Slashdot Mirror
Jimmy Wales: London Is Better For Tech Than "Dreadful" Silicon Valley
Mickeycaskill writes: Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has praised London as a tech hub, saying its cultural assets make it an ideal place to do business and superior to Silicon Valley as a place to live. “I meet people around London and they ask ‘when do you go back to San Francisco?’ assuming I’m here for a few days, but I live in London,” he said at the launch of Tech.London. “There’s always this bit of British self-deprecation about ‘oh well, things are so great in Silicon Valley’. But I can tell you, things aren’t that great in Silicon Valley. London has all these incredible advantages of a tech scene, but it’s also a place people want to live. Nobody wants to live in Silicon Valley – it’s dreadful out there. London is this incredible cultural city, it’s at the crossroads of the world. In the US you have San Francisco for tech, Los Angeles for movies and Washington for politics. In London you have all these things. It’s a great place to do business.”
As everyone starts to insult where everybody else lives.
The silicon roundabout is mostly wishful thinking by artsy fartsy posers and politicos. The real tech innovation that does happen in the UK, happens despite all the good intentions, not because of it.
Silicon Valley is about the only place you can have your startup fail, walk down the street a few blocks, and have a nice safe job to tide you over until you decide you need to do another startup (if you do). In other words, there's a job safety net that is not there elsewhere (the article as much as admits this, for London).
The other issue with any place other than Silicon Valley: Silicon Valley is where most of the VC's are located, and it's where most of the VC's prefer their companies be located, so that they have the option of an acquisition as an exit strategy for the companies they fund. Other locations, not so much.
Jimmy Wales has a pretty safe gig, which allows him to live anywhere he wants, without having to get more funding, and without having to worry about money too much at all, or about having to get another gig. So he can live anywhere he wants to live, and it's kinda OK.
I'm personally OK with London as a very nice place to live, if you've got a steady income, and so on. It's an amazing place. But I think you would have a difficult time getting Series A funding there, compared to a 15 minute drive to Sand Hill Road. To get some sense of the absolute importance of this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/ar...
If you're rich and famous, London is a great place, with per square foot prices about four times what they are in SF. You get to hobnob with all the wealthy and influential people, and get really close to people with tons of money to throw around. Of course, you have to like the lousy weather in London. And you have to not give a shit that your wonderful, privileged London lifestyle is subsidized by hardworking Brits who will never get to enjoy it. I'm sure Jimmy Wales meets all those criteria.
IMHO Berlin is much better place then London:
- it's way cheaper (both in terms of living expenses and salaries)
- it has amazing startup atmosphere
- it's the political capital of EU
- it's located almost in the center of EU, where London is on the outskirts
- Berlin is a city designed to scale, the transportation infrastructure is 100x better then in London
- VCs are keeping an eye on this city, as it may soon become the silicon valley of Europe
- it's the true startup capital of Europe, where London is something between corporate finance and cool stuff
overcrowded? not too much. ever been to hong kong or bangkok?
of course, it's expensive.
but that's not too much of a problem for jimmy wales and his highly profitable business.
what was his high tech business again?. oh yeah... dang.. I thought he just last fall again marketed it as a charity that absolutely must have donations or it'll run out of money in 15 years......
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
And that is really the key thing. On those days of always connected and virtualisation technologies, skips and email in our pocket, why do we have to live in dreadful places?
All your talk of "zones" makes London sound like an oppressive dystopian nightmare. At least to me, someone unfamiliar with the location. Why "zones"? Are "neighborhoods" or "districts" not high-techy enough?
But what do I know? I live in the silicon valley...
London's fantastic if you're rich
Everywhere is fantastic if you're rich.
Why is the parent modded Flamebait? Is there something inaccurate about his post?
It's flamebait because it's xenophobic drivel, or do you really believe Polish is the most common language in London?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The majority of CCTV is privately-owned and governed by the Data Protection Act of 1998.
Oh thank God, now people can sleep securely, now that we know our precious data are in the hands of the private market.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
"I have investments in various countries from India to Kenya to Colombia, amongst other countries"
Well good luck with that, most people don't do that because of the massively high risk of losing it due to corruption. In Western markets you have a relatively high assurance that you can invest based on your understanding of the market and have your return fit your talent on predicting that.
You don't have that in the countries you list, in Kenya and India your investment is one corrupt government official away from being wiped out.
This is why dealing with corruption is such a big focus by politicians, and India is a prime example of this. 15 years ago we were told India would be a top 3 world economy alongside China and the USA. Instead it's still stuck at 10 despite having over 21x the population and drastically higher land mass and natural resources than the half way further up the ladder France. India is 142nd out of 189 in the ease of doing business index for this reason, and Kenya is 136.
Colombia does much better for sure at 34 however so is indeed a sensible investment - and probably will continue to grow as such now that things finally seem to be calming down in a possible more permanent way with FARC.
So whilst it looks good whilst things are going fine, like DRM corruption in countries like India and Kenya is one of those things that looks harmless until it fucks you, and then that's the end of your investment. They may pay off, but they're incredibly high risk.
Disciplining your children by hitting them is illegal, as it's the last act of desperate, shitty parents.
I grew up with people who got to occasional well deserves swat on the butt, they are all pretty well adjusted. I see a lot more kids now who are psychologically screwed up because their parents are verbally abusive because they don't do any sort of corporal punishment. As with anything, excess is bad. And you can really screw up someone without ever laying a finger on them.
I think it almost never makes much sense, in any topic, to talk purely about the -is- state without taking the changes and developments into consideration that caused this state to be. Paris has changed considerably in the last 20 years. One of the most evident change is the increase in porverty, and this is caused in no small part by immigration.
Why should I not mention immegration as a cause of this development? And what is illogical about saying this?
In fact it is quite meaningful to make this connection, because it provides the information that the majority of French people are still quite well of and that the poverty mainly affects a fringe group of people due to their special circumstances. It tells us that the problem is not mainly the French economy, but the unusually high influx of unqualified laborers who can not find any jobs.