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Tech Talent: How the UK lost six potential titans
- jakozaur 10y agoMore to come... Skype though wasn't strictly UK, has a huge engineering office in London. Microsoft just announce it will close it. Some of the losses are inevitable. Even in San Francisco Bay Area a lot of titans has died/been acquired. The most fundamental metric is net new titans/value created. New Startups - old titans that are winding dow.
- AJRF 10y agoAs a Software Engineer in London I have noticed a gigantic push from recruiters to get some talent to move to Berlin after Brexit. The sad thing is I now consider it a net gain to move, whereas before London was the best place to live.
- qq66 10y agoWhat makes it a net gain now when it was not previously? (I'm not super informed about Brexit details)
- gaius 10y agoActually, nothing, since no-one knows what the post-Brexit world will look like, and even if they did, Article 50 takes 2 years.
- iamflimflam1 10y agoNo ones knows what Brexit actually means (apart from the slightly pathetic "Brexit means Brexit" which we seem to be getting from the current prime minister) Currently there seem to be two groups: The Brexit Light group who want to preserve access to the single market with hopefully some concessions on free movements. And the Hard Brexit group who see controlling migration as the most important thing even at the cost of losing access to the single market. Whatever happens there is going to be a long period of uncertainty which could last for 5-10 years. Only once the dust has settled will we know what impact there has been on the economy and country. Companies are going to be less likely to invest in the UK, before Brexit it was a logical choice to open offices in London, now it is not so clear cut. It is also less likely that talented people from across Europe will be tempted to move to London. Pre Brexit the UK (in particular London) has been a very attractive place for highly skilled people, post Brexit those people are likely to choose a different capital city to call home. My feeling is that Brexit will be very bad for London in the short to medium term.
- zigzigzag 10y agoIt makes little different for computer programmers, as evidenced by the abundance of American (i.e. non EU) apps and services used throughout the EU. It would make more difference for other industries, but "move to Berlin from London as a js dev" doesn't make much sense to me. I suspect some Berlin-based recruiters are just desperate and trying out a new tack to see if a bit of fear works better vs just advertising Berlin itself (which is a lovely city, mind you, I've thought about moving there in the past).
- phillc73 10y agoNon-British EU citizens, currently living in the UK/London could be very attracted by a move to Berlin. It would remove a large chunk of uncertainty from their future, regardless of industry. As a British citizen currently living in another EU country, I have no idea what my official immigration status will be in a couple of years. My crystal ball shows me a future filled by paperwork and bureaucracy.
- zigzigzag 10y agoThat would be the case if there were forced expulsions, which realistically would only occur if the EU did the same thing to Brits. It's a worst case scenario that everyone presumably wants to avoid (though the EU seems increasingly fanatical, so who knows what will happen).
- guitarbill 10y ago> That would be the case if there were forced expulsion No, I think phillc73 is spot on. Consider the case where Brits get EU visas (and vice versa), it's still a shit-tonne of paperwork for everybody involved. For companies, even without forced expulsion, other tech hubs are likely to be more attractive now as an EU base.
- felipeerias 10y agoThe problem is not the far-fetched possibility of mass expulsions: it's simply that, after Brexit, British citizens will likely need a work visa in order to work in the EU. And work visas for non-EU applicants are neither easy nor quick to get. I guess the UK could propose to allow free movement of British workers to the EU, but the EU will demand in turn that European workers be allowed the same free movement to the UK (and stopping that was one of the main points of the Brexit vote, wasn't it?).
- jkot 10y agoCould you post more details? I get offers from London, but not many from Berlin. Berlin has some startups, but not many big corporations.
- techterrier 10y agoI'm a (full stack javascript) contractor and have started getting a call a week asking if I would consider relocating to Berlin or Frankfurt.
- jkot 10y agoMakes sense, I am Java/Scala guy, we have different audience
- hocuspocus 10y agoI'm am a Java/Scala dev in Berlin and get contacted by 2-3 recruiters a week for positions in Berlin or Germany. More often than not, they are from London based recruiting agencies. Big and medium sized companies: * HERE (I work there, let me know if you want a referral) * Amazon * SAP * Zalando * SoundCloud * Fyber I probably forgot a few others and many smaller startups hiring Scala devs. The tech landscape is different (not a lot of fin tech, no hedge funds, no algo and high frequency trading like in London) but the opportunities are plentiful.
- oneloop 10y agoBullshit, London hasn't been a good place to live in at least 20 years. You just hung around because you were used to it. London as good things (lots of money, lots of entrepreneurial people), but being "nice to live" isn't one of them.
- SpeakMouthWords 10y agoWould you mind unpacking that further? I love living in London and would be keen to hear your grievances.
