesergeant »

kjellsbells wrote: post #24

Is this really surprising? London picks up all the advantages of the UK (legal system is sound, eg in contract law, native speakers of English, the lingua franca of business, strong university tradition) and adds in its special sauce: access to the City, global-tier culture, excellent public transport (I know we moan about it, but it really is excellent), and a timezone location that easily serves the US and Asia mar…

Plus SEIS is the most insanely generous investment tax relief

Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#123

Post by foldr »

socalgal2 wrote: post #101
walthamstow wrote: post #26

I am completely biased but I think London is one of the best places to live in the world, everything considered. There's a guy on Instagram who spins a wheel for a random country and goes to eat that cuisine somewhere in London. There are maybe 1 or 2 places in the world you can do that. It's an incredible feat of human diversity to pack hundreds of global cuisines into a 10 mile radius.

I don't know London all that well, I've only spent about a month there. But in my limited experience the food scene didn't come close to LA, SF, NYC, Tokyo. As an example, the LA metro Area (LA, OC, SB), 46% latino, 27% white, 15% asian 7% african, 3% mixed There huge sections of those cities, several kilometers long where you drive for miles and see majority one culture. Several areas majority korean, chinese, japan…

The great thing about London is that it has diversity without segregation. So no, you won’t find a huge area of town where almost everyone is of the same ethnicity, but the diversity is still there. Race isn’t the only index. A higher percentage of London’s population is foreign-born than LA’s.

Food depends a lot on what you go for. You won’t find much good Mexican food in London, but on the other hand, you can by a better croissant in a supermarket here than you can find in most of the US.

Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#124

Post by Lucasoato »

fhennig wrote: post #65

I live in a big continental European city that also has a start-up hub. The companies here are also small, creative, solving problems, but don't necessarily aim for an exit and growth at all costs, many of them want to create a sustainable business solving a need that people have. I think, to the economist, these are just SMEs and a start-up is about making money, an IPO, an exit, the unicorns. And of course London a…

I feel that these shouldn't be alternatives. Calling something startup is up to the definition that we use; one that I like is the following:

   A startup is a temporary operating model designed to discover a repeatable, scalable, and profitable business.
A friend of mine used:

   A company that just started that can scale to 100M evaluation in less than 5 years.
From these point of views, there are a lot of wonderful SMEs that need to see the ligth. They should be supported by the government and the community, but they need very different tools from what we define as startups.

A seed round of million of dollars might not make sense for a flower shop, but could be reasonable if you plan to develop the next generation B2B flower shop SaaS integration.

Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#125

Post by crimsoneer »

fhennig wrote: post #65

I live in a big continental European city that also has a start-up hub. The companies here are also small, creative, solving problems, but don't necessarily aim for an exit and growth at all costs, many of them want to create a sustainable business solving a need that people have. I think, to the economist, these are just SMEs and a start-up is about making money, an IPO, an exit, the unicorns. And of course London a…

I mean, I do slightly appreciate this (not all businesses need to grow 10X every year to succeed), but the other way of phrasing it is that London produces lots of business that generates lots of money.

Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#126

Post by petesergeant »

bandris wrote: post #77
killingtime74 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where else have you lived though? The cost of living is high, healthcare is problematic, crowded, bad weather, low economic growth prospects. It's not even top 10 on most lists. Europe, Australia has way better cities. Example Sydney, life expectancy is at least 5 years more. The poverty rate in London, 26%, is double of Sydney at 13%. E.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2025/06/18/the... https://en.wi…

London has a special microclimate and pleasant weather all year around. No extremes and less rain than other parts of the country.

> London has a special microclimate and pleasant weather

It is hard to reconcile this with having actually lived there. The only benefit to the weather in London is it rarely gets very cold. Other than that, it gets very dark winters, it’s rarely sunny, when it gets too hot it’s unbearable because nowhere has aircon, and it’s usually drizzling.

The weather is appalling.

Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#127

Post by crimsoneer »

cong-or wrote: post #117

Surprised London holds this position given the cost of living. Housing alone eats such a massive chunk of salary that I'd expect talent to gravitate toward cities where their equity/salary goes further. How do early-stage startups compete for engineers when rent is £2k+ for a one-bedroom?

I mean, by comparison to the booming US market, paying for London talent is becoming an absolute bargain...

Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#128

Post by [deleted] »

kjellsbells wrote: post #24

Is this really surprising? London picks up all the advantages of the UK (legal system is sound, eg in contract law, native speakers of English, the lingua franca of business, strong university tradition) and adds in its special sauce: access to the City, global-tier culture, excellent public transport (I know we moan about it, but it really is excellent), and a timezone location that easily serves the US and Asia mar…

[deleted]

Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#129

Post by Citizen_Lame »

blibble wrote: post #53
dangus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The math works out for almost every HCOL area. Your salary is higher. Rent is high too but people either choose to live further away or accept a smaller apartment/condo. London has a big commuting radius with strong regional transit (as maligned as it is).

> London has a big commuting radius with strong regional transit (as maligned as it is). yes, you can quite easily live 50 miles out and be at your desk in under an hour

As long as you don't use trains.

Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital

#130

Post by stef25 »

Lucasoato wrote: post #124
fhennig wrote: post #65

I live in a big continental European city that also has a start-up hub. The companies here are also small, creative, solving problems, but don't necessarily aim for an exit and growth at all costs, many of them want to create a sustainable business solving a need that people have. I think, to the economist, these are just SMEs and a start-up is about making money, an IPO, an exit, the unicorns. And of course London a…

I feel that these shouldn't be alternatives. Calling something startup is up to the definition that we use; one that I like is the following: A startup is a temporary operating model designed to discover a repeatable, scalable, and profitable business. A friend of mine used: A company that just started that can scale to 100M evaluation in less than 5 years. From these point of views, there are a lot of wonderful SMEs…

> A company that just started that can scale to 100M evaluation in less than 5 years.

How can you assign a name to something based on what might happen in < 5 years ?

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