UK's hardware talent is being wasted • Hacker News Board

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#381

Post by maeil » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:36 AM UTC

itake wrote: post #201

maeil wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, a lot of extremely smart people in the UK would rather get the 'safe' job at Google, or McKinsey than the 'this will never work but can you imagine how cool it would be if it did' job at a startup. This isn't just an EU thing, for what it's worth. The US is the outlier.

Even internally in the USA, you will see the full spectrum of EU-like VCs to Sand Hill-like VCs.

Correct, but the tail of VC being fat is unique to the US. Pretty much the rest of the world is like the UK in all but a miniscule percentage preferring stability rather than moonshots.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#382

Post by anonymousDan » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:37 AM UTC

walthamstow wrote: post #350

dzhiurgis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The UK is two countries, you can either live in/around the prosperous one with high cultural capital, good quality public services inc transport, or you can live in the other one.

Meh. Having lived in both I much prefer the latter.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#383

Post by robertlagrant » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:37 AM UTC

graemep wrote: post #316

r_thambapillai wrote: post #51

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…

> 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 ( Yes we have many comments on HN talking about how harmful the US VCs attitude is because they force good businesses into choosing between being unicorns an…

> Yes we have many comments on HN talking about how harmful the US VCs attitude is because they force good businesses into choosing between being unicorns and not getting funding.

HN has a very wide range of economic opinions, and some people are extremely uninformed about what it takes to do hard things that can't be grown organically, and what it takes to maintain a business running when it's done the hard thing in the face of competition.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

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Post by fxtentacle » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:38 AM UTC

kleiba wrote: post #297

fxtentacle wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany, you can typically finance the first 1-3 years of your start-up through government gifts like "EXIST". That's why you don't need early seed investors.

EXIST in particular targets universities, though, so not every founder is eligible.

Correct, that was meant as an example. There's also "Existenzgründungszuschuss" for the unemployed and various other EU funds for craftsmen and others:

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/running-business/start...

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#385

Post by ktallett » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:39 AM UTC

swarnie wrote: post #371

lordnacho wrote: post #344

Here's a story I tell from time to time. When I was at uni, we had an internship as part of the course. The course was a joint course between Engineering and Econ/Management, so you could choose from a very wide variety of industries to satisfy the thesis requirement. The business school would coordinate the internships. So I went interviewing in the engineering firms to the west of the country. Aerospace, materials,…

I wonder if we ever crossed over, i also worked for Intel in the west country (Swindon) and now whore myself out to aerospace/defence in the same area. I see what our engineers are paid and its genuinely concerning.

Is the UK more in line with the norm though and the US is the outlier? I would say the UK, Europe, and Japan all have similar wages (although Japan has worse benefits and on the whole a larger expectation of workers so it's not like for like.)

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#386

Post by anonymousDan » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:40 AM UTC

nobodywillobsrv wrote: post #331

alecco wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is policy is oriented to growing GDP and not GDP per capita. Large corporations benefit from GDP growth and lower wages, so they incentivize the political class to grow the population artificially (wink-wink).

The other problem is the welfare state or just the state. So much graft and just living off printed money. It pushes out success. What percent of the UK is effectively civil servants or people receiving benefits? What percent are net takers? A lot

Why do you equate civil servants with people receiving benefits? What a load of nonsense.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#387

Post by benrutter » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:42 AM UTC

I think a lot of this is exactly right - but one tiny caveat I'd add is that comparing the UK to the USA is sometimes a misnomer. On a size basic, the UK is much more comparible to a US state that the USA as a whole, and a lot of the observations made here are probably equally true of some US states like Colorado where talent is moved out to California.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#388

Post by robertlagrant » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:43 AM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #299

tirant wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations often stem from a particular mindset. However, they also serve to perpetuate that mindset. As a member of the working class, I find there’s little incentive to build something new or innovate because the effort required to navigate through all the burdensome regulations is overwhelming. On top of that, any additional income I might generate from bringing my ideas or initiatives to market would be taxed at…

Which regulations exactly you find burdensome or overwhelming and stopping you from attempting the become wealthy, change your life and the world maybe? Why would you skip having 1 billion Euros just because you could have had 2 Billion but the government took the rest? Up until 1960's rich Americans payed %91 tax, and yet they kept their entrepreneurial spirit - why you can't do the same at the stated %50? When Appl…

> Why would you skip having 1 billion Euros just because you could have had 2 Billion but the government took the rest?

No one's making that choice. Most businesses fail, even in somewhere entrepreneur-friendly like America. Why not just work for someone else, given the rewards are capped even at relatively low level of success? Why take the risk, when taxation has failed to price risk into reward?

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

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Post by baxtr » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:43 AM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #363

fmajid wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK’s case, feudalism is alive and well. The entire tax system is designed so parasites descended from thugs like the Duke of Westminster or Charles of Battenberg-Saxe-Coburg und Gotha never have to pay property taxes on their extensive land holdings.

That was worse in the 18th and 19th century, and yet people were willing to ground new corporations back then. I think the answer is something the left won't like - we (Europe) are killing ourselves with bureaucracy, often environmental bureaucracy. A road to hell paved with good intentions. The documentation to the Lower Thames Crossing, a planned highway tunnel, already exceeds 360 000 pages. This is just crazy. ht…

I think you’re right that was way worse before.

But on the bureaucracy: I don’t think that’s the real cause it’s rather a symptome.

The cause must be something related to expected rewards and opportunity costs.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

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Post by philipwhiuk » Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 9:43 AM UTC

chii wrote: post #293

porker wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit goes out of the country, reducing investment and rich UK people to invest in new UK companies. It's the same problem with many of our companies being sold to foreign investors: profits are taken outside the country (as we did to other countries in the 19th century and earlier) so our labour enriches other countries while our country gets poorer.

> labour enriches other countries while our country gets poorer. in reality, the UK isn't poorer than before. It is about the same - no growth. It is only poorer when compared to the US's growth. One's labour, when being paid market rates, does not make one's country poorer. And those profits from said labour was paid for by the acquitition of the capital - money was invested. So in essense, the "poorness" that the U…

If the profits move out, the opportunity cost is that this money isn't spent in the UK which hits GDP which is how growth is calculated.