- SocratesV 10y agoSome of the ones that made me move out of London: - pollution; - poor quality in most housing; - small apartments (shoeboxes really); - high rents and difficult to buy; - crowded (streets, public transportation, roads); - both of which leads to people being pushed to the outskirts and taking a lot of time to travel when you want to meet with friends; Personally I got a bit tired of it, loved it in the first few years. Lots of money to be earned, and quite a lot of facilities, but for me I just grew tired of the place.
- Symbiote 10y agoTravel time to meet with friends was a big one for me. My job was never in the centre, so I chose to live within 15 minutes cycling of work, in a pleasant and green bit of West London (Z3/4). That was fine when the fun things to do were in the centre, but a lot of them moved further away. That led to an hour's journey to see a metal band perform in Holloway, and then a 1½-2 hour journey home at night by bus, or £60+ for an Uber. London has half as many licensed music venues as in 2004. ([1] says 35% less since 2007, I can't find where I read half.) Also, I said I'd leave the UK if UKIP got more than 20% (or 25%, or something) in the 2014 European elections, and stood by my word :) [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/20/save-londons-live-music-venues-city-wide-campaign-launched https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/20/save-londons...
- oneloop 10y ago
- thaiphanvevo 10y agoI dunno, if the UK can pull off smaller government then they might continue to be attractive to businesses chafing from the high regulations and taxes of the EU.
- barrkel 10y agoThe EU doesn't control member country tax rates and most of its regulations are to harmonise products sold within the market - ie products would have to meet the regulations to be sold in the block no matter whether they are produced inside or outside the EU. Other regulations affecting things like working hours or environment wouldn't necessarily be great for the UK to cut back on. These are designed to prevent beggar-thy-neighbour policies that turn into a race to the bottom in a zero sum game. It's better for everyone to agree to the same rules here, game theoretically. And less freedom to hire people from the continent would just push up labour costs. So personally I don't think there's any upside from Brexit here. That would have to come from somewhere entirely hypothetical, like significantly better trade deals than the EU currently has.
- gambiting 10y agoI don't know why you are getting downvoted. Worker protections like guaranteed holidays and unlimited sick days might be the first things to go "to remain more competitive", which is an obvious BS. The same with environment protections - someone made an argument to me, saying that EU is bad because it stops UK from fishing certain types of fish in the north sea......yeah, of course it does, because we were overfishing massively and in a decade there would be none left. Even if UK leaves EU that won't change - it's not like you can magically ignore environmental regulations when you are not part of EU, especially if we are talking about international waters.
- gaius 10y agosaying that EU is bad because it stops UK from fishing certain types of fish in the north sea......yeah, of course it does, because we were overfishing massively and in a decade there would be none left Errr, that's not true at all. What the EU said was that British fishermen can't fish British waters, but Spanish fisherman can overfish here as they please. Leaving the EU, whatever else it does good or bad, is a massive win for our marine ecosystem.
- danielhunt 10y agoI'm not English, I don't live in the UK, but the approach and wording in this article bothers me. Are these companies "sell outs" because they sold, or because they sold to foreign companies? Shouldn't they be lauded as successes for having been sold in the first place? Is this part of the problem that the root of the article (as I see it) is actually talking about?
- FuckOffNeemo 10y agoI believe the article is suggesting London or the UK, is hindered when trying to compete with SV or other similar start-up\technology based cities. That most companies (though the examples in the article aren't the greatest) are bought out or shifted off shore inhibits the UK from developing that scene further. I'd suggest it's a little more complex than just starting a company and not selling out to a larger competitor. London is not Silicon Valley. Never has been and any opportunity to cultivate that type of culture within the city will surely be even more challenging with the Brexit? But I digress. When the Brexit vote is enacted, I suspect we'll find business and investment into start-ups in the UK continuing to diminish in favour of EU based states or else where. Actually. You could really say this about almost every industry in the UK with the exception of the Banking and Financial sector, they're all diminishing in favour of offshore? If they haven't already anyway? That's profound. Source: ex-pat from the UK Edit: words, additional statements.
- zigzigzag 10y agoWhen it comes to exports and national GDPs perception and reality often rarely align. Example: almost everyone thinks UK manufacturing has been in decline for decades. In reality when measured in absolute amounts the UK manufactures more than ever before. People think it's declined only because it employs fewer people (but still manages to make more). A more optimistic way to look at it would be to say that UK manufacturing has become wildly more productive than in the past. So when you say they're "diminishing" you need to square that with the fact that the UK economy is actually doing pretty well, by European standards, hence the large migratory net inflows as people vote with their feet.
