33 ms·

The last days of Silicon Roundabout

65 points by lewisflude 5y ago

erdo 5y ago
Is this article down playing the effects of Brexit a little? I used to work in Silicon Roundabout and now I live in Paris, I know plenty of developers who've moved out of the UK because of Brexit, but none who have moved to the UK since Brexit was finalised. It must be getting harder and harder for London based startups to find a dev team
- walshemj 5y ago
  Maybe fintec startups want to be closer to the city
  - jen20 5y ago
    You really can't get much closer without being _in_ the city...
    - walshemj 5y ago
      Ah sorry I forgot I meant the City of London - not London the City
      - handelaar 5y ago
        Old Street roundabout is 620 yards away from the City of London boundary
        jen20 5y ago
        Yes, that’s what I meant. It’s as close to the City of London as one could realistically be without being inside.
- hughhopkins 5y ago
  +1 It is but Brexit also coincided with the pandemic which led to a massive spike in remote working so it's quite hard to tell the extend until the dust settles.
- tmitchel2 5y ago
  I think the article was quite balanced. If anything the tech scene is better since Brexit but I suspect that's in large part to the pandemic. However, if you worked for one of the faultering European investment banks then perhaps you would disagree. I personally doubt the government's involvement made any difference to Silicon roundabout whatsoever. It was already well known as our tech hub in those days and the rents were low enough to attract creatives. It was also a matter of time before it became more gentrified and property value 'literally' doubled.
  - erdo 5y ago
    I think the tech jobs market in London is still better than in Paris for what I do, so possibly we agree? (I left the UK in spite of that not because of it). Depends what you mean by tech scene being better, if it's a shortage of tech workers, it's better for tech workers, and it's worse for people looking for tech workers - which eventually affects the decisions about where to base a team. But like another commenter said, remote work changes these calculations. To make it even more difficult to parse, we also had IR35 reform in the same period! Edit:clarity
  - aqualinux 5y ago
    "If anything the tech scene is better since Brexit but I suspect that's in large part to the pandemic" Tech investment in London was growing after the Brexit vote and before the start of the pandemic
- codeduck 5y ago
  It's not just start ups who are struggling.
  - nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
    I don't think the struggle is there as the salaries did not start growing yet.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > It must be getting harder and harder for London based startups to find a dev team The market has stabilized and the salaries demanded seem to exceed what typical "growth and engagement" startup crap is willing to pay, where as before there seemed to be a surplus of talent happy to take these lower wages. But it's not hard to hire if you have a sustainable business that can afford to pay good wages. When someone complains to me how hard it is to hire I always talk about this magical thing called "money" and where if you put more of it on the table you'll magically get more candidates in the next day. But instead they still focus on pool tables and "culture". It could also be that the startup market is saturated and the "growth and engagement" bubble is popping? It used to be that any tech company that can show growth (even without a solid business plan to turn that into profit) could get insane amounts of money thrown at them, where as now every idea has been hashed and rehashed multiple times and you need an actual business plan addressing your predecessors' failures - simply boasting how many users you have on your sinking ship won't cut it (or at least not as much).
- hogFeast 5y ago
  It isn't. Funding in first half of 2021 was larger than the whole of 2020...and London in 2020 was already many multiples than Paris. Additionally, the UK has a large startup scene outside London. Manchester was roughly equal to Amsterdam in 2020, it grew significantly in 2021 and is likely going to approach top-tier mainland cities soon. Edinburgh and Belfast are growing fast. It isn't even close (tbh, the UK isn't really competing with the EU anymore...the EU is just so far behind). Btw, the reason why people have moved out of Silicon Roundabout is the same reason banks moved out of Canary Wharf. Rents too high, office space not growing fast enough (Google moved into Holborn, outgrew that, moved to Victoria, outgrew that, and is now building a huge new office in King's Cross). VC funding is up something like 15x since the Roundabout was created, the growth was just too rapid for such a small area.
walshemj 5y ago
