>The US - a country with 5x more people and 8x higher GDP - has the same number of universities in the global top 10.
What if the number of top universities per capita is not positively correlated with GDP?
Taking Risk
241–250 of 304 posts
Re: Taking Risk
#242Maybe top talent from other countries is hired in US after graduation?
Re: Taking Risk
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in the same boat. I've been chasing my tail for the last 6 years, just trying to keep my head above water financially. I'm a computer hardware engineer so the pickings are slim to none outside of the military-industrial complex, which pays shit outside of sales and executive management. Ended up at one of the big US semiconductor companies where I got paid 1/3rd of what my peers in the US earn, with similar expen…
Is a ‘computer hardware engineer’ different from a ‘hardware engineer’? I think of a ‘hardware engineer’ as someone who works on the development of ICs (or things on FPGAs). I would guess that people in such a role are paid a lot less than software engineers (at comparably sized companies) in the US, and a bit less in the UK (though maybe with more variance). But the numbers you give are lower than I would expect for…
I said computer to specify on-chip design, not hardware as in PCB/electronics work. I worked initially on CPU integration for industrial computers, which was that lower figure. I pivoted to FPGA design a couple of years ago and make a bit more now, but it's still pittance compared to my colleagues in other countries.
There's a bit more money to be made up in Cambridge with Arm and Qualcomm as you mentioned, but my take home would be less when adjusted for local housing costs. As for HFT, its an end goal if only to escape the cycle of poverty, but not something I want to do out of passion for the craft.
Re: Taking Risk
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in the same boat. I've been chasing my tail for the last 6 years, just trying to keep my head above water financially. I'm a computer hardware engineer so the pickings are slim to none outside of the military-industrial complex, which pays shit outside of sales and executive management. Ended up at one of the big US semiconductor companies where I got paid 1/3rd of what my peers in the US earn, with similar expen…
I honestly think if you asked the average Brit on the street what an engineer was, they'd say "it's someone who MOTs your car".
When I say I'm an electrical engineer, people often think I make a shit load of cash and barely work. Then I need to clarify I'm not an electrician.
Re: Taking Risk
#245This is the most useless post one can read about some guy who is happy with his life and complain others are not doing things that he is thinking about... > 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 li…
There is a saying that pessimist is right while optimist makes progress.
Re: Taking Risk
#246This:
>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. UK investors spend too much time trying to mitigate downside risk with all sorts of protective provisions.
contradicts this:
>There is no longer a shortage of capital for great founders in the UK (although most of the capital still comes from overseas investors). I just believe that people with the highest potential aren’t choosing to launch companies, and I want that to change.
Re: Taking Risk
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s often the same person. I had a dozen failures before I struck on the sass product that retired me in my forties. You try, you learn, you improve, and eventually something might work. Or you don’t try, keep your safe job and work until you’re 70 like everyone else.
Interesting but also scary to go this route. I think part of the problem in Europe is also that companies/governments are less open to just try out new (startup) solutions. I would love to be learn from US startups how they manage to sell without much done already.
I'm not saying this is incorrect, but how and where did you assess this?
Re: Taking Risk
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is a ‘computer hardware engineer’ different from a ‘hardware engineer’? I think of a ‘hardware engineer’ as someone who works on the development of ICs (or things on FPGAs). I would guess that people in such a role are paid a lot less than software engineers (at comparably sized companies) in the US, and a bit less in the UK (though maybe with more variance). But the numbers you give are lower than I would expect for…
I said computer to specify on-chip design, not hardware as in PCB/electronics work. I worked initially on CPU integration for industrial computers, which was that lower figure. I pivoted to FPGA design a couple of years ago and make a bit more now, but it's still pittance compared to my colleagues in other countries. There's a bit more money to be made up in Cambridge with Arm and Qualcomm as you mentioned, but my ta…
Yeah, Cambridge certainly can feel like it’s in a weird place where salaries are high by UK standards (at least outside London) but housing is also quite expensive. They’re planning/building a lot more housing there so that may change. The situation is something that’s fine for young people who don’t need much housing (especially if they want to share with friends) but for people with families who need more housing can have a harder time. I think it can still be worth it depending on one’s circumstances, though I haven’t attempted any calculation (intuition here is roughly (a) that a smaller % of a bigger number can be bigger than a larger % of a smaller number, and (b) similar other examples). I wonder how pay and available roles compare at Arm’s office in Sheffield.
Re: Taking Risk
#249There'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…
>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.
In some Asian countries there is a thriving startup scene, so cost of living and working to live are not determining factors.
I would say the determining factor is the mentality. Europe focuses much on safety nets, welfare. Europeans learned that they should be content with earning a wage that allows them to live while working 8 hours a day, with enough time off, decent amount of holidays, a good work-life balance. They want state backed pensions funds, free or cheap healthcare, free education.
There are less Europeans willing to work on weekends than there are Americans and there are less Europeans working more than one job than there are Americans.
So Europeans focus more on living their lives while Americans focus more on Entrepreneurship. Their respective societies, cultures, history kind of teach them to behave that way.
It's not that a change in mentality is impossible, but it won't happen overnight.
Re: Taking Risk
#250People attribute differences in the enterpreneurial landscape between the US and European countries to cultural factors (aka some "abnormal" risk aversion) but consider the possibility the difference is actually the rational stance on the face of persistent realities. First, there is the issue of the absence of scale. As a Briton once said (and Brexit famously demonstrated), there is no such thing as Europe. This is…
>First, there is the issue of the absence of scale. As a Briton once said (and Brexit famously demonstrated), there is no such thing as Europe.
Aren't the markets global? Aren't Google, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung playing on global scale?
Why limit yourself to a particular country or continent?