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Taking Risk

tomblomfield.com

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Re: Taking Risk

#171

Post by Eridrus »

worstspotgain wrote: post #76

I think the "one thing that's not like the others" in the article are the crazy-high rankings of Britain's top schools. Universities are a bit of a self-perpetuating reputation scheme, and the UK has been punching well above its weight in that department. Having worked with all Europeans, I can't say that I found the British to be skill or preparation outliers. Maybe just a little above the mean? Speaking English nat…

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that these rankings are bullshit.

If you look at, e.g. universities by number of papers at neurips (ok, just one measure, but related to the AI boom), none of the UK universities crack the top 10; Oxford comes in at 12th, Cambridge at 18th, and Imperial isn't even on the list: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/185pdax/d_...

Re: Taking Risk

#172

Post by cauch »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #161
cauch wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying they are more scammy, I'm saying that the reputation score is computed differently in US and in Europe, and having a scammy aspect is penalizing the startups more in Europe than in US. You can start from exactly the same facts: - X% are scammy - Y% are bringing something great - Z% are bringing yet another useless junk in shiny paper that pollute and had bad side effect - W% are making new discoveries…

I think you're probably just categorizing something as "scammy" when it's more about being unrealistically ambitious.

You are the one who started talking about "scammy".

Look at what I've said, I've JUST said that US is more tolerant with con artist and bullshitters. I did NOT say "start-ups are con artist and/or bullshitter". What I mean is that US is less concerned to dodgy things, the more extreme being scam, the more benign being, for example, unrealistic claims. I'm just saying that the two are from the same mentality.

In other words: people in US and in Europe are not judging positively the scammers, and people in Europe are not judging positively people that are being unrealistically ambitious, while in US, they tend to be way more forgiving. People in Europe are not judging positively people that are being unrealistically ambitious not because they think they are scammers, but because, culturally, it is not seen as something positive for the society.

It's just cultural. The same way Europeans in US find it unpleasant when Americans are forcing themselves to smile at their customers when they obviously don't even know them and don't have a good reason to smile. And Americans are finding Europeans too cold when they are not smiling all the time even if they don't have a good reason to do it.

Re: Taking Risk

#173

Post by Eridrus »

gambiting wrote: post #101
worstspotgain wrote: post #76

I think the "one thing that's not like the others" in the article are the crazy-high rankings of Britain's top schools. Universities are a bit of a self-perpetuating reputation scheme, and the UK has been punching well above its weight in that department. Having worked with all Europeans, I can't say that I found the British to be skill or preparation outliers. Maybe just a little above the mean? Speaking English nat…

>> are the crazy-high rankings of Britain's top schools The problem(in general) with University rankings is that the ranking is done almost entirely on the number of publications.....in English. So it's no wonder that British universities take a lot of the top spots. I've had these conversations many many many times with people - it's not like the Universities of Warsaw or Milan or Prague are not as good as Oxford -…

If only these were done on publications, it would be a lot more accurate.

English is the lingua franca of science, like it used to be german, because ideas build on each other so you need to be able to communicate your ideas to others.

Having your native language be the lingua franca is helpful, but many of these universities are filled with foreigners who have learnt English. They could have stayed in their native countries, but they chose not to.

Re: Taking Risk

#174

Post by CM30 »

This is really the biggest factor as to why the UK startup scene is a lot smaller than the US one (and from what I hear, why similar issues occur in Europe overall):

> On the contrary, many UK investors take an extremely risk-averse view to new business - I lost count of the times that a British investor would ask for me a 3 year cash-flow forecast, and expect the company to break even within that time.

In fact, UK investors seem terrified of investing in consumer facing tech businesses in general. Something like Facebook or Google or Amazon or Netflix or Uber or whatever would be seen as far too risky an investment when they could get a nice safe return from a B2B focused SaaS business instead. They're not willing to plough money in for years on end on the assumption they might eventually get a return at the end, while US investors seem more willing to do so.

Re: Taking Risk

#175

Post by davedx »

gambiting wrote: post #104
dan-robertson wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this rent argument not apply to SF/Silicon Valley? I think SF is more expensive than London, though typical pay in (non-startup) tech is higher.