Not surprised there are nicer bits of London to set up in - not surprised the Googles moved to Kings Cross now its gentrified. Before it was Silicon Roundabout BT had a couple of big offices that I used to go to occasionally and the area was a real dump back then. Ironically in 95 or so I was up for a board (promotion) at 207 old street and was extoling all the cool things I was doing with the www and internet - unfortuetly I was interviewed by the old school COBOL guys and did not get one of the 18-20 promotions.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  > not surprised the Googles moved to Kings Cross now its gentrified. I really dont understand why people want to work there. Its a really expensive shithole still. Granted there are now lots of new offices full of tech workers, but thats not a selling point. Facebook and google moved out of soho for kings bloody cross. I suspect the real reason is that its the only site left big enough to put multi-thousand person offices in still. (along with the _really_ expensive chain shops that we tech workers apparently need.) People moved to shoreditch because it was cheap, thats why it looked like a shithole. Now it still looks like a shithole, but lacks every other appealing feature.
  - erdo 5y ago
    Yeah I think that's it, there just isn't enough available space in soho and covent garden
  - Gortal278 5y ago
    I think ease of commute is a main factor
    - jen20 5y ago
      Yup - both HS1, Thameslink and several "northern" trains go into Kings Cross/St Pancras or Euston (a ~5 minute walk), whereas approximately nothing goes to Old Street.
  - thinkingemote 5y ago
erdo 5y ago
Boris Johnson did some press event when I was at tech hub (I think he was mayor of London at the time). We told him our app was good. "Right, err, so I must download pingtune, _on_ to my app, got it" buffoon / plucky underdog was just his brand
lostdog 5y ago
Everything I read on the internet suggests that UK tech salaries are extremely low, and that the profession has a low level of respect overall. I have many many foreign or first generation immigrant coworkers, but almost no one British. I'm surprised, because there's no language barrier and a minimal cultural barrier, but still the vast majority of my coworkers are from places that are much harder to immigrate from. If any UKites have made it to this thread, is be curious to hear why so few people leave for countries with a stronger and higher paying tech sector?
- dkdbejwi383 5y ago
  > If any UKites have made it to this thread, is be curious to hear why so few people leave for countries with a stronger and higher paying tech sector? Where do you suggest? I only speak English to any decent level, German to a barely conversational degree, and given brexit, the right to work in a German speaking country is not a given. I sure as hell am not ever going to live in the (no offence) right-wing dystopia of the USA. That leaves me with what? Canada or Australia? Both far away, with equally “bad” salaries and far away from my roots?
  - lostdog 5y ago
    I did mean the USA, but now see that it was implicit (sorry. I probably enforced a bunch of stereotypes right there). I'm very curious if "it's a right-wing dystopia" is a common viewpoint, and whether it comes from direct experience, or just reading about the US. (Not disagreeing at all).
    - Computeiful 5y ago
      I'd say "right-wing dystopia" is putting it too strongly. The USA is definitely further right than the UK, but the main perception I'd say is that the politics in the USA are toxic, highly polarised and all-consuming (very easy to get sucked into it and hard to get out). But I don't think that's a surprising perception given that for the last 6 years, the news we get about the USA across the pond is almost exclusively politically-orientated.
jmkd 5y ago
I miss working from Google Campus and attending tech events in the surrounding streets. Not a day passed without meeting someone new and interesting, being inspired by the work of others as they describe it to you, even just checking out the student-like noticeboard of startups looking for co-founders for this or that idea. None of these have a compelling replacement online.
- trevyn 5y ago
  >checking out the student-like noticeboard of startups looking for co-founders Where was this, exactly?
  - jmkd 5y ago
    Sorry for slow response. Downstairs on the wall on the right just before the café.
smurda 5y ago
I moved from SF to London, and it was refreshing to be in a city where tech was not the dominant industry. In fact, by not working in finance I felt like an outsider and it for a more collegial atmosphere with other tech workers. Silicon Drinkabout (https://silicondrinkabout.com/ https://silicondrinkabout.com/) was a cool community on Fridays in London to meet other tech people who didn't wear suits.
alecco 5y ago
> “We increased funding, we increased the number of jobs, but as such, we increased the retail estate value. And the problem which we solved was the financing piece, but then unfortunately, financing still requires you to have an office. But that’s kind of just how the market works. Same mistake as California. The landlords get a huge cut of cash inflows. Tech should take a lesson from Macdonalds and buy land before placing a tech hub on it. And land price increases can help get seed money.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

