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From a UK perspective - this post is nuts! I've worked with a few London based startups (and interviewed for several). Holiday 28 days minimum - as per law htt

by edent 14y ago

From a UK perspective - this post is nuts! I've worked with a few London based startups (and interviewed for several). Holiday 28 days minimum - as per law https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/entitlement https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/entitlement Rarely offered health care but - for all its flaws - our National Health Service is pretty good. Shares - yup, they're almost always going to be worthless. Pension - every company has offered me at least 5% matched pension - some more. The Government is mandating that even small employers will have to put you in a pension scheme soon - which is good. "Soft" benefits like gym membership / conferences / etc depend very much on how confident the business is in itself. If it can afford them, it likely will - because they know that people can get them at mega-corps. Pay - ah, there's the kicker. Yes, most startups try to save on the salary costs. Usually they get a pretty rude awakening when they try to hire someone with more than 5 minutes' experience. So they try to make it better with "up-titling". I could have been "Global Head of X" at a company barely looking at sales outside the city. Joining a start-up is fun. But, like a pyramid scheme, you've got to get in early if you want to reap the share bonanza benefits. I do wonder why the UK scene doesn't seem quite so vibrant - especially as healthcare costs (which I understand to be the biggest burden in the US) are essentially nil.

coolsunglasses 14y ago
Things the UK lacks: A culture that promotes self-actualization and risk-taking at the expense of your family or future family. YC Centralized (location) and relatively easy to access angel money. Don't talk to me about the VC in London, nobody cares. It's an insider's club. I can walk out the door today and start bumping my side project for seed money (Mountain View). I can't do that in London. Strong culture of entrepreneurship in alumni organizations (Stanford LOVES this stuff) Lots of high quality incubators besides YC (my last startup I served as CTO at incubated at StartX) --- You're not going to get me to move to the UK unless there's an aggressive visa program and seed money involved.
- rayiner 14y ago
  > Don't talk to me about the VC in London, nobody cares. It's an insider's club. I can walk out the door today and start bumping my side project for seed money (Mountain View). I can't do that in London. Silicon Valley VC money is a tiny speck compared to the money flowing through the capital markets of The City. So that begs the question: why is it harder to just walk out the door and round up seed money in London?
  - rdl 14y ago
    Rich money managers are not good angel investors. Slow to act, risk averse, no value add. London has plenty of rich people, but they're usually old money heirs, or Russians/Middle-Easterners/etc. who didn't make money from tech, or people who work in the City. Not people who got rich by being employee 1-500 at Google, Yahoo, eBay, etc.
  - pja 14y ago
    The City doesn't understand tech. Never has. (Frankly, UK banks are obsessed with property, which is one of the things that holds back the UK economy: small business lending in the UK is throttled by growth in house prices because the only reliable way for small business startups to raise seed capital is by mortgaging their personal property. Hence a stop-go economy which lurches between over-expansion and contraction as the property market goes from boom to bust.)
jbellis 14y ago
On the flip side, I've seen insane (from a US standpoint) rules on vesting at UK startups, like "the company gets all your options back if you leave." Don't know if this is SOP or not.
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  I can't name the company, but this isn't limited to the UK. It's found in other countries too. Maybe there's too much history/tradition/peer-pressure/competition in the States for this kind of arrangement to fly. I'd immediately bolt for the door if someone demanded such a structure on me.
  - marvin 14y ago
    Smaller Norwegian companies which offer shares to employees often have a "if you quit within 5 years, the company is allowed to buy all your shares back at the price they were when you received them" clause, or something similar. Obviously you'll only get sub-par or naïve people with such a policy.
    - runarb 14y ago
      You will probably find that some companies tries that regardless of where they are located. I doubt it is unique for any specific country.
      - hkmurakami 14y ago
        imo I assign ownership of such policies to the founder(s) specifically rather than the nebulous concept of "companies".
        marvin 14y ago
        Good point.
- walshemj 14y ago
crusso 14y ago
I do wonder why the UK scene doesn't seem quite so vibrant You just go through a list of state-required benefits or drains on individual risk taking and then you wonder at why the startup scene isn't quite so vibrant? Risk taking requires the ability to... uh... take risks.
- pja 14y ago
  The difference between the UK startup scene & SF has nothing to do with benefits & everything to do with investor culture IMO.
- amit_m 14y ago
  AFAIK Israel has more startups per capita than any other country in the world, but the legally mandated benefits are very similar to those in the UK (with slightly less vacation time). Actually, I think some form of social safety net is supportive of very entrepreneurs. From personal experience, the only people I know who quit their job to work full time on a startup had significant savings from previous jobs. Also it's quite common in Israel to start working on your startup while getting unemployment benefits.
mseebach 14y ago
> especially as healthcare costs (which I understand to be the biggest burden in the US) are essentially nil They're not nil, that expense just isn't optional (taxes). It's the risk of an individual to find himself with no health care that's essentially nil.
ryguytilidie 14y ago
Oh. My. God. Get me to the UK now.
epoxyhockey 14y ago
Aren't the salaries in the UK horrendously low? The March Who is Hiring had a job in the UK with a 22-24K salary range. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5305245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5305245
- threedaymonk 14y ago
  Salaries in the UK are lower than the Bay Area, but I wouldn't say they're "horrendously low". I can see why that ad would make you think that, though: it really is absurdly low for London, but I don't think it's representative.
  - bitcartel 14y ago
    Sadly, in Dickensian Britain, a .Net developer is worth the princely sum of £1 a day, while a Python/Django expert can at best hope for £600 a year! http://i.imgur.com/3Aw8oop.png http://i.imgur.com/3Aw8oop.png (genuine screenshot from the Independent, a British newspaper)
lotsofpulp 14y ago
>Pension - every company has offered me at least 5% matched pension - some more. The Government is mandating that even small employers will have to put you in a pension scheme soon - which is good. Not really. Accounting for pensions requires the ability to project economic and biological conditions 20-40 years into the future. Humans aren't capable of this yet, and it results in dealing with fudged numbers (see the myriad pension funding crises around the world). Another problem with pensions is that they are unaffordable. If they were affordable then you would see private companies offering annuities for sale, for as cheap as what pension actuaries "project" the cost to be. But it's far, far more expensive to buy yourself an annuity, because of tighter regulations in the private insurance market. Finally, there is no reason to tie up your future with one employer, or the employer's future with old employees. If you want a pension, fine, demand $5,000 cash so you can buy yourself an annuity. But why someone would trust an anonymous person 20 years in the future with their compensation is beyond me. Your pension money can be gambled with, get lost due to corruption, or because it's all invested in the same funds in public companies, required government bailouts of private markets (see 2008 stock market crash).
- walshemj 14y ago
  edent was talking about DC pensions and not DB so DC is afordable. And the Uk has some nice tax breaks for pensions tax relief at your highest rate of tax plus over $20k capita gains tax allowance per year. and you can shelter £12k every year from tax in ISA's Even the basic share save is very tax efficient I know people who made $50k from a sing years share save at a big uk company - and thats the one everyone from the lowest clerical assistant gets.
eurodance 14y ago
The UK will be in recession in < 1 year.

