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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

#151

Post by roryirvine »

dukeyukey wrote: post #45
rconti wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the comp? From HN I had gotten the feeling that the UK was worse than most of western europe in that regard.

According to levels.fyi London is basically the best paying non-US city, I think maybe beaten by some Swiss cities.

I've always found levels.fyi to be a little pessimistic for the UK when compared with commercially-available benchmarking services.

I suspect it's because people on PAYE tend to think of their basic salary + bonus + income tax, but disregard NICS, pension, paid holidays, and other benefits. They end up reporting a total package that's 10-20% lower than it actually is.

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

#153

Post by johnisgood »

rorytbyrne wrote: post #147
johnisgood wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am not making any points. I have just heard this take a lot of times and I have not been around London for over 10 years. If there is a point, it is not mine.

As for its relevance: "native speakers on English", etc.

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

#154

Post by interludead »

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…

And for a city that wants to be a global startup hub, that kind of frictionless mobility matters way more than people realize

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

#155

Post by tonyedgecombe »

dukeyukey wrote: post #43
alephnerd wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-30/london-dr... Edit: can't reply The majority of IPOs in 2025 were in 4 markets - US, China, Hong Kong, India, and South Korea [0]. It's really hard to exit in the LSE currently, and this article is self congratulatory while ignoring major recent (past 2-3 years) mistakes that negatively impacted the entrepreneurship scene in the UK (eg. the revocation of fundi…

No it isn't, London's IPOs in 2025 were mostly towards the end of the year, after that article was written. London ended up about 8th worldwide for issuances in 2025 - https://www.pwc.co.uk/press-room/press-releases/research-com... Plus, the FTSE 100 returned 25.8% last year. That is not a shrinking market! EDIT: I'd prefer you not change the subject away from your capital markets claim, but to address the other link…

> Plus, the FTSE 100 returned 25.8% last year. That is not a shrinking market!

After a long period in the doldrums.

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

#156

Post by dgxyz »

keiferski wrote: post #96
dgxyz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the hell are you doing wrong? I never eat the same thing twice in London?!?

But are the places you’re eating 1) fairly affordable and 2) quick / fast food and not a proper sit down restaurant? I had an extremely difficult time finding places with those requirements. Everything seemed to require sitting down for at least 20-30 minutes, which didn’t fit my walking schedule. I didn’t have the same problem in NYC or Paris, where it’s very easy to find a variety of places to grab a kebab, baguett…

Yeah definitely affordable and quick. And can get all of those in London with zero effort. Most of the time I just search for food on Google Maps and pick something which doesn't look poisonous.

For example, going here tomorrow at lunch time https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/food-and-drink/southbank-c... - will work out what I'll eat when I get there.

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

#157

Post by blibble »

sjhuda wrote: post #131
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…

Thin air? It was delivered 3 years late and cost £5bn more than it should have. While projects like HS2 to the North are scaled back. The UK uses other parts of the county as a piggy bank to fund London projects. I have a dog in this fight as I'm quite close to the public transport industry in the North and it's pretty disheartening to see politicans use us as some sort of "policy win" and then never follow through w…

> The UK uses other parts of the county as a piggy bank to fund London projects.

it's the exact opposite

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

#158

Post by pjc50 »

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, formerly known as Crossrail, is a lot more similar to the hundred year plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail

My dad was a tunnels engineer and worked on Crossrail feasibility studies at several points in his career across decades.

London is is many ways one of the less impressive subway systems simply because much of it is so old, with small trains running in Victorian era tunnels. Not as bad as the Glasgow one, which feels like travelling on a 2/3 scale model of a subway with alarmingly narrow platforms.

It is however a point of contention within the UK that London public transport is better than public transport in almost every other city, due to being properly nationalized.

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

#160

Post by interludead »

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…

Europe has plenty of cities that are great if your goal is "build something useful, make money, don't sell your soul," and those don’t show up in these charts
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