Because it's not just "higher" - it's so much higher it's hard to comprehend what difference that makes to opportunities young people have. I finished my BSc and MSc in Computer Science from a prestigious Russel Group university 10 years ago, got hired as a C++ programmer for a big corporation.....making £18k a year. My take home was about £1200/month if I remember correctly, which was still ok-ish because I was shar…

Yeah, that's pretty abnormal.

I was earning 35k in Nottingham as a C++ programmer with 3 years' experience in around... 2006 or so. Most of my programmer friends were in roughly the same pay scales. Programmer salaries in the UK aren't usually that low.

Re: Taking Risk

#176

Post by davedx »

petesergeant wrote: post #143
thom wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been a while since I was in this position but that first £100k used to be a cakewalk. SEIS made it almost a no-brainier for any high net worth individual to invest in startups.

> SEIS made it almost a no-brainer and it still should, as I understand it. On a £100k investment that the business loses all of, the investor gets £75k (£50k tax relief + £25k-ish loss relief) back or something ridiculous, don't they? Makes me wonder how this hasn't made UK capital more readily flow

Spoiler: UK capital flow isn't as bad as some of the doom and gloom comments on this thread are making it out to be

Re: Taking Risk

#177

Post by davedx »

sofixa wrote: post #98
xnorswap wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes with an inability to do lots of things for 6 (I think?) years, including things like not having an overdraft and more importantly to this conversation, prevents being a director of a company.

Isn't this only for personal bankruptcy? If you have a limited company and it goes bankrupt, it's it that's bankrupt, not the owners. Or is the UK very weird in that regard and I'm reading gov.uk wrong?

No, you're not reading it wrong, there are a lot of extremely negative comments on this thread that just aren't accurate. Limited companies are just like LLC's. There's so much nonsense being posted here

Re: Taking Risk

#178

Post by davedx »

ggm wrote: post #23

Bankruptcy laws and social mores massively different. In the UK to go bankrupt is to be painted with indelible red shame dye. In America... going bankrupt means you are closing out the book on one failure to try another.

I think you're mixing up personal and business bankruptcies

Re: Taking Risk

#179

Post by davedx »

yobbo wrote: post #108
oblio wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your future employer How will they know and why would they care, if we're talking about regular job postings?

You can choose to have a gap or failure on your résumé. Either makes you unemployable at the types of banks or consultancies considered "safe" in the article, unless you have some sort of remarkable pedigree or network. That type of résumé is accepted at less prestigious consultancies/staffing agencies, but the pay is on a lower level.

> You can choose to have a gap or failure on your résumé. Either makes you unemployable at the types of banks or consultancies considered "safe" in the article, unless you have some sort of remarkable pedigree or network.

This is all anecdotal but... You won't be unemployable because you ran a company and it failed. You may however be because you had "founder responsibilities" and then try to fall back into engineering roles after 5 years of running a startup.

Re: Taking Risk

#180

Post by vinay427 »

DrBazza wrote: post #102
dan-robertson wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this rent argument not apply to SF/Silicon Valley? I think SF is more expensive than London, though typical pay in (non-startup) tech is higher.

Not sure, as I don't live in SF, but I know that not all start-ups are in SF/The Valley even if the VC money is raised there. In the UK, they're disproportionately concentrated in London. In fact the UK government has encouraged many of them to set up around Old Street / 'Silicon Roundabout' (sigh). That area is only accessible by public transport, whereas SF/California is accessible via cars, so the choice of where…

It’s not clear at all that the vast majority of people in London commute by public transport. The sources linked below, one during the pandemic in 2020, and the other a series of estimates, suggest the figure is more like 25-35% but I wasn’t able to find something more conclusive. [1, 2]

More to your point, I agree that SF or at least the Bay Area has a higher dependence on cars, but it’s also more geographically constrained by the bay and resulting bridges/ferries, so it’s not obvious that there’s much more freedom in where to live in practice. For instance, I would guess a one hour commute in London would encompass a similar or greater number of housing units than in the Bay Area.

Somewhat unrelated, but London seems relatively low in public transport usage compared to virtually every large continental European city [3], which at least anecdotally tend to have much cheaper transport (particularly for monthly/annual subscriptions for commuters) and/or somewhat less car-friendly infrastructure. Riding a bus through Old Street, for instance, makes apparent one cost Londoners pay for not prioritising public transport.

[1] https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-do...

[2] https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-do...

[3] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Modal-shares-in-selected...

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