Smells like marketing stuff.. there are plenty of other places that i think are better.
Could you give only a few examples from those PLENTY of other places that are better? Like the first 10 that come to your mind, you made me very curious!
How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
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Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
#62While startup capital flows in, the growth story is very different, and for those living in the UK, it isn't what it seems. There aren't any jobs in the UK and most are offshored to other low CoL countries. Young people, founders are leaving for other places like Dubai, Singapore and even SF for higher paying jobs.
This doesn't seem true, I work in a UK tech company and it's an incredibly international team. My team has three Brits (including me), a Norwegian, a Swede, a Pole, and an American. The CEO is Irish, the CTO is German/American.
Obviously that's just one data point, but every tech company is similar.
Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
There goes another 15% of your net income on train tickets. Eating out every time (because have no time for proper value shopping) and you are basically working in exchange of food, housing, and commute.
Using hyperbolic percentages harms your point, it doesn’t help it.
But yeah you’re right dude, we live in a society. We work to support ourselves. What a shocking surprise.
Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
#64I 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.
Where else have you lived though? The cost of living is high, healthcare is problematic, crowded, bad weather, low economic growth prospects.
It's not even top 10 on most lists. Europe, Australia has way better cities.
Example Sydney, life expectancy is at least 5 years more.
The poverty rate in London, 26%, is double of Sydney at 13%.
E.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2025/06/18/the...
Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
#65I live in a big continental European city that also has a start-up hub. The companies here are also small, creative, solving problems, but don't necessarily aim for an exit and growth at all costs, many of them want to create a sustainable business solving a need that people have.
I think, to the economist, these are just SMEs and a start-up is about making money, an IPO, an exit, the unicorns. And of course London as one of the largest financial hubs will be a good place to start such a business.
But I've always thought of these "SME"-type start-ups as belonging to the start-up category too; after all they "start up" a company and often have ambitious goals and creative, tech driven approaches to solving problems. This is how I've thought it would work when I was younger, and it is how I still think it'd be good to do today, and how I'd try to build a company if I have a good idea to pursue.
Anyways, the point I want to make re the article is that I think the definition is narrow, leaves out a bunch of interesting companies, and thus skews the picture towards London. There are plenty of innovative places around Europe, it's just a different model of doing start-ups. IMO this overly financially motivated view onto the start-up world is quite a bit less interesting than a the broader (maybe harder to quantify) picture.
Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
#66I 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.
Where else have you lived though? The cost of living is high, healthcare is problematic, crowded, bad weather, low economic growth prospects. It's not even top 10 on most lists. Europe, Australia has way better cities. Example Sydney, life expectancy is at least 5 years more. The poverty rate in London, 26%, is double of Sydney at 13%. E.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2025/06/18/the... https://en.wi…
Yes I really wish people saying "X is the best place to live in the world" would add where else they have lived, otherwise their opinion is not very useful to me.
Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
#67Smells like marketing stuff.. there are plenty of other places that i think are better.
Could you give only a few examples from those PLENTY of other places that are better? Like the first 10 that come to your mind, you made me very curious!
Not the person you asked but I am thinking of France and Germany. France has Station F (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_F).
There are also Portugal, Spain and Romania that are rising contenders. I am also very dubious of UK being "world first"
Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
#68I 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.
Where else have you lived though? The cost of living is high, healthcare is problematic, crowded, bad weather, low economic growth prospects. It's not even top 10 on most lists. Europe, Australia has way better cities. Example Sydney, life expectancy is at least 5 years more. The poverty rate in London, 26%, is double of Sydney at 13%. E.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2025/06/18/the... https://en.wi…
I'm fairly well travelled. Lived in Tokyo for a bit. There's no perfect city. London has the best combination of all attributes, for me.
Have you lived in London and Sydney both, or are you just reading numbers off of Google and "best city" lists? Sydney is boring and in the middle of nowhere.
Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not based on marketing, it appears to be based on metrics like amount of venture capital raised.
Having a London domicile often leads to an overstating in venture capital raised for the UK ecosystem. For example, I've funded Polish and Indian startups that chose the UK as their legal domicile because we couldn't be bothered to hire a legal team to draft a contract to Polish or Indian specifications. Builder.ai [0] is a great example of that - it was an Indian startup that was domiciled in London to simplify rais…
Does this also impact US metrics for capital raised? My understanding is that the Delaware C-Corp is still the startup standard for founders from anywhere in the world to raise global capital, which I imagine skews where the capital actually ends up flowing if they are actually building a company in a foreign location and just using the Delaware entity as a holding co.
Re: How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital
#70I 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.
Back when I ran the Shenzhen Gastronomic Society I did most of the alphabet in Bangkok one trip, beginning with Afghan. I'd wager it's better food than London on average, purely based on freshness and tropical inputs. I think if you were to pick the best city on earth for food it would have to have resident international populations, a tropical climate, and at least enclaves of wealth with a relatively free visa poli…
Where can I find a list of food unavailable outside of its origin?