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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

#231

Post by FearNotDaniel »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #22
bbarn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for London startups in the past, I've found they're much more polite, but much less honest and straightforward. There's a layer of britishness you have to get past sometimes to get to what people really want instead of directness.

best reasoning I've heard for this is that English is subtext heavy, like Japanese due to the history of the aristocracy. The populace were in thrall to their feudal lords and the aristocracy as serfs and servant classes for so long, that being indirect has been embedded into the language as a defense mechanism to not upset the pay masters. We get the subtext but people new to our culture might not. I remember a tech…

> it's not ideal is it?

Oh jeez, I've literally just typed out a message on Teams to describe a situation where someone deployed breaking DB changes without the accompanied app changes as "a less-than-ideal scenario". Sometimes I forget I have to translate from British for the benefit of everyone else on the team (half in India, half in US, one German)

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

#232

Post by slgeorge »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #74

The big disadvantage is wages, and how everything is so...formal and bureaucratic, for lack of better terms. For example, I couldn't even hope to get employment in tech in the UK or Europe without a degree. Work hours and wages too, less pay given the tradeoffs makes sense, but getting paid more than others for the same role is a big problem, even if you have more skill/talent/experience. Or simply working long hours…

Do you have an experience working in Europe or the UK?

> I couldn't even hope to get employment in tech in the UK or Europe without a degree

Maybe this is how it looks from the outside, but it's not how it works in reality.

My evidence is I've been working in 'tech' for 25 years and having hired people across the UK, Europe and North America. Tech is one of the most accessible career paths, particularly for areas that are novel and expanding rapidly - consequently direct experience of an area is the important currency.

Often roles will advertise a 'degree' or equivalent industry experience. The only roles I can think of where this could be an issue is trying to join a large corporate organisation in their 'graduate' programme (e.g. a major bank), but that's the same situation in the USA as well.

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

#233

Post by christophilus »

nervousvarun wrote: post #221
PunchyHamster wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that's more "US public transport being bad"

Right as an American this reads like "American who's never been to large Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing etc..

I'm with you. Tokyo is incredible. It's the only large city I've ever been to where I left thinking, "I'd love to live there."

Transportation in Japan is a whole other level compared to my experiences in Germany and Austria.

I've never been to England, though, so can't make that comparison.

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

#234

Post by lurk2 »

graemep wrote: post #40
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 deep enough pool of capital for the vast majority of businesses. Its cultural diversity is a plus for most people (other than people like DHH). The big problem with London is that it is very, very expensive.

> Its cultural diversity is a plus for most people

Cultural diversity is not a draw. Africa, Latin America, and Central Asia are all culturally and ethnically diverse. No one moves to any of these places.

The primary draw of a city like London is economic prosperity, which is ironically usually only made possible by ethnic homogeneity. This is the case in Britain’s former colonies (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), China, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Target cities become “culturally diverse” due to the arrival of migrant labor. The migrant labor itself is not seeking this diversity out for its own sake. New migrants have their movements facilitated by networks of already-landed migrants, who provide knowledge of the immigration process, employment opportunities, and material assistance to their coethnics.

These people are not moving to London because they can find people like themselves there (there are already plenty in their country of origin), nor are they moving to London because they want to experience other cultures (this was a form of conspicuous consumption that went out of fashion years ago). At best you could say they hope that the relative ethnic heterogeneity will distract from their own foreignness, but that still doesn’t amount to being drawn to diversity.

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

#235

Post by slgeorge »

bbarn wrote: post #17
edogrider wrote: post #7

This checks out. I live in Silicon Valley but now work for a startup in London. Same vibe, less attitude. They are not the same. The energy/resources in SF/SV are 5x at a minimum - but London has it going on.

Working for London startups in the past, I've found they're much more polite, but much less honest and straightforward. There's a layer of britishness you have to get past sometimes to get to what people really want instead of directness.

As a Brit when I started doing deals in North America one of the things I picked up was that I had to be explicit about disagreement OR where a decision was not being made yet. In the UK during a negotiation a 'silence' is not equal to agreement or disagreement, it's a NO-OP. If I didn't do this then prospective customers/suppliers in the USA would believe that I'd agreed to their request when from my perspective I had merely noted that they'd asked for something. Has anyone else run into this?

The other one that's confusing is that "tabling" something means the complete opposite.

I would separate 'politeness' and 'indirectness' a bit. I generally agree about 'politeness', there are plenty social forms that Brits still follow. For example I found the language/manner of New York attorneys pretty 'aggressive' the first few times.

Indirectness, is definitely a thing - Brits speak to each other or signal disagreement in ways that's clear to another Brit, but maybe not others. The use of silence, but also some words that depending on tone can mean different things which I think is difficult for North American's to interpret.

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

#236

Post by erratic_chargi »

m00dy wrote: post #216

I personally think Wyoming will be the capital of startups, especially 30 N Gould Str is going to be the street of world's startups.

No no you simple minded USAmerican. It's obviously going to be Uruguay, its on it's way to transform from MonteVideo to MonteLLM /s

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

#237

Post by yardie »

etothepii wrote: post #178
youngtaff wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

London pays more taxes per capita than the rest of country.

And decisions made in London have drained those other cities of investment and tax revenue.

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

#238

Post by slgeorge »

interludead wrote: post #152

So London feels less like a Silicon Valley replacement and more like the world's best startup nursery

London's basically great for:

  1. Startups
  2. Scaling/Growth
  3. Existing company expanding from USA->Europe or Europe->USA
It's not as good as Silicon Valley for any of these, but no-where is. It's also not that good if you're trying to IPO, again no-where is compared to the USA.

For start-ups/high-growth you get a pretty good business environment (legal/corporate and day-to-day running a company is reasonably straightforward), employees with skills and the employment law is pretty flexible, there's plenty of finance around.

For Growth and USA companies that are expanding into Europe then London/UK is somewhat easier to understand than other European geo's. There's an aligned language and there's more cultural touchpoints - it's kind of a mid-point culturally/institutionally between Europe/USA.

For funding/driving to late-stage and IPO there just isn't anywhere like the USA. But everyone has to expand to North America eventually, so it can be fixed at that point. Also, PE funding has changed a lot in the last 10 years, so if you're not on the 1-in-1000 rocketships there's a more steady 'good' path which is totally viable.

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

#239

Post by hollowcelery »

3rodents wrote: post #99
killingtime74 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where else have you lived though? The cost of living is high, healthcare is problematic, crowded, bad weather, low economic growth prospects. It's not even top 10 on most lists. Europe, Australia has way better cities. Example Sydney, life expectancy is at least 5 years more. The poverty rate in London, 26%, is double of Sydney at 13%. E.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2025/06/18/the... https://en.wi…

You could not possibly compare Sydney and London, they are very different. London is a bustling diverse city, Sydney is a nice (big) town. Sydney is a great place, and London is far from perfect but they are not in the same conversation. They are different. The Global Liveability Index is, essentially, highlighting the most middle of the road cities. London (as with New York) has huge disparities and that guarantees…

> People from Sydney who move to London come to hate it, once the novelty wears off, just as they would with New York

Just sharing a different perspective, I'm from Sydney and have lived in all 3 and don't agree with this generalisation. I know plenty of Sydney-raised people who've lived in London or New York for decades, love those places, and don't plan to move back to Sydney any time soon if at all.

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

#240

Post by whywhywhywhy »

youngtaff wrote: post #161
blibble wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Imagine if the money spent on transport in London wasn't funding things like fake jobs to carry people to massive pensions because TFL employees can't be made redundant.
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