They are just adding fuel to the fire.
I can guarantee that in 5 billion years from now that won't be the case ;-) In this fast moving world it will probably take a lot less time for powerful technology business centers to emerge in BRIC and elsewhere.
* http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html
* http://www.paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html
* http://www.paulgraham.com/maybe.html (a proposed recipe for how to do maybe create a new startup hub; that's actually somewhat more modest than what the tc article describes)
The most salient quote from those articles, IMO: "Of course, a would-be silicon valley faces an obstacle the original one didn't: it has to compete with Silicon Valley."
I would note that if the UK are serious about this "entrepeneur visa" then that could get very interesting. Currently I can't imagine fighting through the federal paperwork required to start a company in California if I weren't already an American. Should this hub nucleate properly I can imagine most non-UK non-US citizens vastly preferring dealing with UK immigration to what has to be a frustrating US system. (Any non-UK non-US folks care to comment more informedly on this?)
And real estate is stupidly expensive in London, so they're halfway to Silicon Valley already.
[Edit: formatting]
So, I agree, easier immigration is one point to base your leverage on, when competing with silicon valley.
The area around Cambrige, UK, already toys with the slightly pretentious name of Silicon Fen.
My impression is that most of the Asian, African, Balkan, etc newcomers to London are self-employed or LTD owners. That route is far easier than getting a work permit.
First, you'll need a name. It has to start with the word 'Silicon', even if the only silicon that will be present comes stamped with the Intel logo. Next, choose a geographic feature. Unfortunately, the best geographic features have already been claimed. May I suggest "Silicon Muskeg"?
Now, if you visit the actual Silicon Valley, you will see a lot of office buildings. Ample supply of office space is the reason Silicon Valley is a success. So, the first thing you're going to need is a nice big, empty space to build offices. Lots of them. Try to find an economically depressed area, far from the places educated workers live (cheap!) and miles from public transit. Make sure this area is zoned so that only large, expensive cubicle farms and parking lots will be built, as this is the most efficient use of space. No services are necessary, as the people working here can simply drive into the city if they require food or drink.
Also, it is vital that your new offices be supplied with fiber-optic Internet service. Rare and difficult as this may be to provide, Internet service is what separates your mind-bending city of the future from the primitive hovels your country's technology industry now inhabits.
No replica of Silicon Valley would be complete without tenants! And so, your final task is to fill these offices with the industries that define the dynamism and forward-thinking spirit of Silicon Valley: IBM, Microsoft, Intel, and Dell! Don't waste your time on small fry: Fortune 500 only, please. It matters not if your new offices are filled with call centers and rebate-processing facilities, because the very soul of technology will leach from the telephones and TPS reports, permeating the landscape with the pure essence of innovation.
So huzzah, dear bureaucrat, and godspeed!
I'm excited. When we moved the company here, one of my co-founders was deported (back to America). Not helpful. The investors here are very good (Index, Atlas, Accel, Eden, etc), but there's not a huge number of them. Official momentum like this has a good chance of getting other investors to have a more official presence here (a few from NY visit with some regularity, but we rarely see the valley's firms).
Little things like good internet will help a lot. My office has just 7 or 8 people in it and we're using a combination of two home DSL connections and a 3G modem. That's the best we can do and it's outrageously bad. Larger offices (20+ people) face an ongoing and unending battle just keeping their team online.
I don't really get the objection to the big tech companies having a presence.. in an ideal world would you want to boot them out of the valley, too? They offer jobs which are both an attraction to new tech talent from all over the EU and a fallback in the case that a startup doesn't work out. Without the presence of big tech companies, you also lose the primary acquirer of small tech companies.
Finally, and most importantly, they didn't just choose some arbitrary "poor" spot on the map. The particular area in east london they're targeting is arguably the best startup hub in Europe, and is undoubtedly the best in the UK. Lots of great founders are already here, and I'm pleased that there's some official support.
That would be better for the tech hub near Cambridge, UK - Silicon Fen - not Shoreditch, East London
I still prefer Silicon Ditch - where we already have the pure essence of innovation permeating the landscape. Its just a grimey landscape, with fewer palms.
Not just any office buildings, tilt-up office buildings.
And, we drive on the right.
And you've got to make sure that it doesn't rain for half of the year and doesn't snow in the other half.
In general he also said that they need to remove the negative view of failure somehow, which doesn't exist in silicon valley, but they haven't figured out how to approach this one yet.
Why this won't work: You can't build a startup cluster to "renew an area".
It doesn't work like that. Old Street works because the location is decent (safe and well connected), it's cheap and the other companies there. The area has to attract people who want to work there and you can't artificially build that.
The location they're proposing put this new tech area goes through the area known as "murder mile". Yes it's cheap, but it's high crime rate means startups aren't going to locate there. It would be like trying to build a startup cluster in the Bronx because it's near the NY startup community.
I see lots of people desperately trying to push startups/startup culture up here in Edinburgh, meanwhile everyone leaves for London or expects you to relocate to London.
(1) An employee in the UK can currently be required to keep working at a company for 3 months after giving notice. This should be shortened.
(2) Make most non-competes unenforceable. This is a very under-appreciated reason why silicon valley prospers.
> “Facebook will create a permanent home in East London for
> their Developer Garage programme” – hmm, that’s news to us!
> [...]
> Dave Nattriss
> Secretary
> Facebook Developer Garage London
* UK GOV creates a stupidly attractive tax and investment climate so that VCs are practically falling over themselves to invest in UK companies. The EIS scheme and VCT schemes are ok, but they could make these 10x more attractive. * Create jaw-dropping incentives for startups who deliver on what the UK GOV want, basically exporting services or creating jobs. Those kinds of companies should be afforded amazing incentives such as little to no tax for x years, no crazy 12% benefits to pay employees and how about little to no paperwork. * Perhaps some type of matched-investment scheme, where UK GOV will match investment from private angels or VC's * I am extremely encouraged to see that the gov is thinking about opening up procurement to small businesses. I fear that this won't happen in a timely manner and will face extreme hurdles. It is virtually impossible to get on the supplier list of the gov now, and even if you as a small hosted startup managed to pull of such a feat the first thing the local IT bod would ask for is SAS70 Type II compliance because that is government mandated. It seems crazy to us, being a UK startup, that one of the least likely customers would be our own government. You'd think they should be mandated to buy from small British companies in the spirit of helping your own economy.
It is really difficult to create a climate of risk taking that is evident in the valley which is fairly critical to this whole endeavor, I don't know how one manages to do that. But I sincerely hope someone manages to find out.
There just isn't the same tolerance for risk here in the UK and so the only mechanism I can see to break this scenario is to offer out of order incentives.
They've just supposedly slashed public spending which will result in the loss of thousands of public sector jobs - mainly in the less affluent north - and now they're planning to invest some of the 'savings' made from that action into the already over-invested south. Taking from the poor to give to the wealthy.
There are cities in the UK other than London. Birmingham and Manchester for instance.
I am seething.