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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

#241

Post by direwolf20 »

Joeboy wrote: post #198
johnisgood wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it reasonable to say that in many (not all) parts of London, English no longer functions reliably as the default public language, even if most individuals technically "speak English"?

Your comment reminded of the youtuber who changed the shop signs in his video into scary non-English script: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPZxMVpnCBM Edit: Changed to link I like a bit more

There are shops elsewhere in Europe with Arabic signs. You can go there and buy things. They're not outside of the ordinary statistical distribution of shops.

Certain people would rather fearmonger though.

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

#242

Post by ctrlmeta »

johnisgood wrote: post #229
ctrlmeta wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> English no longer functions reliably as the default public language Absolutely false. My god! Have you even been to London? Stop consuming propaganda from Twitter/X and Facebook. It isn't good for your mental health.

Yes, as I have said, over 10 years. I do not use Twitter nor Facebook. I watch YouTube videos. These YouTubers have >1M subscribers.

I don't know what >1M subscribers have got to do anything. It is the case that many YouTubers pushing a specific propaganda have >1M subscribers. YouTube may be a little better than Twitter or Facebook but if you land upon any propaganda, the algorithm will loop you in and keep supplying more and more propaganda videos. 1M subscribers or 1000 subscribers doesn't matter once you are stuck in the loop.

I see you have not been around in London for over 10 years. How was it back when you were in London? I've been in London for 10 years, so I probably came when you left. Never once I have been in any part of London where English was not the lingua franca. Yes, people speak their native languages too among themselves but I haven't met anyone anywhere in my 10 years who couldn't speak English. I don't think this is any different from any other megacity of the world.

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

#243

Post by tenzo »

sjhuda wrote: post #131
TuringNYC wrote: post #114

I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.) The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathr…

Thin air? It was delivered 3 years late and cost £5bn more than it should have. While projects like HS2 to the North are scaled back. The UK uses other parts of the county as a piggy bank to fund London projects. I have a dog in this fight as I'm quite close to the public transport industry in the North and it's pretty disheartening to see politicans use us as some sort of "policy win" and then never follow through w…

> What is also interesting is that London's productivity growth is falling compared to Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. So those cities that aren't getting the fancy new train lines are actually performing better.

What data is this based on?

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

#244

Post by kakacik »

pjc50 wrote: post #158
TuringNYC wrote: post #114

I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.) The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathr…

The Elizabeth Line, formerly known as Crossrail, is a lot more similar to the hundred year plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail My dad was a tunnels engineer and worked on Crossrail feasibility studies at several points in his career across decades. London is is many ways one of the less impressive subway systems simply because much of it is so old, with small trains running in Victorian era tunnels. Not as…

To americans, London public transport feels amazing. To rest of Europe, its lets say OKish

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

#245

Post by pyuser583 »

pjc50 wrote: post #169
pyuser583 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or since the anti-corruption reforms of 2015-2018. Which frustratingly overlap with Brexit, making it hard to tell whether this is “good driving business away” or “bad driving business away.”

First I've heard of this - which anti-corruption reforms?

UK Anti‑Corruption Plan 2014-2015

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 - outlawed bearer shares

UK PSC Registry 2016

Action Plan for Anti‑Money Laundering and Counter‑Terrorist Finance 2017-2022

Money Laundering Regulations 2017

Sanctions and Anti‑Money Laundering Act 2018

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

#246

Post by realty_geek »

Which makes me all the more disappointed that Birmingham (close to me) doesn't have a better startup ecosystem. It is an ideal place to benefit from London (little over an hour away) without the crazy prices. Anyone here based around the midlands, say hello / "alright bab"....

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

#247

Post by roryirvine »

slgeorge wrote: post #232
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 tha…

I've had a similar career, and the only time I've ever been asked about my education was towards the end of the hiring process with a major US-based tech company back in the early 2010s.

No UK employer has ever asked about it, to my knowledge.

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

#248

Post by krashidov »

direwolf20 wrote: post #217
Lucasoato wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that these shouldn't be alternatives. Calling something startup is up to the definition that we use; one that I like is the following: A startup is a temporary operating model designed to discover a repeatable, scalable, and profitable business. A friend of mine used: A company that just started that can scale to 100M evaluation in less than 5 years. From these point of views, there are a lot of wonderful SMEs…

Why should it grow to 100M in 5 years? A business can make $500k profit per year, with two employees, forever, and that's a moderate success. Sqlite is doing just that. And they're not captured by exponential growth, they're not going boom or bust filling sqlite with advertisements and AI. They just make a solid product that works. Is that bad?

Nobody's saying that's bad. but it's not a startup. A "startup" is defined by growth. https://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

Businesses that don't have the ambition to grow very quickly should not take venture capital. It's a waste of everyone's time and energy

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

#249

Post by WentFullRetard »

kakacik wrote: post #244
pjc50 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Elizabeth Line, formerly known as Crossrail, is a lot more similar to the hundred year plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail My dad was a tunnels engineer and worked on Crossrail feasibility studies at several points in his career across decades. London is is many ways one of the less impressive subway systems simply because much of it is so old, with small trains running in Victorian era tunnels. Not as…

To americans, London public transport feels amazing. To rest of Europe, its lets say OKish

[dead]

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

#250

Post by altcognito »

johnisgood wrote: post #223
rorylawless wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t universally awful in the US. Washington, DC’s system is great and should be the cornerstone of any revitalization that isn’t so reliant on the federal government.

Thanks, good to know! How are the trains across the country though?

Trains are not an efficient use of time for travel within the US.

The US is huge. If you were take a 300mph (nearing 500kph) train (which would make it the fastest train in the world), it would be OVER an 8 hour trip from New York to LA. (Again, about 2500 miles or 4000k)

Even in some of the densest areas, the trip times end up being pretty long due to distances: dc to New York? 600 kilometers or almost 400 miles.

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