Hacker News Reader

Comment by colesantiago | Hacker News Reader

The UK isn't really known for being an ambitious nation when it comes to the startup ecosystem.

For jobs, unless you're working in finance in London, for tech salaries (except for FAANG) it is simply no surprise that it is so low on average [0] that isn't even worth it.

What is more damning is that I saw an internship in the US earn more than a job posting of Head of Cyber Security at the HM Treasury which is $50-57K yr (senior level)

Doesn't matter if you went to the golden triangle of universities, it is much better to get a remote job in the US. each time.

As for startups, in the UK there is almost no connections here for VCs, angels or any investment network this might have changed in the few years but you would have to squint hard to find them.

[0] https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Salaries/london-tech-salary-SRCH...

View on HN

Wealth in the UK is in the hands of the landed gentry and getting investment is about who you know and who your parents were. I worked for a number of London startups and the CEOs were surprisingly often public school/Oxbridge trust-fund grads (you learn to recognise them after a while) and always part-funded through some gov grant, one even openly admitted that his startup doesn't need to make money, because his dad is an investor in the startup incubator they were a part of. The HR lady was married to a City lawyer and spent more time collecting artworks for their house than dealing with pesky distractions like paying people on time. London is great if you are of the right pedigree and want to set up a bank, an insurance company, or a payment processor. Not so great if you want to copy Silicon Valley. I tried to get people interested in projects I worked on and there is zero of the US enthusiasm or trying to connect you with the people who might be able to help you.

> The UK isn't really known for being an ambitious nation.

Industrial revolution? Railways? An empire on which the sun never sets? (Ollivander voice: "evil, yes, but ambitious").

Sure, things have gone downhill since then.

We don't judge nations in the present based on their historical peak. The UK hasn't been capable of building anything like that for more than a century; the hammering the Germans gave them was really exposing weaknesses that were already starting to set in from the 1910s.

The UK is no longer known for being an industrial leader. Or indeed for achieving anything in particular except fading away with a certain gracefulness.

The UK still gets more tech funding than anywhere except the US and China, and more unicorns than anywhere except those two (and potentially India, but sources disagree).

Industrial leader in what sense? There are a few industries where the UK is world leading

Well the obvious touchpoints to me are that at one point the British Empire controlled about 60% of the world's wealth, was capable of conquering the Indian subcontinent and was a thought leader to the justifiably-named "Age of Enlightenment" that was the approximate foundation of the modern system of global organisation (let me just invoke Newton, Bacon, Locke and Adam Smith because they are good names to remember).

The UK today is world leading in a few industries. Which is underselling it a bit because I suspect even North Korea is world leading in something. The UK have a bit of wealth left over from the empire and some traditions they can be proud of in amongst a sea of fairly average policies and people. Still a nice place to live if you can handle the weather. Not really a leader, more a US follower.

Whilst I dont want to defend the relatively low compensation for public-sector jobs in the UK, it is more nuanced than just salary.

In this case, it was actually a salary of £50,550 - £57,500, so total compensation of around £75k (circa $95k), as the pension scheme is in the order of 30% of your salary. Then there's the usual US vs UK medical cover and vacation allowances.

It's still a way off, but the gap is smaller than you think when you crunch all of the other benefits into a single number.

as the pension scheme is in the order of 30% of your salary

Honest question, as I have no idea, but don't US employers also offer pension schemes that they pay money into, on top of the listed salary?

>The UK isn't really known for being an ambitious nation.

They've ruled the seas and half of the earth for centuries. They've ruled commerce and industry for centuries.

Isn't that a proof of ambitions?

Why did you forget the rest of the sentence, "when it comes to the startup ecosystem?"

East India Company was a startup, too

So was Royal Dutch Shell. They actually did trade shells in the beginning.

Not when it comes to startups, besides the UK keeps going on about what they have done in the past.

So, why hasn't this translated to trillion dollar companies in the UK?

Because we've ran out of ARMs...

Is a tech company only successful if it has a trillion dollar valuation? So there are only 6 successful tech companies in the whole world?

As always, you have the good counterexamples of critical for the world companies such as ASML, ARM, Zeiss, Ericsson and Nokia (5G) that don't have such high valuations. Does that mean they aren't successful or needed?

Yes, but what have you done for me lately?

Certainly Britain’s imperial history speaks for itself. However the last 25+ years of tech startups has shown us the psyche has changed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com