231–240 of 261 posts
This article basically explains what most of us already know. American tech firms in general are much more concerned with raw profit than with the actual quality and purpose of the enterprise. It’s definitely a different culture.
Trying to start a business in the UK: "What are you doing? You'll fail! You'll go bankrupt! You'll be homeless! Why don't you get a nice civil service job with a government pension?" Trying to start a business in the USA: "Rock on, bro! You're going to be the next Zuckerberg/Gates/Bezos!"
>Trying to start a business in the USA: "Rock on, bro! You're going to be the next Zuckerberg/Gates/Bezos!" Same person, few years later: "I don't care you are homeless and have nothing to eat. I didn't force you make stupid things. Get of my lawn, I'll have guests later!"
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> It's more of a gambler's approach. Wrong. The cultural difference comes from differing appetites for risk. VC's aren't gambling on their portfolio companies, they expect each and every one of them to turn into rocket ships. If there's no potential to become a rocketship, they don't invest, simple as that. Stupid ideas don't get investment. That VCs understand that it is highly unlikely that each portfolio company w…
> they expect each and every one of them to turn into rocket ships > it is highly unlikely that each portfolio company will actually become a rocketship You're just rebranding gambling as "taking risk". Every gambler expects his next hand to be a royal flush, while understanding that it's unlikely.
Gamblers often have various reasons for continuing to gamble, but very few of them EXPECT their next hand to be a royal flush. For most of them it is exactly the case that 'if I keep going, eventually I will get a big win that offsets my losses'.
That I suppose is a type of taking risk, but I think OP was not being quite as blunt.
In a situation where you have 10 companies each with a 1/10 chance of 20x growth (and a possibility for better) or 1000 companies, each with 1/1000 chance of 5000x growth, which would you pick?
While theoretically, the two situations are similar, and given an infinite amount of money and investment opportunities, the second situation pays off better, the first is more likely to yield returns in the real world. Most people would probably call the first one 'taking risk' and the second 'gambling'.
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1. One day at a time. But in all seriousness, a good co-founder and team. Also, we started the company during COVID which I think made the VCs less worried a about a full remote situation. 2. US citizen but UK tax resident. So two income tax returns. It's a pain, but thankfully the tax treaty means one offsets the other and it works out in the end. 3. Personally want to live in London
Is there anything that specifically prompted you to live in London in place of other cities like Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, or areas elsewhere in the US and the rest of North America? Given what I've read on tax rates, incomes, and QoL (especially after Brexit) it doesn't seem economically advantageous to live there as a tax resident, especially with FATCA hanging over your head.
London has one of the highest percentages of green space of any large city (33%), excellent public transport, some of the best music and theatre in the world, options in all British sports supplemented by regular visits from American leagues, excellent (though not leading) restaurants and speciality food markets, and more. You can't discount the English language either.
Regarding Brexit, at the moment it's kind of hard to say because COVID (and the ongoing collapse of the government) has muddled its economic impact so much.
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>What it doesn't do well is spaff money indiscriminately at any old idiot with an idea. Different philosophies. In US you throw money at ten stupid ideas hoping that even nine will be dead, one will be successful and see extreme growth, making you very rich. It's more of a gambler's approach. I don't know if studies were made but I suspect US based startups who survive to see a large growth while in EU even the growt…
> It's more of a gambler's approach. Wrong. The cultural difference comes from differing appetites for risk. VC's aren't gambling on their portfolio companies, they expect each and every one of them to turn into rocket ships. If there's no potential to become a rocketship, they don't invest, simple as that. Stupid ideas don't get investment. That VCs understand that it is highly unlikely that each portfolio company w…
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I've worked with a lot of Europeans and overwhelmingly they are not on H-1B visas. Green cards, L-1, O-1 and spouse visas are the way to go. Getting an O-1 visa in the software space is a lot easier than you think, especially with the way the software industry works in Europe (it's a much smaller pool with a higher average level of education and way more public speaking & publishing opportunities) in general the requ…
I mean it's O-1 how easy can it be. Most likely requirements are publishing papers or making some insane startup.
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1. One day at a time. But in all seriousness, a good co-founder and team. Also, we started the company during COVID which I think made the VCs less worried a about a full remote situation. 2. US citizen but UK tax resident. So two income tax returns. It's a pain, but thankfully the tax treaty means one offsets the other and it works out in the end. 3. Personally want to live in London
Is there anything that specifically prompted you to live in London in place of other cities like Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, or areas elsewhere in the US and the rest of North America? Given what I've read on tax rates, incomes, and QoL (especially after Brexit) it doesn't seem economically advantageous to live there as a tax resident, especially with FATCA hanging over your head.
Sure, if it bothers you to spend ~8k USD/mo on rent, London might not be for you.
Not sure I get the part of talent pool. Exactly which part of AI research or development can't be done as remote work?
You still need a tax office to hire people as employees though. But yeah, they could easily operate in both countries if they're willing to move everything like this!
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Facebook recruiting in London feel about as desperate to fill their pipeline as Google did ten years ago these days. London has many great qualities, but tech hiring here is also really challenging.
> Facebook recruiting in London feel about as desperate to fill their pipeline as Google did ten years ago these days. I'd say it's more size than desperation. Yeah, recruiting in London probably gives you lower bang for the buck than tapping other labor markets. But once you reach a certain size, you're going to be recruiting in basically every market, since good people are a small proportion of the population and y…
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The commercial culture in the UK is, generally, nothing like the US. You have companies with great products that refuse on principle to hire lots of salespeople. I actually can't think of a SaaS company that is as aggressive in investing in sales and marketing as you see on average in the US. And this is rational because the return on investment is usually very poor (fintech in the UK is probably the best example, su…
> The UK has lots of US investment banks doing very well in the UK but only one home-grown investment bank (and that one has been taken over by people from the US, and isn't doing very well). Barclays, Lloyds, Rothschild, NatWest Markets (+HSBC which maybe isn't "home grown").