65 points by lewisflude 5y ago

erdo 5y ago

Is this article down playing the effects of Brexit a little? I used to work in Silicon Roundabout and now I live in Paris, I know plenty of developers who've moved out of the UK because of Brexit, but none who have moved to the UK since Brexit was finalised. It must be getting harder and harder for London based startups to find a dev team

walshemj 5y ago
Maybe fintec startups want to be closer to the city
- jen20 5y ago
  You really can't get much closer without being _in_ the city...
  - walshemj 5y ago
    Ah sorry I forgot I meant the City of London - not London the City
    - handelaar 5y ago
      Old Street roundabout is 620 yards away from the City of London boundary
      - jen20 5y ago
        Yes, that’s what I meant. It’s as close to the City of London as one could realistically be without being inside.
hughhopkins 5y ago
+1 It is but Brexit also coincided with the pandemic which led to a massive spike in remote working so it's quite hard to tell the extend until the dust settles.
tmitchel2 5y ago
I think the article was quite balanced. If anything the tech scene is better since Brexit but I suspect that's in large part to the pandemic. However, if you worked for one of the faultering European investment banks then perhaps you would disagree. I personally doubt the government's involvement made any difference to Silicon roundabout whatsoever. It was already well known as our tech hub in those days and the rents were low enough to attract creatives. It was also a matter of time before it became more gentrified and property value 'literally' doubled.
- erdo 5y ago
  I think the tech jobs market in London is still better than in Paris for what I do, so possibly we agree? (I left the UK in spite of that not because of it). Depends what you mean by tech scene being better, if it's a shortage of tech workers, it's better for tech workers, and it's worse for people looking for tech workers - which eventually affects the decisions about where to base a team. But like another commenter said, remote work changes these calculations. To make it even more difficult to parse, we also had IR35 reform in the same period! Edit:clarity
- aqualinux 5y ago
  "If anything the tech scene is better since Brexit but I suspect that's in large part to the pandemic" Tech investment in London was growing after the Brexit vote and before the start of the pandemic
codeduck 5y ago
It's not just start ups who are struggling.
- nodejs_rulez_1 5y ago
  I don't think the struggle is there as the salaries did not start growing yet.
Nextgrid 5y ago
> It must be getting harder and harder for London based startups to find a dev team The market has stabilized and the salaries demanded seem to exceed what typical "growth and engagement" startup crap is willing to pay, where as before there seemed to be a surplus of talent happy to take these lower wages. But it's not hard to hire if you have a sustainable business that can afford to pay good wages. When someone complains to me how hard it is to hire I always talk about this magical thing called "money" and where if you put more of it on the table you'll magically get more candidates in the next day. But instead they still focus on pool tables and "culture". It could also be that the startup market is saturated and the "growth and engagement" bubble is popping? It used to be that any tech company that can show growth (even without a solid business plan to turn that into profit) could get insane amounts of money thrown at them, where as now every idea has been hashed and rehashed multiple times and you need an actual business plan addressing your predecessors' failures - simply boasting how many users you have on your sinking ship won't cut it (or at least not as much).
hogFeast 5y ago
It isn't. Funding in first half of 2021 was larger than the whole of 2020...and London in 2020 was already many multiples than Paris. Additionally, the UK has a large startup scene outside London. Manchester was roughly equal to Amsterdam in 2020, it grew significantly in 2021 and is likely going to approach top-tier mainland cities soon. Edinburgh and Belfast are growing fast. It isn't even close (tbh, the UK isn't really competing with the EU anymore...the EU is just so far behind). Btw, the reason why people have moved out of Silicon Roundabout is the same reason banks moved out of Canary Wharf. Rents too high, office space not growing fast enough (Google moved into Holborn, outgrew that, moved to Victoria, outgrew that, and is now building a huge new office in King's Cross). VC funding is up something like 15x since the Roundabout was created, the growth was just too rapid for such a small area.

walshemj 5y ago

Not surprised there are nicer bits of London to set up in - not surprised the Googles moved to Kings Cross now its gentrified. Before it was Silicon Roundabout BT had a couple of big offices that I used to go to occasionally and the area was a real dump back then. Ironically in 95 or so I was up for a board (promotion) at 207 old street and was extoling all the cool things I was doing with the www and internet - unfortuetly I was interviewed by the old school COBOL guys and did not get one of the 18-20 promotions.

