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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

#161

Post by youngtaff »

blibble wrote: post #157
sjhuda wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Although Yes CrossRail was partly funded by a levy on London homes and businesses, London get's more funding per capita for public transport than anywhere else in the country

Imagine what we achieve if we invested London levels of money in transport across the rest of the country

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

#162

Post by youngtaff »

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…

To me a startup is something that's not yet profitable

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

#163

Post by youngtaff »

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

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

#164

Post by drdrek »

Hub / City Area,Total Tech Startups,Total Funding (2025 Est.),Total Residents (Metro),Startups per 1k Residents,Money per 1k Residents

San Francisco (Bay Area),"18,052",$122.0 Billion,7.7 Million,2.34,$15.84 Million

New York City,"15,000+",$45.0 Billion,19.5 Million,0.77,$2.31 Million

London,"8,900",$26.0 Billion,9.0 Million,0.99,$2.89 Million

Tel Aviv (Area),"2,996",$12.0 Billion,4.2 Million,0.71,$2.86 Million

Beijing,"2,350",$18.0 Billion,21.9 Million,0.11,$0.82 Million

Paris,"3,200",$10.0 Billion,13.1 Million,0.24,$0.76 Million

Bangalore,"3,500",$12.0 Billion,14.0 Million,0.25,$0.86 Million

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

#165

Post by pjc50 »

drdrek wrote: post #164

Hub / City Area,Total Tech Startups,Total Funding (2025 Est.),Total Residents (Metro),Startups per 1k Residents,Money per 1k Residents San Francisco (Bay Area),"18,052",$122.0 Billion,7.7 Million,2.34,$15.84 Million New York City,"15,000+",$45.0 Billion,19.5 Million,0.77,$2.31 Million London,"8,900",$26.0 Billion,9.0 Million,0.99,$2.89 Million Tel Aviv (Area),"2,996",$12.0 Billion,4.2 Million,0.71,$2.86 Million Beiji…

Where is this CSV from?

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

#166

Post by interludead »

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…

London ends up being this amazing on-ramp into global tech, but not quite the place where the biggest companies finish their journey

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

#167

Post by interludead »

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.

And there are a few places globally that have that vibe

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

#168

Post by rowanajmarshall »

gpderetta wrote: post #143
johnisgood wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I actually wrote a webapp to show this, check it out - https://housepricedashboard.co.uk/

London house prices are falling quite a lot in real terms.

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

#169

Post by pjc50 »

pyuser583 wrote: post #89
hadlock wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups might thrive there, but business investment in England (particularly in mature businesses) has not exactly been lively ever since Brexit. I can't recall the last time I heard someone talking favorably about investing in England, or at all, really.

Or since the anti-corruption reforms of 2015-2018. Which frustratingly overlap with Brexit, making it hard to tell whether this is “good driving business away” or “bad driving business away.”

First I've heard of this - which anti-corruption reforms?

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

#170

Post by dukeyukey »

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"?

I don't think so. Like sure, if you're a Bangladeshi living in Tower Hamlets you could probably get away with a limited life speaking only Bengali, but you could say the same about Spanish in swathes of the US. Realistically, you need English.
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