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UK's hardware talent is being wasted

josef.cn

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Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#961

Post by jackoregankenny »

Finding it tough in Ireland too. Though salaries are higher, access to machines, tools, etc. is significantly harder. We have the talent, but capex is just too tough for startups. I tried to help solve this with saltharbour.org but it flopped during fundraising (who knew making no money isn't appealing, still going for sponsorship though).

That said, setting up a new thing in Cambridge, offering £40k starting salary (with intention for it to go much higher) has shown: 1) exceptional talent on my doorstep, 2) plenty of people to choose from, 3) immediate impact.

The downsides are real though - industrial space, while cheaper, is hard to find and significantly out of the way. There's also a lower ambition level and a lot of red tape.

I really think compared to other places in Europe the UK is in a far better place to start to excel. Things like aria, works in progress, renphil and more have such a presecence and it feels like people are excited about reasearch, progress and hardware.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#962

Post by iNic »

ashergill wrote: post #663

> The reality for most graduates is even grimmer: > • £25,000 starting salaries at traditional engineering firms > • Exodus to consulting or finance just because it's compensated better This is _exactly_ my career so far. The key thing about the British economy is that while most things operate in a free market, construction is centrally planned by councillors who are incentivised to block most development. So the wh…

The housing theory of everything is true [1]. When land is scarce landlords can eat up any surplus produced by both labor and capital!

[1]: https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-housing-theory-of-every...

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#964

Post by ben_w »

dash2 wrote: post #936
ben_w wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure a property price crash would achieve this goal. You will have to decide for yourself if I'm speaking from experience or have motivated reasoning, as I'm saying this as an overseas absentee landlord who bought a UK apartment around the tail end of the previous price crash, initially as a place to live in until I decided the UK wasn't for me any more, and was rich enough to do so without a mortgage. (I lef…

I feel deeply sad having to ask this, but... how did you manage to leave?

In 2018 the UK had not officially completed the process of leaving, so I found a spare room in Berlin, got on a plane and flew, did the initial paperwork for registering with the various things that need to be registered in Germany, and went job hunting.

Just before the actual cut-off date for customs controls, I had the stuff that had been in storage (loft of family house) shipped over.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#965

Post by mikhailfranco »

pikrzyszto wrote: post #932
winter_blue wrote: post #916

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reform our planning rules to build the railways, roads, labs and 1.5 million homes we need and develop a new 10-year infrastructure strategy. They could do this is one fell swoop with a single bill by the Parliament that dissolves these local councils, and land owners the right (and freedom) to build whatever they want on land they own. Building safety codes would still apply; but zoning permitting could be erased…

zoning is still necessary, you don't want a pig farm (or anything equally stinky) next to people's houses.

No, individual assessment can fix that.

Just change default NO to default YES, BUT..

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#966

Post by ben_w »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #947
yurishimo wrote: post #941

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you place no value on the land simply existing as it does now and providing aesthetic value. Most people privileged enough to sit on a planning council coincidentally also trend towards valuing peace and quiet and are hesitant to approve projects that may disrupt their assumed way of life. From the outside looking in, rural UK council politics seems like the epitome of “I got mine so bug off”. I think this is…

All of the UK's cities - apart from museums like Oxford and Cambridge - are full of real estate investment sprawl. There is no reason some of those spaces couldn't be used as labs and light factories. In fact there are plenty of brown field conversion projects turning old mills (etc) into new light industry hubs. The bigger problems in the UK are business rates (extortionate), profiteering by landlords and land owner…

Cambridge(shire) has also been forced to allow more real estate; Northstowe, Waterbeach New Town, the Eddington neighbourhood within Cambridge city limits, Springstead Village, even been a few noticeable changes around Cottenham.

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#967

Post by mikhailfranco »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #949
GasVeteran wrote: post #940

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be better if we just change the immigration policy. Last time I checked there was 400,000 leaving the country each year and somewhere between a million and 1.4 million entering. I live in the countryside (I live in a small flat btw so I don't care about property prices) and I don't want everywhere in the country built over, which seems to be something here everyone wants for some bonkers reason. If you want…

It's actually around 750,000, mostly third world, and around half of those are students. Importing cheap foreign labour from the third world was always one of the goals of Brexit. This game gets played over and over - import cheap labour to keep wages down, lament about how the country is being invaded, and then blame immigrants for lack of investment, corporate profiteering, and other structural policy problems.

No, Brexit was about returning such decisions from Brussels to Westminster.

The UK may decide less immigration, or skill-weighted immigration, or lots more indiscriminate immigration - but the vote should be in the Mother of Parliaments, where else?

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#968

Post by hbrav »

jackoregankenny wrote: post #961

Finding it tough in Ireland too. Though salaries are higher, access to machines, tools, etc. is significantly harder. We have the talent, but capex is just too tough for startups. I tried to help solve this with saltharbour.org but it flopped during fundraising (who knew making no money isn't appealing, still going for sponsorship though). That said, setting up a new thing in Cambridge, offering £40k starting salary…

I'd be interested in what you set up in Cambridge, if you're happy to share?

Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted

#969

Post by [deleted] »

8338550bff96 wrote: post #906
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a metric, or not?

Do you have any sources that you would recommend? So far, you're throwing out "got a source for that?" left and right and when you get a source you've nothing to say. Just curious if you have knowledge about this subject or if you're just trying to block the conversation from going in directions you don't like

[deleted]
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