KaiserPro 5y ago
> not surprised the Googles moved to Kings Cross now its gentrified. I really dont understand why people want to work there. Its a really expensive shithole still. Granted there are now lots of new offices full of tech workers, but thats not a selling point. Facebook and google moved out of soho for kings bloody cross. I suspect the real reason is that its the only site left big enough to put multi-thousand person offices in still. (along with the _really_ expensive chain shops that we tech workers apparently need.) People moved to shoreditch because it was cheap, thats why it looked like a shithole. Now it still looks like a shithole, but lacks every other appealing feature.
- erdo 5y ago
  Yeah I think that's it, there just isn't enough available space in soho and covent garden
- Gortal278 5y ago
  I think ease of commute is a main factor
  - jen20 5y ago
    Yup - both HS1, Thameslink and several "northern" trains go into Kings Cross/St Pancras or Euston (a ~5 minute walk), whereas approximately nothing goes to Old Street.
- thinkingemote 5y ago

erdo 5y ago

Boris Johnson did some press event when I was at tech hub (I think he was mayor of London at the time). We told him our app was good. "Right, err, so I must download pingtune, _on_ to my app, got it" buffoon / plucky underdog was just his brand

lostdog 5y ago

Everything I read on the internet suggests that UK tech salaries are extremely low, and that the profession has a low level of respect overall. I have many many foreign or first generation immigrant coworkers, but almost no one British. I'm surprised, because there's no language barrier and a minimal cultural barrier, but still the vast majority of my coworkers are from places that are much harder to immigrate from. If any UKites have made it to this thread, is be curious to hear why so few people leave for countries with a stronger and higher paying tech sector?

dkdbejwi383 5y ago
> If any UKites have made it to this thread, is be curious to hear why so few people leave for countries with a stronger and higher paying tech sector? Where do you suggest? I only speak English to any decent level, German to a barely conversational degree, and given brexit, the right to work in a German speaking country is not a given. I sure as hell am not ever going to live in the (no offence) right-wing dystopia of the USA. That leaves me with what? Canada or Australia? Both far away, with equally “bad” salaries and far away from my roots?
- lostdog 5y ago
  I did mean the USA, but now see that it was implicit (sorry. I probably enforced a bunch of stereotypes right there). I'm very curious if "it's a right-wing dystopia" is a common viewpoint, and whether it comes from direct experience, or just reading about the US. (Not disagreeing at all).
  - Computeiful 5y ago
    I'd say "right-wing dystopia" is putting it too strongly. The USA is definitely further right than the UK, but the main perception I'd say is that the politics in the USA are toxic, highly polarised and all-consuming (very easy to get sucked into it and hard to get out). But I don't think that's a surprising perception given that for the last 6 years, the news we get about the USA across the pond is almost exclusively politically-orientated.

jmkd 5y ago

I miss working from Google Campus and attending tech events in the surrounding streets. Not a day passed without meeting someone new and interesting, being inspired by the work of others as they describe it to you, even just checking out the student-like noticeboard of startups looking for co-founders for this or that idea. None of these have a compelling replacement online.

trevyn 5y ago
>checking out the student-like noticeboard of startups looking for co-founders Where was this, exactly?
- jmkd 5y ago
  Sorry for slow response. Downstairs on the wall on the right just before the café.

smurda 5y ago

I moved from SF to London, and it was refreshing to be in a city where tech was not the dominant industry. In fact, by not working in finance I felt like an outsider and it for a more collegial atmosphere with other tech workers. Silicon Drinkabout (https://silicondrinkabout.com/ https://silicondrinkabout.com/) was a cool community on Fridays in London to meet other tech people who didn't wear suits.

alecco 5y ago

> “We increased funding, we increased the number of jobs, but as such, we increased the retail estate value. And the problem which we solved was the financing piece, but then unfortunately, financing still requires you to have an office. But that’s kind of just how the market works. Same mistake as California. The landlords get a huge cut of cash inflows. Tech should take a lesson from Macdonalds and buy land before placing a tech hub on it. And land price increases can help get seed money.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]