by edent 14y ago

coolsunglasses 14y ago

Things the UK lacks: A culture that promotes self-actualization and risk-taking at the expense of your family or future family. YC Centralized (location) and relatively easy to access angel money. Don't talk to me about the VC in London, nobody cares. It's an insider's club. I can walk out the door today and start bumping my side project for seed money (Mountain View). I can't do that in London. Strong culture of entrepreneurship in alumni organizations (Stanford LOVES this stuff) Lots of high quality incubators besides YC (my last startup I served as CTO at incubated at StartX) --- You're not going to get me to move to the UK unless there's an aggressive visa program and seed money involved.

rayiner 14y ago
> Don't talk to me about the VC in London, nobody cares. It's an insider's club. I can walk out the door today and start bumping my side project for seed money (Mountain View). I can't do that in London. Silicon Valley VC money is a tiny speck compared to the money flowing through the capital markets of The City. So that begs the question: why is it harder to just walk out the door and round up seed money in London?
- rdl 14y ago
  Rich money managers are not good angel investors. Slow to act, risk averse, no value add. London has plenty of rich people, but they're usually old money heirs, or Russians/Middle-Easterners/etc. who didn't make money from tech, or people who work in the City. Not people who got rich by being employee 1-500 at Google, Yahoo, eBay, etc.
- pja 14y ago
  The City doesn't understand tech. Never has. (Frankly, UK banks are obsessed with property, which is one of the things that holds back the UK economy: small business lending in the UK is throttled by growth in house prices because the only reliable way for small business startups to raise seed capital is by mortgaging their personal property. Hence a stop-go economy which lurches between over-expansion and contraction as the property market goes from boom to bust.)

