Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#161

Post by foldr » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:25 PM UTC

Lio wrote: post #160

foldr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's supposing that the weapons work as advertised. The UK is entirely reliant on Trident for its nuclear deterrent, and it is reliant on support from the USA to maintain Trident. If Trident turns out not to work very well (which is entirely possible), or if relations with the USA sour, or if ballistic missile submarines turn out to be easier to detect and/or more vulnerable than expected, then the UK could very we…

The UK's Trident missile system is not dependant on the US for launch control[0]. All the other what ifs you've mentioned are the same for both sides. The thing about nuclear war is that you can't attach the UK without attacking France. What's more, you can't attack Russia without attacking the UK and France. In a nuclear winter we all die. Everywhere. It's like letting of a hand grenade in an elevator. You can throw…

>The UK's Trident missile system is not dependant on the US for launch control[0]

I didn't say that it was. But we do depend on the USA for maintenance and support. The independent all-party Trident commission concluded that the deterrent could not be maintained for more than a few months if the US were to withdraw cooperation: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/defence-and-security-blo...

>All the other what ifs you've mentioned are the same for both sides.

No, because Russia and USA have the nuclear triad. The UK only has one method of delivery. France has two.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#162

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:27 PM UTC

foldr wrote: post #158

Silhouette wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But taxes in the UK are really not that much higher (except VAT in comparison to sales tax). Of course that depends a lot on which taxes you look at. For total personal income taxes for an employee on salary, the highest marginal rate (ignoring the odd 60% band at £100k-120k) is currently 47%, and you reach that when your salary passes £150k. If you go independent and start getting paid through a limited company and…

The UK does have a lot of entrepreneurial types setting up new companies.

Get back to me in a year or two, when the full weight of recent changes in areas like dividend taxes and pensions have been felt in the figures.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#163

Post by foldr » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:28 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #155

foldr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's supposing that the weapons work as advertised. The UK is entirely reliant on Trident for its nuclear deterrent, and it is reliant on support from the USA to maintain Trident. If Trident turns out not to work very well (which is entirely possible), or if relations with the USA sour, or if ballistic missile submarines turn out to be easier to detect and/or more vulnerable than expected, then the UK could very we…

The whole point behind building nuclear defence systems was to render the risk of consequences from a first strike too grave to attempt it, not to achieve perfect balance between the city-eradication potential of the respective nuclear powers. Nobody is about to evaluate how well Trident works in practice by launching a first strike on London. For all of Trident's limitations, it is impossible to argue with a straigh…

>Nobody is about to evaluate how well Trident works in practice by launching a first strike on London.

Let's hope not.

>not to achieve perfect balance between the city-eradication potential of the respective nuclear powers.

The UK's nuclear deterrent consists of one or two Trident submarines active at any given time which carry 8 Trident missiles each. (They can carry up to 16, but don't at the moment.) Don't be under the impression that the UK can deploy anything like its full stockpile of warheads in the event of a nuclear conflict.

>it is impossible to argue with a straight face that [...]

You're reading some kind of political slant into my comment that just isn't there. I'm not a fan of the current US administration.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#164

Post by eeeuo » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

another-one-off wrote: post #63

robert_foss wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal counter is that I just couldn't morally accept contributing taxes to a nation which: - Exploits the poor and non-citizens - Overthrows governments and bullies smaller countries - Has only the most rudimentary social security system - Does not really have a concept of healthy work/life balance. With little time off and none at all for people with newborns. - Takes near-zero environmental responsibility - L…

That starts to rule out a lot of English speaking countries, including probably the UK. I mean, in the UK alone you'd need to evaluate what, if anything, separates the modern British morals from the morals of the British Empire which was not a very nice organisation [1]. They technically didn't overthrow and bully, but that was because they conquered and colonised. I don't think the lineage of government institutions…

Yes, they did "technically" overthrow.

The UK, alongside the US, overthrew a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953. This is not a point of contention, it's been openly stated by the CIA.

I genuinely thought the GP was making a joke until the bit about time off.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#165

Post by Lio » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

samdoidge wrote: post #119

noir_lord wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech multinationals are almost by definition 24/7 operations. The UK for an American tech company is a large stable country within 1-2 hours of the timezone of the largest single market in the world and has a shared language and culture. If you want to sell into Europe then Britain made sense...until the fuckwits voted for leave (yeah I'm bitter, they fucked over everyone my age and under).

> If you want to sell into Europe then Britain made sense...until the fuckwits voted for leave (yeah I'm bitter, they fucked over everyone my age and under). I think this is where the 'Remoaner' labels come from.

You're right but 48% of us thought it was a terrible idea at the time and still haven't heard a good reason for leaving that doesn't involve vague patriotic ramblings.

Plus on top of that many of the pro-leave arguments have proved to be outright lies already ...and we still haven't even left yet.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#166

Post by maccard » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

Balero wrote: post #38

foldr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And if you're making $142k in salary in the US, your healthcare is entirely paid for. Surely there's still copay?

IF you have good insurance the co-pay is trivial. I broke a bone, total of $80 in copay. Someone with worse insurance is looking at a bill in the $1000's or even $10,000

> I broke a bone, total of $80 in copay.

And if I break a bone, or my partner breaks a bone, there's _no_ copay. I can certainly think of things I'd rather do with $80 than pay for the privilege of claiming on insurance.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#167

Post by maccard » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:42 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #129

swarnie_ wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate.... I'm just a little further away in Buckinghamshire but the local train can get you to zone 1 in under 30 minutes. 4 x my salary would get me a 2 bed flat if i didn't mind living in a ghetto.

If you had 4x your salary, wouldn't you be spending a lot on keeping up your house, and paying a lot of taxes for local amenities like schools? I don't understand how an area that affluent could be a ghetto.

I think he's saying that if he borrowed 4x his salary for a mortgage (which is the commonly cited figure as the max you can borrow), he could only afford a ghetto.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#168

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

growlist wrote: post #159

kalkut wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The top 1/4 in the US have easy, fast access to some of the most elite medical care on the planet. And if you're making $142k in salary in the US, your healthcare is entirely paid for. There is nothing surprising in the fact that the top 25% earners have access to healthcare. The point of public healthcare is to make sure that the remaining 75% will not get indebted to barely survive. What would worry an European w…

There's also the holiday, or rather lack of it - there are many things about the UK I could grumble about, but every other Anglosphere country seems to have worse annual leave.

3 weeks is common for USA tech companies now. What is it in the uk?

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#169

Post by lordnacho » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

> According to the recruitment website Hired, the average tech salary in London is $78,000 a year, versus $142,000 in Silicon Valley.

Does anyone have a like-for-like comparison? What do the FAANGS pay for the same thing in one place or the other? Is Glassdoor reliable for these stats?

I don't think the comparison is so easy, because London has a huge financial tech market which SV probably doesn't. But those incomes might end up in the "finance jobs" column rather than "tech". HFT coders get paid a fair bit, but could reasonably claim to be either.

Re: Tech Giants Take Their Talent Hunt to Cambridge, UK

#170

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Jul 05, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #169

> According to the recruitment website Hired, the average tech salary in London is $78,000 a year, versus $142,000 in Silicon Valley. Does anyone have a like-for-like comparison? What do the FAANGS pay for the same thing in one place or the other? Is Glassdoor reliable for these stats? I don't think the comparison is so easy, because London has a huge financial tech market which SV probably doesn't. But those incomes…

Those incomes enter into the consultant column.