London ranked second best startup hub in the world for tech | Hacker News Reader

London ranked second best startup hub in the world for tech

standard.co.uk

So this is just based on valuation of companies there?

London doesn't strike me as the best place to start a company. It is a super-expensive city. It's probably comparable to NYC but with lower earnings. Maybe lower earnings is the point?

And now with Brexit, London doesn't have as easy access to the EU financial system and it's somewhat more difficult to hire EU workers.

London of course has a long history with finance but I really wonder how much of this is just inertia.

My thoughts exactly! Being the second largest startup hub doesn't automatically make you the second best. And a large financial hub like London will of course attract fintech startups, but it would be ill-advised to rest on those laurels...

> London doesn't have as easy access to the EU financial system

London is a global financial hub, and the largest for foreign currency exchanges. Globally it's ranked #2 behind NYC and is by far the leading financial centre in Europe. I believe it is also #1 in Europe for VC funding. London does not need the EU financial system, if anything with Brexit the EU is trying to become less dependent on London.

Of course this is all a key reason why it is attracting many fintech startups.

London can have all the crypto nuts. Suits it perfectly

> London doesn't have as easy access to the EU financial system

London is the EU financial system (as much as it hates that)

London is way safer and attractive to younger crowds (20 something olds) than the rot of homelessness, affordability (London has more affordable options than San Francisco I would argue), heavy car dependence (has always been), and overall lack of safety and dating pool San Francisco has

Are those "more affordable options than San Francisco" affordable in a sense of raw dollar amounts or adjusted for compensation that software devs in London at those startups would get paid?

Because my gut feeling tells me it is the former (please correct me if I am wrong), and that wouldn't count as a proper comparison.

Pulling made up numbers out of thin air to illustrate what i mean: let's say median cost of living in San Francisco for a software dev annually is $X and their annual compensation is $4X. Sure, it is nice that London is cheaper to live in at $0.6X, but I wouldn't call it "more affordable than SF" or alluring at all if the annual comp is $1.2X or less.

Excuse me, Brit living in SF here. I’d take homelessness in SF before going to London for any reason.

Brit living in San Jose here, just got back from London and realizing how much I miss it.

SF is a good city to live in, but it’s not a patch on London

Same - lived in SF for 3 years and while the tech side is cool, but in SF everyone's either homeless or soulless it seems

The best ranking country for draconian spying laws. Just don't become a communicantion companies of any sort.. https://www.theregister.com/2016/11/30/investigatory_powers_...?

The poll in the article is for “fintech” specifically, not tech.

https://archive.ph/9mPRq

Ranked by who? It’s literally the last place I would go, hell itself being second to last. (Brit here) Crazy expensive and awful value for money, Brexit cripples opportunities, the food is terrible, the culture is boring at best, the women are ugly by any and every measure and frankly, the people are dumb as bricks. The weather is, grey always. Everyone is unhappy. The vocal minority socialists have castrated and domesticated the herd. No freedom of speech. No democracy. Who on earth ranked London the best of anything? This is astounding to me.

Pretty much everything above is just wrong. The place is expensive, but nowhere near as much as the Bay Area is expensive. So shrug…

Anyone know the source of the "new research" the article is talking about?

It's this: https://startupgenome.com/report/gser2022

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