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I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

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Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#41

Post by user568439 »

agent008t wrote: post #24
aigo wrote: post #5

> Almost my entire R&D team who received PhDs from British universities had them funded by the European Union Well, there you go.

Was the UK not a net contributor to the EU budget? And therefore, why cannot the UK fund PhDs more effectively than the EU? I would've thought being less removed from the universities and research groups would make funding more effective.

That's the Brexiters logic, but it turns out UK was not only contributing to the EU but also trading. Now it doesn't need to contribute anymore but it also lost exports, access to talent and so on.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#42

Post by setgree »

> Advances in the type of small data AI we do — AI created without vast data sets — would have only been possible here in Europe, with its deep and diverse technical and mathematical talent. This would have been difficult in Silicon Valley given US tech’s reluctance to experiment and innovate, beyond the conventional “big data AI” approach.

Can anyone expand on what the author is saying here/validate it with personal experience? I have never thought of AI advances as “only” being possible in Europe, or of the US tech scene as reluctant to innovate.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#43

Post by c7DJTLrn »

Sounds like the author is upset that Brexit has closed the valve on the pipeline of cheap labour from EU workers. There's no shortage of talent in London trust me, it's just that you're going to have to start paying more than a pittance to get it. Brexit so far has been a positive thing for tech workers' salaries.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#45

Post by mg »

czzr wrote: post #25
mg wrote: post #7

Are there any European websites in the Alexa top 50? https://www.alexa.com/topsites For all I know, Europe mostly missed the internet. Will the same happen with AI, data centers, solar, crypto and biotech?

The web was invented in Europe. Still, you’re right, few big internet successes in Europe. Problem is almost entirely addressable market size.

What hinders Europeans to address big markets?

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#46

Post by mvc »

agent008t wrote: post #24
aigo wrote: post #5

> Almost my entire R&D team who received PhDs from British universities had them funded by the European Union Well, there you go.

Was the UK not a net contributor to the EU budget? And therefore, why cannot the UK fund PhDs more effectively than the EU? I would've thought being less removed from the universities and research groups would make funding more effective.

> And therefore, why cannot the UK fund PhDs more effectively than the EU?

I always assumed the whole raison d'etre of Brexit was that Conservatives wanted to avoid the obligation of paying into funds like this. Sounds lovely in theory but leaves less government money available to companies with social/professional connections to the cabinet.

Funny to see the red wallers finally realizing that too now.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#47

Post by SassyThrowaway »

aigo wrote: post #5

> Almost my entire R&D team who received PhDs from British universities had them funded by the European Union Well, there you go.

I did not understand that point at all. The author writes: "The loss of this funding and scientific exchange is a major loss for British and European academia — and innovative companies who need to hire the best scientific and technical talent." But what is it exactly that the UK lost [funding-wise, science-wise] due to Brexit?

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#48

Post by goldcd »

mg wrote: post #7

Are there any European websites in the Alexa top 50? https://www.alexa.com/topsites For all I know, Europe mostly missed the internet. Will the same happen with AI, data centers, solar, crypto and biotech?

I think there's a difference between where companies are listed/head-quartered and where the work is done (e.g. Google seems to have 4 separate offices, just in London).

Or consider India, where huge amounts of dev work is done - but nobody can name an "Indian web brand" (internationally).

Only actual European brand I can think of that's made global impact is Spotify.

Europe seems to do better on the less fancy consumer facing side of IT - reasearch and 'hard' companies like ARM.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#49

Post by agent008t »

user568439 wrote: post #41
agent008t wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the UK not a net contributor to the EU budget? And therefore, why cannot the UK fund PhDs more effectively than the EU? I would've thought being less removed from the universities and research groups would make funding more effective.

That's the Brexiters logic, but it turns out UK was not only contributing to the EU but also trading. Now it doesn't need to contribute anymore but it also lost exports, access to talent and so on.

Fine, but my point is there is no reason for Brexit to be a net negative when it comes to the funding of PhDs - if anything, it offers an opportunity to be more effective at funding.

Same when it comes to the specific issue of access to talent - nothing in principle stopping the UK from making it extremely easy for talent to come to the UK.

Re: I’m leaving London for NYC and taking my tech startup

#50

Post by jgrahamc »

eganist wrote: post #37
jgrahamc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 2017 date you mention is not correct. I was Cloudflare's first employee in London in 2011. Cloudflare went all in on London shortly thereafter and at one point 50% of Cloudflare engineering was in London and 50% in San Francisco. We had sales very early on in London covering EMEA. At the current time the London office is "full stack": engineering, operations, support, sales, legal, HR, finance, ...

Thanks; I googled it and the press was heaviest in April 2017 for a new London office, so this is a helpful correction for me. Though deeper inspection found 2013 ( https://www.facebook.com/Cloudflare/posts/10151742549255432 ), so I probably should've just googled harder. It also changes the equation substantially since the rest of my assumptions were based on 2017, though I wonder how much the environment also chang…

Cloudflare's London office remains large and important. We've built up Lisbon as an alternative location in part to give folks a choice between London and a continental European city and in part because we are hiring so fast it's good to hire in multiple places.
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