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No. The real reason Europe/Asia/Latin America/Africa trails the US in tech is because none of these regions have even the same order of magnitude of funding, p

by crdb 11y ago

No. The real reason Europe/Asia/Latin America/Africa trails the US in tech is because none of these regions have even the same order of magnitude of funding, period. 2014: 225 deals in the UK for a total of GBP 1.7 billion (2.7 USD) so approx USD 12m/deal [1]. Same year: USD 48.3 billion in the US in 4,356 deals for approx 11m/deal [2]. That's 18x as much money. 18. Same deal size. There's plenty of excellent programmers all over Europe, particularly (based on open source experience, and previous hiring) in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. They're cheap, willing to do startups, capable of moving without a visa all over the region. Regulation is honestly not that bad; a bit more taxes, sure, but probably easier overall than California. But if you have 18 times as many competitors, you're going to take more medals. [1] https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/united-kingdom-venture-capital-2014/ https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/united-kingdom-venture-capit... [2] http://nvca.org/pressreleases/annual-venture-capital-investment-tops-48-billion-2014-reaching-highest-level-decade-according-moneytree-report/ http://nvca.org/pressreleases/annual-venture-capital-investm...

dylanjermiah 11y ago
Why does the US have more funding? Investors will invest where they can get the best return, there is no bias to country lines.
- crdb 11y ago
  In theory yes. In practice, investments, particularly in early stage companies, require effort and time and other invisible costs (you can line up 20 meetings in San Francisco in the time it would take you to fly to Singapore and back for one), and there are other aspects such as reflexivity and the correlation between funding availability and company success that keep Silicon Valley as the global tech centre. Why it became so is a long story with several aspects including large amounts of government spending half a century ago and cheap property values.

by crdb 11y ago

dylanjermiah 11y ago

Why does the US have more funding? Investors will invest where they can get the best return, there is no bias to country lines.

crdb 11y ago
In theory yes. In practice, investments, particularly in early stage companies, require effort and time and other invisible costs (you can line up 20 meetings in San Francisco in the time it would take you to fly to Singapore and back for one), and there are other aspects such as reflexivity and the correlation between funding availability and company success that keep Silicon Valley as the global tech centre. Why it became so is a long story with several aspects including large amounts of government spending half a century ago and cheap property values.