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The article mentions the Victorian times - you don't need to go that far back - Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Clive Sinclair come to mind, although that was the
by zeemonkee 16y ago
The article mentions the Victorian times - you don't need to go that far back - Richard Branson, Alan Sugar, Clive Sinclair come to mind, although that was the 1980s. But why haven't there been any huge new successes in the last decade or so ?
I can think of a few (over-generalized) reasons:
- over-emphasis on banking and finance. The City is where the big money was made, and is disproportionately important to the UK economy (even now) so that's where the polymaths -our homegrown Zuckerbergs and Brins and Gates - went to make their fortune.
- class system. Business and government leadership comes from a very narrow circle of ex-public school and/or Oxbridge graduates who share a common disdain for science and technology. Time and again scientists and engineers have left for the US and elsewhere because they couldn't get funding at home - businessmen and politicians simply didn't "get" the potential of research.
- over-centralization. If you think Hacker News is bad with its Silicon Valley-centric worldview, come to the UK. If it's not happening in London, it's not happening. London however is a horribly expensive place to live, pushing up salaries, office costs, etc - not the ideal place for a startup. Start your business in the "provinces" however and nobody will notice you.
- bureaucracy. Both UK and EU legislation have increased the amount of paperwork needed to get started - for example employment legislation. Not sure how this compares to the US (which varies state to state) but it hasn't helped.
- alexyoung 16y agoMaybe another reason is too many British people think in terms of the government solving the problem, or starting projects funded by quangos: "what we need is a startup scene, therefore we need government funding!" Getting startups in touch with funding sources and getting the word out that you can fund your ventures without living off baked beans for 18 months might help encourage more people to take the leap of faith.
- zeemonkee 16y agoThat's true. With the recent government cutbacks and slashing of quangos that might (hopefully) change. More than money though would be a better startup community - or communities - all over the UK, which is up to us, I suppose. One assumes however that students and recent graduates are living off baked beans anyway (I suppose that's our equivalent of ramen profitable - Heinz profitable?)
- pmjordan 16y agoOne assumes however that students and recent graduates are living off baked beans anyway Exactly. Based on observation of people's reaction to me being self-employed, the biggest fears are the bureaucracy and what happens when you fail. Neither of which are anywhere near the biggest challenges, so diminishing those fears seems like an easy target. It would probably also help to get actual startup entrepreneurs to speak at universities, which by and large are run by people who have never been outside "the system".
- tomjen3 16y agoActually it costs a pound to start a company in Britain, and by the time you can afford to hire somebody you should be able to hire a lawyer to work through the issues.
- ig1 16y agoI wrote about this previous in a European context: http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2010/06/yes-europe-does-produce-big-tech.html http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2010/06/yes-europe-does-produc... There are plenty of recent tech success stories. European companies pretty much dominate the global telecoms and gambling markets, financial tech companies are fairly evenly split between New York and London. And while we don't dominate, the UK has a disproportionally large market share of the chip design and computer games industry.