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This checks out. I live in Silicon Valley but now work for a startup in London. Same vibe, less attitude. They are not the same. The energy/resources in SF/SV are 5x at a minimum - but London has it going on.
I am completely biased but I think London is one of the best places to live in the world, everything considered. There's a guy on Instagram who spins a wheel for a random country and goes to eat that cuisine somewhere in London. There are maybe 1 or 2 places in the world you can do that. It's an incredible feat of human diversity to pack hundreds of global cuisines into a 10 mile radius.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> enabled by London’s shrinking public markets That doesn't seem to be true?
It is - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-30/london-dr... Edit: can't reply The majority of IPOs in 2025 were in 4 markets - US, China, Hong Kong, India, and South Korea [0]. It's really hard to exit in the LSE currently, and this article is self congratulatory while ignoring major recent (past 2-3 years) mistakes that negatively impacted the entrepreneurship scene in the UK (eg. the revocation of fundi…
Plus, the FTSE 100 returned 25.8% last year. That is not a shrinking market!
EDIT: I'd prefer you not change the subject away from your capital markets claim, but to address the other links:
1. I didn't say London was a top 4 IPO location, just that it's market aren't shrinking.
2. Tech Nation still exists, and still administers that visa. I don't know why you posted a very out of date article about it.
3. It's not ideal that such a high profile company is having issues like that, but hey, stuff happens. OpenAI had a whole goddamn coup and counter-coup happen!
Smells like marketing stuff.. there are plenty of other places that i think are better.
It's not based on marketing, it appears to be based on metrics like amount of venture capital raised.
That said I don't know anyone doing a startup in London. But I know dozens in Berlin without even thinking about it.
This checks out. I live in Silicon Valley but now work for a startup in London. Same vibe, less attitude. They are not the same. The energy/resources in SF/SV are 5x at a minimum - but London has it going on.
How's the comp? From HN I had gotten the feeling that the UK was worse than most of western europe in that regard.
Smells like marketing stuff.. there are plenty of other places that i think are better.
Sand Hill road
It reminds me of the funny fact that for years I worked at a building in Bush St. that was nice but not particularly remarkable only to find out that that's where Saudi Aramco was originally headquartered when some Twitter post counted them for the Bay Area for their "Where are the top market capped public companies from?" segment.
Is this really surprising? London picks up all the advantages of the UK (legal system is sound, eg in contract law, native speakers of English, the lingua franca of business, strong university tradition) and adds in its special sauce: access to the City, global-tier culture, excellent public transport (I know we moan about it, but it really is excellent), and a timezone location that easily serves the US and Asia mar…
Startups might thrive there, but business investment in England (particularly in mature businesses) has not exactly been lively ever since Brexit. I can't recall the last time I heard someone talking favorably about investing in England, or at all, really.
during a game of chess: "hey why'd you make that move?"
I wonder who are these people willing to work in London and transfer 60% of their net income directly to landlord. Maybe money doesn't matter because most of the time they spend in work and commuting?
The math works out for almost every HCOL area. Your salary is higher. Rent is high too but people either choose to live further away or accept a smaller apartment/condo. London has a big commuting radius with strong regional transit (as maligned as it is).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not based on marketing, it appears to be based on metrics like amount of venture capital raised.
Given that London has little else going for it other than a financial industry it's not surprising money is raised and companies are registered there. That said I don't know anyone doing a startup in London. But I know dozens in Berlin without even thinking about it.