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Comment by rvkennedy | Hacker News Reader

The property prices, and thus rents, are why Silicon Roundabout will have a very hard time building a true startup ecosystem in London. Young people just starting out are paying most of their monthly income on rent. How can they be encouraged to take a financial risk when they have such crazy outgoings? How can people from the regions be attracted to London to build businesses when they can't get digs within easy reach of the hacker spaces?

The City is a whole separate problem - they pay very very well for good IT talent, siphoning a lot of good people who would otherwise be ideal for the startup market. You could go into finance for a few years, build up some security before starting your business, but who will you be able to hire when you do?

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All of the above is also true regarding Silicon Alley in New York. Just visit expatistan.com and do a comparison. Housing is actually slightly more expensive in New York. As for your point two, Wall Street pay is not what it used to be while software engineering salaries outside of banks have been increasing steadily for a couple of years. Nobody doubts NYC status as a startup hub anymore.

Point one is also increasingly true for the SFBay area itself, but there are not enough banks there for them to be a problem for startup recruiting. You could also do a comparison on expatistan.com and see that housing is only 7% less expensive in SF than in London. However, IT salaries there are probably the highest in the World.

If current trends in London continue: startups start to pay more and banks keep laying off people. This is probably a good thing.

>Point one is also increasingly true for the SFBay area itself

This might be one reason why Seattle continues to thrive: its rent, although rising for the usual reasons related to land regulation, is still far lower than SF or NYC, it already has two very large tech companies there, it has no income tax, and it's a fun place to live.

Google and Facebook are both steadily expanding their Seattle-area offices for reasons that make sense to me: moving from the SF area to Seattle means a de facto 15 - 25% pay raise for people making $100,000 or more a year.

Which is why we need to band together and hire talented individuals who are passionate.

We need to compete with The City and seduce people on the romance of building product.

Grad recruitment fairs have no representation from start-ups. We have no relationship with tutors and careers officers. People who influence kids on their work aspirations need to be influenced by us.

Business is about people. If we pretend to be entrepreneurs in London, we should start by cultivating the right relationships, before we build product that will take years to get right and find a market fit.

If I plan to live in London I will contact you. :)

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