What the [UK] budget means for start-ups | Hacker News Reader

What the [UK] budget means for start-ups

kernelmag.com

43 pointsarien16 comments

So government is speding on high-tech start-ups, to (hopefully) create jobs presumably for foreign educated workers, since school budgets are cut savagely. Don't get me wrong, I am all for small government, I just believe they are forgetting their primary objectives in particular the educaton of children.

Oh, I'm sure Eton will still take care of that like they've done in the past. </snark>

Jokes aside, it's a fact that politicians cannot look further than the next round of elections. This is even more so for this particular government, which will likely be wiped out the map in large parts of the country as soon as people get the chance to vote. So they're trying to boost numbers in the short term, because in the long run they won't be in power anyway.

The funniest thing is that it's not even working: we're now officially back into recession, and as much as I love startupping, I don't think we can go from here to Silicon-Valley status in 6 months -- because that's the sort of scale the UK economy needs right now to compensate for the rest of the economy tanking.

Putting money into startups isn't going to sway me given the other changes brought in.

Sure, this government has done many things I can take advantage of. For instance, if I set up a holding company on the Isle of Man for any work I do in the UK, I now only have to pay around 2% tax on UK profits as an independent contractor.

And this is not tax avoidance, it is the official recommendation from the government.

However while this is individually wonderful for my pocket, it does absolutely nothing for the society of which I am a part.

You could argue that it will due to the trickle down effects of me having more cash, but given how I spend my cash in this global economy, any trickle down is likely to go towards large corporations that produce computer technology, so is really more of a trickle up instead.

Don't forget that part of the solution to education is role-models. You can teach all you want, but if kids ain't interested - they ain't interested.

High tech startups (and when they are seen by the public to be successful) are good role models covering entrepreneurship, engineering, design etc.

So I'd argue that putting money into science, tech, entrepreneurship _is_ doing good for the education of our children. (I'd rather my daughter looked up to the likes of notch than some x-factor winner).

Listen to Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson on NASA whose budget could equally be spent on education, welfare etc full episode at 34m 30s http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/28/2909148/on-the-verge-episo...

Not to disagree with you, more thinking out loud. Shouldn't teachers provide the primary role model? In stead, teaching has become a profession for losers. The status and quality of teaches have all gone down consistently during the last 20-30 years. Children's first role-models should be the best of the best.

And, to disagree with you a bit anyway. I have the feeling that the example set by start-up role-models is more of the make-lotsa-money-fast kind, than the technical kind. Maybe that's not mutually exclusive, but I remain sceptical.

The tax relief on Angel investment could make a huge difference.

Yes, this is really excellent news. Good to see the government making some positive, useful changes, rather than just talking the talk, or setting up another 'body' to encourage entrepreneurship

Great article. I actually sat and listened to the budget and there was a lot of really positive stuff in there for businesses, it's just a shame so much it was overlooked because of the dust storm kicked up by the cut in the 50p top tax rate band

I wish the dust storm was about the top rate of income tax! At least we could have enjoyed a few minutes of "sane" class hatred.

No, the real topic for media reporters was a tax on pasties (which is not even a real tax, but rather a realignment of some food categories in the tax system).

I know- it was absolutely ridiculous. Made me really depressed about the state of the media, and the level of political discussion in this country.

Am I the only one who's a little worried about the focus on patents?

I think we need to remember that this isn't just focussed on tech startups.

The UK has a good number of pharmaceutical, engineering, bio-sciences. In these industries patents are probably a pretty good proxy for innovation.

Perhaps for those industries patents are a better fit and more standard practice. My personal opinion based on observations of patents in software is that they inhibit innovation.

Invariably in a race to the bottom everyone loses.

> Perhaps for those industries patents are a better fit and more standard practice.

Pharma industries live and die on patents, today, and in the UK they are over-represented in any lobbying effort on the subject. Most politicians don't know/care about software patents, but they will have been lobbied by the likes of AstraZeneca and they will write legislation with that sector in mind, mostly.

Is software patenting relevant in the UK? I thought that was mainly a US thing.

It's not that clear cut, but indeed the UK does not have a software patent problem half as bad as the US seems to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents#United_Kingdom

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