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- jkot 10y agoI am surprised it does not mention Psion. With better management we could had iphone 10 years earlier. Psion Series 5 has no replacement even after 19 years (keyboard, display, battery life..)
- Ulti 10y agoI'd say most netbooks or tablets replaced it for all of those things now... But you're right that Psion were super innovative. More important than their series 5 hardware was the operating system. EPOC was a 32bit embedded OS long before anyone else was doing them. It was nice to program for and dealt with multiprogram which even the first iPhones didn't think about.
- pavlov 10y ago32-bit EPOC became very popular (for a while) as Symbian, but the "nice to program for" aspect was definitely lost in Symbian's heavy-handed multi-vendor committee approach to software design.
- gaius 10y agoSorry, but Sinclair was never a potential titan. His problem was always he was happy to shave off 50% of the capability to save 10% of the cost. Tho' this is a mentality that is all too common in the UK - just look at our defence procurement. A real story would be that of De Havilland and the Comet airliner - Boeing and Airbus should never have existed, the UK had that market sewn up until the government of the day blew it...
- flukus 10y agoShaving cost was a good goal when computers were still too expensive for the average home though. Another notable one was what could have been an IBM competitor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) . Britain was a great innovator back when individual inventors could manage a project, they never seemed to transition into corporate innovation though.
- gaius 10y agoFTA: But the firm got unstuck when it tried to enter the business market. Its Sinclair QL was designed to outperform IBM's PCs, but its tape-based Microdrive storage was unreliable and the British company did not offer the kind of telephone support the corporate sector required. His failure wasn't in terms of price but of price/performance.
- silvestrov 10y agoAnd the QL didn't have a real business quality keyboard. It was just cheap and hard plastic keys. It was too expensive for a home computer and too much of a toy for a business: between two chairs.
- anexprogrammer 10y agoLyons didn't have the money to build the next machine needed to compete, so sold their 50% to EE, the other shareholder. EE were one of the companies merged to form ICL, who for 15 or 20 years were an IBM competitor and doing pretty well until at least the early 80s and the first connections with Fujitsu.
- tazjin 10y agoAs an EVE player this headline made me feel a bit uneasy.
- bobic171 10y agoI doubt they would be pimp fit though.
- muzster 10y agoIt will be interesting to see how quickly this post will disappear from the front page of HN ( especially when SF wakes up) Edit: My comment is relevant. How relevant is the UK tech scene in the world ? one measure would be HN ranking during the day. Edit: 08:49am (BST) - position (2) Edit: 09:19am (BST) - (2) Edit: 09:24am (BST) - (11) Edit: 09:29am (BST) - (14) Edit: 09:34am (BST) - (15) Edit: 09:39am (BST) - (20) Edit: 09:49am (BST) - (22) Edit: 09:54am (BST) - (25) Edit: 09:59am - 10:19am (BST) - (27/28) Edit: 10:24am - 10:29am (BST) - (26) Edit: 10:34am (BST) - (28) Edit: 10:44am (BST) - (31)
- matthewmorgan 10y agoUnfortunately the UK couldn't innovate faster than others could steal
- h1d 10y agoSoftbank is a cellular phone company not a competitor to ARM... And Softbank said it will double head count and keep the offices in the UK. I guess any sell out is termed "lost".
- ar7hur 10y agoI think they missed the most of important of all, DeepMind.
- smcl 10y agoAutonomy being on the list is a little weird - given that it appears to have been all smoke and mirrors.
- rwmj 10y agoThey missed Imagination[1], which seems to be suffering from (allegedly) poor management decisions at the moment, but is the hardware behind the graphics in many mobile phones. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagination_Technologies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagination_Technologies
- pyb 10y agoThe difference is they did turn down acquisition offers from Apple and Intel, a few years ago. However they're not doing so well as an independent company atm. Many of the most experienced engineers are getting poached by Apple these days (has some informal no-poaching agreement come to an end?)
- rwmj 10y agoAcquiring the smoking remains of MIPS for $100m wasn't exactly a moment of management genius. It might have been better for them if they had been acquired and the current management had been given golden goodbyes.
- pyb 10y agoAn acquisition would have been much better for the employees. It's IMG's CEO who didn't want it as he enjoyed his independence...
- gaius 10y agoThe BBC is funny like that, they latch onto companies that they worship (e.g. Apple, Google, ARM, Flickr) and ignore all the others in the same sector. I suspect they see no further than the products their own staff use, or more cynically, individuals there are positioning themselves for lucrative job offers they hope will come rolling in...
- 14113 10y agoI think it's possibly that the journalists don't actually know the sector beyond the big "flashy" names, like ARM or Sinclair.
- guard-of-terra 10y agoLast.fm is still an amazing resource thanks to its listening statistics that I participate in.