jbellis 14y ago

On the flip side, I've seen insane (from a US standpoint) rules on vesting at UK startups, like "the company gets all your options back if you leave." Don't know if this is SOP or not.

hkmurakami 14y ago
I can't name the company, but this isn't limited to the UK. It's found in other countries too. Maybe there's too much history/tradition/peer-pressure/competition in the States for this kind of arrangement to fly. I'd immediately bolt for the door if someone demanded such a structure on me.
- marvin 14y ago
  Smaller Norwegian companies which offer shares to employees often have a "if you quit within 5 years, the company is allowed to buy all your shares back at the price they were when you received them" clause, or something similar. Obviously you'll only get sub-par or naïve people with such a policy.
  - runarb 14y ago
    You will probably find that some companies tries that regardless of where they are located. I doubt it is unique for any specific country.
    - hkmurakami 14y ago
      imo I assign ownership of such policies to the founder(s) specifically rather than the nebulous concept of "companies".
      - marvin 14y ago
        Good point.
walshemj 14y ago

crusso 14y ago

I do wonder why the UK scene doesn't seem quite so vibrant You just go through a list of state-required benefits or drains on individual risk taking and then you wonder at why the startup scene isn't quite so vibrant? Risk taking requires the ability to... uh... take risks.

pja 14y ago
The difference between the UK startup scene & SF has nothing to do with benefits & everything to do with investor culture IMO.
amit_m 14y ago
AFAIK Israel has more startups per capita than any other country in the world, but the legally mandated benefits are very similar to those in the UK (with slightly less vacation time). Actually, I think some form of social safety net is supportive of very entrepreneurs. From personal experience, the only people I know who quit their job to work full time on a startup had significant savings from previous jobs. Also it's quite common in Israel to start working on your startup while getting unemployment benefits.

mseebach 14y ago

> especially as healthcare costs (which I understand to be the biggest burden in the US) are essentially nil They're not nil, that expense just isn't optional (taxes). It's the risk of an individual to find himself with no health care that's essentially nil.

ryguytilidie 14y ago

Oh. My. God. Get me to the UK now.

epoxyhockey 14y ago

Aren't the salaries in the UK horrendously low? The March Who is Hiring had a job in the UK with a 22-24K salary range. Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5305245 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5305245

threedaymonk 14y ago
Salaries in the UK are lower than the Bay Area, but I wouldn't say they're "horrendously low". I can see why that ad would make you think that, though: it really is absurdly low for London, but I don't think it's representative.
- bitcartel 14y ago
  Sadly, in Dickensian Britain, a .Net developer is worth the princely sum of £1 a day, while a Python/Django expert can at best hope for £600 a year! http://i.imgur.com/3Aw8oop.png http://i.imgur.com/3Aw8oop.png (genuine screenshot from the Independent, a British newspaper)

lotsofpulp 14y ago

>Pension - every company has offered me at least 5% matched pension - some more. The Government is mandating that even small employers will have to put you in a pension scheme soon - which is good. Not really. Accounting for pensions requires the ability to project economic and biological conditions 20-40 years into the future. Humans aren't capable of this yet, and it results in dealing with fudged numbers (see the myriad pension funding crises around the world). Another problem with pensions is that they are unaffordable. If they were affordable then you would see private companies offering annuities for sale, for as cheap as what pension actuaries "project" the cost to be. But it's far, far more expensive to buy yourself an annuity, because of tighter regulations in the private insurance market. Finally, there is no reason to tie up your future with one employer, or the employer's future with old employees. If you want a pension, fine, demand $5,000 cash so you can buy yourself an annuity. But why someone would trust an anonymous person 20 years in the future with their compensation is beyond me. Your pension money can be gambled with, get lost due to corruption, or because it's all invested in the same funds in public companies, required government bailouts of private markets (see 2008 stock market crash).

walshemj 14y ago
edent was talking about DC pensions and not DB so DC is afordable. And the Uk has some nice tax breaks for pensions tax relief at your highest rate of tax plus over $20k capita gains tax allowance per year. and you can shelter £12k every year from tax in ISA's Even the basic share save is very tax efficient I know people who made $50k from a sing years share save at a big uk company - and thats the one everyone from the lowest clerical assistant gets.

eurodance 14y ago

The UK will be in recession in < 1 year.