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You can find people anywhere who have started businesses to test their ideas, the issue is scaling those businesses past a certain point. There are many brilli

You can find people anywhere who have started businesses to test their ideas, the issue is scaling those businesses past a certain point. There are many brilliant people in the UK, yet the UK has no equivalent to Google, Facebook, Oracle, Apple, etc - why? Why does the BusinessWeek Top 100 (http://www.businessweek.com/it100 http://www.businessweek.com/it100) have 1 UK company and 40+ US companies, if there are not intrinsic differences between US and UK attitudes towards building and growing businesses? I am not trying to make a qualitative assessment of the two countries, or predict what will happen in the future - but the statistics bear out that if you want to build something on a world-class scale, the US still provides far greater opportunities to do so (it'll also crush you if you aren't lucky and end up on the bottom of the pile, but that's a whole other discussion).

mattmanser 15y ago
You've gone from saying it's impossible to start a business in the UK to talking about some totally random list of 'top' IT companies that seems to have plucked out of the author's ass. BT has a bigger operating income than most of the 'top' companies but somehow it doesn't count. But Verizon and China Mobile do? What about ARM? You know, that Cambridge, UK company? We're talking about the hottest company in processors right now. That 'equivalent' that doesn't exist? Oh yeah, not on the list. Netflix is there, but Lovefilm isn't. Because.... Last.fm? Spotify? And they're just the ones I know about personally. And, um, exactly where on that list is Microsoft? Maybe it's a little US centric because maybe, and I'm guessing here, it's written by an American. Just a hunch.
- shurane 15y ago
  Heh, so the list by BusinessWeek isn't very quantitative then, is it?
- garethsprice 15y ago
  Didn't say it was impossible, just harder. ARM is a good example, so let's use that. ARM is tiny compared to, say, Intel (1,700 employees vs 82k, GBP406m revenue vs GBP27 billion), despite having great technology for many decades and being, as you say, the hottest thing in processors right now. It should be much larger, but it is not because the UK as a culture does not value or nurture entrepreneurial talent to the anywhere near the extent that the US does. If it did, then shouldn't ARM be much closer in size to Intel, Texas Instruments (GBP8bn rev), AMD (GBP4bn rev) or nVidia (GBP2.1bn rev)? Again, I am not saying that there are no entrepreneurs, startups or successful companies in the UK, but that the odds are significantly better for US companies.
  - mattmanser 15y ago
    Ach, believe what you want. If you want to actually get a proper idea of why the UK's not leading the world in processors watch 'Micro Men' for a précis. They shot themselves in the foot, nothing to do with people not valuing or nurturing them. That's where the ARM comes from and it's taken this long to recover from their personal rivalry. Or you can keep claiming that only in the US do you have people who want to be entrepreneurs. But you sound like a prat as the UK is known for it's innovation fostering.
    - garethsprice 15y ago
      You seem to be totally missing my point; the UK has plenty of people who want to be entrepreneurs and plenty of innovation - it just fails to capitalize on it and our greatest products languish in obscurity, while they should be leading the world. I totally agree with you that the UK has incredible innovators. UK companies build products that are light years ahead of the rest of the world, but that are unknown outside of the UK (Spectrum, BBC Micro, Amstrad, Acorn, Psion, Teletext?). This is a good place to wrap up, as we clearly have a very different picture of our mutual homeland - which is why you're happy there and why I am happy not being there. Best of luck to you, and I really mean that (even though you called me a prat :) ).

mattmanser 15y ago

You've gone from saying it's impossible to start a business in the UK to talking about some totally random list of 'top' IT companies that seems to have plucked out of the author's ass. BT has a bigger operating income than most of the 'top' companies but somehow it doesn't count. But Verizon and China Mobile do? What about ARM? You know, that Cambridge, UK company? We're talking about the hottest company in processors right now. That 'equivalent' that doesn't exist? Oh yeah, not on the list. Netflix is there, but Lovefilm isn't. Because.... Last.fm? Spotify? And they're just the ones I know about personally. And, um, exactly where on that list is Microsoft? Maybe it's a little US centric because maybe, and I'm guessing here, it's written by an American. Just a hunch.

shurane 15y ago
Heh, so the list by BusinessWeek isn't very quantitative then, is it?
garethsprice 15y ago
Didn't say it was impossible, just harder. ARM is a good example, so let's use that. ARM is tiny compared to, say, Intel (1,700 employees vs 82k, GBP406m revenue vs GBP27 billion), despite having great technology for many decades and being, as you say, the hottest thing in processors right now. It should be much larger, but it is not because the UK as a culture does not value or nurture entrepreneurial talent to the anywhere near the extent that the US does. If it did, then shouldn't ARM be much closer in size to Intel, Texas Instruments (GBP8bn rev), AMD (GBP4bn rev) or nVidia (GBP2.1bn rev)? Again, I am not saying that there are no entrepreneurs, startups or successful companies in the UK, but that the odds are significantly better for US companies.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  Ach, believe what you want. If you want to actually get a proper idea of why the UK's not leading the world in processors watch 'Micro Men' for a précis. They shot themselves in the foot, nothing to do with people not valuing or nurturing them. That's where the ARM comes from and it's taken this long to recover from their personal rivalry. Or you can keep claiming that only in the US do you have people who want to be entrepreneurs. But you sound like a prat as the UK is known for it's innovation fostering.
  - garethsprice 15y ago
    You seem to be totally missing my point; the UK has plenty of people who want to be entrepreneurs and plenty of innovation - it just fails to capitalize on it and our greatest products languish in obscurity, while they should be leading the world. I totally agree with you that the UK has incredible innovators. UK companies build products that are light years ahead of the rest of the world, but that are unknown outside of the UK (Spectrum, BBC Micro, Amstrad, Acorn, Psion, Teletext?). This is a good place to wrap up, as we clearly have a very different picture of our mutual homeland - which is why you're happy there and why I am happy not being there. Best of luck to you, and I really mean that (even though you called me a prat :) ).