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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

#141

Post by philipallstar »

TuringNYC wrote: post #114

I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.) The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathr…

The Elizabeth Line was unbelievably expensive to build; that's how the UK did it.

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

#142

Post by pdpi »

TuringNYC wrote: post #114

I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.) The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathr…

Some bits about the service can be pretty astounding.

I used to live near the Central line. The station near home was open air and the exit was at the very end of the platform, so I always wanted to make sure I entered the train from the correct end. Service on the Central line is frequent enough (24 trains per hour off-peak), that, if I hopped off the train from the wrong end, the time it took me to walk the length of the platform was long enough for the next train to arrive.

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

#143

Post by gpderetta »

johnisgood wrote: post #138
dukeyukey wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing is super expensive, but even that is coming down. Transport is a bit expensive, bit it's fine. Everything else is pretty reasonable!

Is it really coming down? Only in London, UK, Europe, or more or less globally? Where are you getting this from? I am not sure everything else is reasonable if groceries alone have been going up by as much as 100% throughout the world, heh. Maybe on an SWE salary it is reasonable, sure.

I was going to reply to grandparent that only flat prices are coming down because of rising service charge costs, and being hard to mortgage because of cladding issues.

But after some research it is indeed true that house prices are, to a lesser extent, also going down, at least in real terms, if not nominal.

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

#144

Post by Ringz »

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 would say [even] Berlin is better than London.

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

#145

Post by graemep »

johnisgood wrote: post #138
dukeyukey wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing is super expensive, but even that is coming down. Transport is a bit expensive, bit it's fine. Everything else is pretty reasonable!

Is it really coming down? Only in London, UK, Europe, or more or less globally? Where are you getting this from? I am not sure everything else is reasonable if groceries alone have been going up by as much as 100% throughout the world, heh. Maybe on an SWE salary it is reasonable, sure.

In multiple UK regions, but the most expensive ones and London the most.

Its coming down but from a very high level in London.

I do not know about other countries, but movements do tend to be wide spread (at least across similar economies). We are seeing higher interest rates in a lot of countries and they are the main determinant of the multiple of income properties sell at.

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

#146

Post by hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm »

colesantiago wrote: post #32

While startup capital flows in, the growth story is very different, and for those living in the UK, it isn't what it seems. There aren't any jobs in the UK and most are offshored to other low CoL countries. Young people, founders are leaving for other places like Dubai, Singapore and even SF for higher paying jobs.

This is generally how it is. For the entry level market you have a realistic choice of 5 companies like Barclays, BT, Amazon, SKY for limited positions while competing against the world for them. A fresh linkedin job post for tech even for no-name companies gets a 100+ applicants in under an hour starting at 30k salaries. I'm not even sure which startups are hiring graduates except maybe from Oxbridge. It is obvious a lot of people commenting particularly in this thread are ultra-privileged expats where "London" is just zone 1 for them and are well connected in the industry. They probably don't even know what Morley's is. Living costs along with the high tax rates alone will eat up your income and I know British people who work in international bank's at senior positions complaining about these things and about mass immigration all the time.

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

#147

Post by rorytbyrne »

johnisgood wrote: post #137
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…

Is it reasonable to say that in many (not all) parts of London, English no longer functions reliably as the default public language, even if most individuals technically "speak English"?

Not sure what point you’re trying to make here in relation to startups.

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

#148

Post by jddj »

johnisgood wrote: post #137
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…

Is it reasonable to say that in many (not all) parts of London, English no longer functions reliably as the default public language, even if most individuals technically "speak English"?

No

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

#149

Post by martypitt »

TuringNYC wrote: post #114

I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.) The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathr…

I've lived in London for a decade, and feel incredibly lucky to have access to the transit here - having lived in Aus, NZ and Canada previously.

It's not perfect. It's late sometimes, pollution sucks, and often crowded - but people here who like to criticise it really don't recognise how much better they have it than lots of other places.

Same with travel from here to Europe (by train), is just awesome.

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

#150

Post by anonzzzies »

johnisgood wrote: post #137
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…

Is it reasonable to say that in many (not all) parts of London, English no longer functions reliably as the default public language, even if most individuals technically "speak English"?

nope
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