211–220 of 304 posts
Or if ARM and DeepMind remained UK-owned and based, and simply took smart venture capital and grew themselves independently, instead of selling to foreign owners.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UK is Europe's tech hub at this point (not the EU's), assuming by tech we mean the sort of tech discussed in the article. As the article notes, the VC ecosystem in the UK does actually exist and is spinning up, whereas in most of Europe it hardly exists. If you want something a bit more objective than the article's assertions, there is an attempt to calculate a ranking here: https://www.startupblink.com/blog/anal…
Well, I suspect a lot of the UK's startup stats are still connected to its universities. The page you linked shows London with a massive index lead over the EU. When you scroll down to the lists of notable companies, only ~10% of them are UK-based. The contrast of London to the rest of Britain is also much starker than for some other EU hubs. It's questionable whether the "startup hub seed" would have germinated had…
The US tends to purchase successful New Zealand startups oi reckon. Is it the same pattern in the UK?
I suspect there's a few major reasons:
(1) NZ startups seem to get acquired so that they can sell their products/services into the US market. NZ companies often struggle to market to the US. Similarly Rocket Lab moved to the US. However our local ebay competitor (TradeMe) was bought for a few billion by the UK based Apax Partners.
(2) NZ doesn't have the capital markets to buy successful businesses so we sell the family silver to overseas buyers.
(3) NZ government taxes owner's dividends (of the most successful businesses) at 39%. NZ's capital gain tax is 0% so owners usually have a financial incentive to sell their businesses.
For startups, our taxation system demotivates founders. Building or growing a business usually does not reward enough for the risks. A shame because NZ needs the foreign income.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're probably just categorizing something as "scammy" when it's more about being unrealistically ambitious.
But that's kind of the point - in your culture apparently there is a difference between making unrealistically ambitious claims and being scammy, and in my culture there is not. If someone tries to get investor's money by making unrealistic claims, they may be above the line legally, but in my culture they're clearly behaving morally unacceptably, demonstrating that they are a fraudster, someone who can't be trusted…
>> "The vast majority of our smart, technical graduates take “safe” jobs at prestigious employers. I am trying to figure out why that is."
Well Europe pays significantly less than US and if one wants to make any amount of significant (for Europe, lame for US) money, one's gotta work for prestigious US employers. Starting a business requires capital so here we have it: Europe has less money and to get them, the usual route is work for US.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UK is a giant version of the Cayman Islands. It's a big bank providing financial services to rich people while keeping them anonymous. Everything else is secondary. And Brexit only made it worse.
On the other hand, the UK is one of the safest countries in the world, is full of kind people, has a general abundance of food, gives workers a relatively large number of days off in a year, has a functioning police force and takes care of sick people and those who can't work for whatever reason. Of course it is not perfect. The people of Britain may not have huge bank accounts, but this is partly because they collec…
I'm from the UK but have been living in Europe (EU) for half a decade, and I'd say where I live now is much better than the UK for almost all of those things.
The only thing we don't give such high benefits (relative to cost of living) for those who can't work. But in the UK a lot of people abuse that, so maybe it's a good thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an immigrant to the UK I'm continually surprised on how poor life here actually is. The main culprit in my mind is the atrocious cost of real estate. Not so much in how much money it takes to buy a house - those costs can be comparable to other countries, but on the ratio of post-tax salary pound per square meter. Most of the real estate in the UK is very small, both in outdoor space as well as in indoor proportio…
> As an immigrant to the UK I'm continually surprised on how poor life here actually is. Why do you stay?
There's many factors that make Europe less competitive than the US: small fractured markets, low salaries, high cost of living relative to wages, Brexit costs, fear of being labeled a failure, working to live, focus on worker's rights, stability, and pensions, general risk aversion etc. A big issue is there's a lack of mega successes high margin software businesses that pump knowledge and money back into the startup…
Honestly, these factors apply to many countries outside of the US and stops them from being startup hubs as well. Singapore is in a similar position; despite its wealth and apparent connectedness as Southeast Asia's preferred location for company HQ, it didn't really succeed in kicking off a virtuous circle of winners helping fund new startups. It's pretty hard/costly to acquire customers in disparate small/nonwealthy markets, especially if they stick to established brands.
A related factor is investors' relative unwillingness to take on risk, because big payouts haven't been observed. So VCs all pile into the same few existing winners that are actually looking like they'll hit a payday.
At one point in 2013-2016 there was a flurry of support for new startups due to aggressive government funding grants and subsidies, but very few of these managed to cross the chasm and raise significant follow-on rounds. A few years later, the funding schemes were cut (due to a lack of observed successes) and the early-stage scene grew quiet.
It feels like only very big, integrated markets can support a dynamic startup scene (the US and China). It doesn't seem to happen without easy access to similar consumers/clients and the willingness of those clients to try new services and companies.
I considered a startup after university in the UK. The talent arbitrage is absurd, physics grads with 1sts from top Russell Group unis fighting to be paid £30k/yr. For me it came down to security, life is expensive, rent is expensive. I didn't have a spare parental garage to setup five computers - I barely had room in my flat for one desk . I barely had money for that flat let alone internet, and food. I had zero cap…
> just days before my start date at McKinsey, which finally gave me the confidence to choose the startup over a prestigious job offer.
I highly doubt many people are getting offers at McKinsey and getting funded at the same time. The dude talks about risk but he literally took little to no risk. He is funded. The profile that allowed him both this job offer and funding at graduation will allow it again if his startup fails.
Most people do not get funded while having a job offer from McKinsey.
Which brings us to the second point: How is the VC scene in the UK compared to the US?
> The UK certainly doesn’t lack the talent or education, and I don’t think it’s any longer about access to capital.
The author proof is some random $1bn funding for some auto driving. This is weird when you can pull number (https://dealroom.co/guides/global) which shows the UK is still lagging the US.
Finally, the university ranking thing is bogus; which is what the argument of the author rests on.