Live data from Hacker News

UK's hardware talent is being wasted

josef.cn

321–330 of 1001 posts

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#321
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Great Britain colonized huge parts of the globe and had an empire. They were kings of trade and the world. Now they are just a surveillance nanny state and hollow shell of their former self.

I regularly see opinion pieces in the British Press advising young Brits to get out. In 2022 one writer wrote 'Britain is fed up, bitter, and practically broke – and it’s all going to get worse' and indeed it still is and getting worse. One basic problem: an unsustainable welfare and health system and overwrought bureaucracy. Today I learn that one major bank is considering leaving the UK in view of excessive 'red ta…

The welfare state is horrid. Democracy is largely dead. The judiciary and bank of England are unaccountable and unassailable. The Fabians have won.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#322

I see this in the USA too - electrical engineers fiddling with css to make buttons dance, published computer scientists working on trivial systems for massive data centers billing systems - the tech market does always seem inefficient, and yet, at some point the market is going to have more knowledge and expertise than it needs, especially if AI predictions play out. What happens then?

> especially if AI predictions play out

Thats a big if. Big tech has enshittified everything its touched for a long time now.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#323
post #305

If my salary had been my only or even my main objective, I would have taken a very different route in my career. Sure, for some people it is, but there are other factors as well. But if you're from the UK, young and independent, and money is your main drive, what's keeping you from moving to the US, at least for a couple of years?

Getting a visa is incredibly difficult, with the easiest route being working for a US firm in the UK and transfering to their US offices, but at which point you're already one of the lucky few to score a US job in the UK and are probably paid well enought that uprooting your life doesn't seem worth it.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#324
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what. Quality of life in rural UK is worse than rat race of London?

When a man is tired of London he is tired of life.

Or tired of 63% income tax rates in the middle of the income bands

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#325

As a Brit, when I was raising the seed round for my startup, UK and European VCs would consistently try to haggle you down on price while the American VC's were exclusively focussed on trying to figure out whether this could be a billion dollar business or not (in the end we raised a $5m seed led by Spark, and have done extremely well and raised more since). The UK lost Deep Mind - which could have been OpenAI!! -- t…

Isn't it also an income issue? I'm from EU and would be totally open to move to UK if there was an opportunity to make more there while working on something cool. But there simply isn't? Then there are US startups where I could likely make 2 or 3x what I make in EU or UK. So why would talent every consider moving to the UK to build a startup in 2025 anyway?

Something not talked about - you probably won't be able to lease suitable property if you are doing anything other than apps.

Doing soldering of prototypes? Good luck finding a landlord that would let you do it. The moment they hear "fumes" is a nope, fire hazard, safety risk and won't let you...

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#326
post #272
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe he’s just tired of a specific kind of life which might be fun in your early twenties but is less appealing when you’ve got kids and can’t enjoy the nightlife and culture anyway.

you’ve got kids and can’t enjoy the nightlife and culture anyway Having kids while living in the centre of a large city is great, as there is so much culture that is aimed at parents and children. When my kid was small we went to museums and concerts and events all the time that were aimed at kids. There were also several different parks, playgrounds, pools and similar activities to choose from all within easy access…

[flagged]

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#327
post #77

God, this place is such a sh*thole (literally if you count the sewage in the water). It's depressing. Every week, X is going downhill, Y is failing, we're out of money. I am so hopeless about my country's future. I feel that this is our century of humiliation.

Exactly. It's not merely the Fabian state, being ruled by lawyers, by socialist agitators, it is the vast swathes of proles who cheer every time they crush success or do wealth appropriations. It feels like you are always just two steps away from being rounded up in a pogrom for merely having savings.

The PM himself defines working class as people with no savings. It's horrid.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#328
> Founders: Stop fleeing to the US. London can be the hardware capital of the world. We have the talent. We have the creativity. What we need is your audacity.

Easier said than done, Europe doesn't have the money for that (partially because all the exit money circulates in American VCs).

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not greatly different from Germany or Nordic countries, or EU average, and better than France or Japan. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?... Its a Europe wide problem.

Switching to % change - EU beats US. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...

That is a better graph, but the conclusion I would draw is much the same.

The EU gets a boost from the inclusion of Eastern European economies that have been fast growing from a lower base.

If you compare the US and the UK to the four biggest EU economies, the US is doing best by far, and the UK is doing better than three and worse than one:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?...

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#330
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don’t believe and can’t even imagine that more is possible. And/or don't think that more is better/desirable. I wouldn't consider myself working class, but I was definitely raised with the idea that making obscene amounts of money is actually pretty selfish/immoral and not something one ought to strive for. That doesn't preclude going into business. But it is pretty antithetical to the VC funding model and the crea…

> it seems that the culture in America is that wealth is virtuous and confers status, whereas in Europe that at least isn't so universal and some circles it is even seen as shameful Isn't this due to different types of Christian traditions? AFAIK In some, it is considered that the wealth is given by the God to the virtuous ones and they are merely guardians of it and responsible to use use the wealth in a virtuous wa…

The way I see it, at least in France, it's not really a question of religion. "The rich" are thought to have acquired their wealth doing dubious things, mostly by "exploiting the poor".

There's also a very strongly egalitarian way of thinking, as in pretty much everybody is interchangeable. So, if someone does better than somebody else, it's likely because of something "unfair" (or luck) and not thanks to being more competent.

Post reply on HN