

Scottish Independence – What Could It Mean for Startups and Tech? - pow-tac
http://blog.yarnee.com/scottish-independence-mean-startups-tech/

======
fidotron
The tax break thing is a mess, simply because as the UK (and to a lesser
degree France) discovered the EU prevents any member state from being able to
compete with the likes of Canada, or the provinces of Canada, on this front.
This is why the "cultural test" becomes important, but in the case of Scotland
where the great videogame export is GTA while one Glasgow based episode sounds
possibly amusing it's not the foundation for longevity.

The other aspect of this is outside of defence and finance the UK tech sector
took an absolute hammering over the last decade. You have the odd success
story like ARM, but the games industry in north America is crawling with a
disproportionately high number of Brits (and French people). In Montreal you
could even tell when Realtime Worlds (makers of Crackdown based in Dundee)
closed down thanks to the sudden influx of Scots. It is said that Scotland's
greatest export is the people.

On immigration policy I tend to think Scotland has the right idea, and rather
than it being feared in the rest of the UK they should embrace it too. The raw
problem is really one of housing shortage, and embracing skilled people coming
in while dealing with housing is a far healthier idea than pulling up the
drawbridge. Perversely if Scotland stayed within the UK and the UK did enact
that policy Scotland's people deficit would most likely remain.

Ultimately though an independence vote will create an investment situation
with all the appeal of Detroit. The fun part is that narrowly rejecting
independence won't be much better, and in the long run could be even worse.

~~~
simonh
One problem is that the finance industry in the UK sucks up a lot of the
talent, and much of the rest goes into telecoms. We're pretty strong in both
areas. Plus defence I suppose, as you say, so make that three although I'm not
as familiar with that industry's tech sector. For a small to medium sized
country like ours, even with a reasonable supply of tech talent, it doesn't
leave a lot left over for other industries.

~~~
rjsw
There may be a fair number of good former defence tech workers available to
work in startups soon.

------
lambdasquirrel
I was hoping for an article of more depth. The points in the article, roughly
backwards.

\- Taxes don't even matter to most startups because they don't make any money.
Maybe they're called _startups_ because it's hard to _start up_. Har har.

\- If finance money were important, then Silicon Valley should have been in
NYC. Others have said this on this thread and many others. Someone should
write a piece that snuffs this line of reason once and for all.

\- The presence of established tech companies doesn't mean much either. I'm
just not even going to hit this one, beyond saying that Armonk and Redmond
don't have a splash of small companies nearby them.

Independence or not, a startup hub in Scotland would be nice.

~~~
arethuza
Tax breaks certainly do matter to angel investors (who certainly used to get
some very nice tax breaks) and founders - I co-founded a VC funded startup in
Scotland in the 1990s and I benefited quite a bit from the 10% CGT rate
available under tapering relief introduced by the "socialist" Labour party.

~~~
notahacker
In theory an independent Scotland could focus on stimulating startups, but to
my knowledge the SNP (almost certainly the majority government in a newly
independent Scotland) hasn't made any pledges either way on capital gains tax
or investment support schemes, or indeed on retaining some of Westminster's
more generous tax relief schemes on seed investment like SEIS.

They _have_ pledged to cut taxes on profit-making corporations and air travel
(and to make investments necessary to improve public services) which suggests
their priorities might lie elsewhere.

------
ColinCera
As an American with two Scottish grandparents, I'm hoping an independent
Scotland will implement a Scottish ancestry path to citizenship for Americans.
I've visited Scotland twice and would _love_ to live there and build a
business there.

Of course I also hope there will be some reforms in taxes and bureaucracy to
make starting a business in Scotland a reasonable proposition; currently it's
not rational to start a tech business in Scotland, given the immense
advantages of doing business in the US. I don't have much confidence that
Scotland will actually become more business-friendly, but it would definitely
be more likely as an independent nation.

But, yes, if an independent Scotland did create a business climate friendly to
entrepreneurs and did make it easier for tech people to emigrate from the US,
I for one would make the move in a heartbeat.

~~~
crb
You can get that today, with Scotland as part of the UK?
[https://www.gov.uk/ancestry-visa/overview](https://www.gov.uk/ancestry-
visa/overview)

~~~
sksksk
The ancestory visa is only open to Commonwealth Citizens, which the USA isn't
part of.

~~~
falsestprophet
You can buy citizenship of Dominica, which is a Commonwealth country, for
$100,000 [1].

[1] [http://www.dominica.gov.dm/services/how-do-i-apply-for-
econo...](http://www.dominica.gov.dm/services/how-do-i-apply-for-economic-
citizenship-of-the-commonwealth-of-dominica#investment)

~~~
ColinCera
Interesting. I wonder if the UK actually lets people bank shot their way into
citizenship (or at least a long-term visa) via Dominica or if they instead
deny such applications on the grounds they're based on a ruse.

~~~
falsestprophet
Well they do for £1,000,000 [1] so they may not like the competition.

[1]
[https://www.gov.uk/tier-1-investor/overview](https://www.gov.uk/tier-1-investor/overview)

------
untog
_" Banking is already well established in Scotland and in the same way that
New York’s banking infrastructure has slowly given rise to a growing clutch of
tech companies"_

Two thoughts: many Scottish banks have indicated that they will relocate in
the event of independence:

[http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/11/news/economy/scotland-
indepe...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/09/11/news/economy/scotland-independence-
banks/)

and I'm not so sure that the NYC tech scene has sprung up as a result of its
banking industry. In many ways it has held it back, by taking a lot of tech
talent.

 _" There’s a real opportunity for growth in an Independent Scotland as a
direct result of significant foreign investment (see the Irish tiger of the
80s and 90s)."_

Given the current state of Ireland, I really, really, really don't think you
want to use the Irish tiger as a possibility for a future Scotland.

~~~
pjc50
It's important to distinguish between relocating the plaque that says "RBS HQ"
and relocating the employees - and I believe the employees have already been
reassured. If there wasn't an economic reason for having thousands of
employees in Scotland rather than anywhere else in the world, those jobs would
already have been lost.

~~~
smcl
No matter how right you are, the UK media have picked up that "RBS will move"
soundbite and run with it - so annoyingly a great deal of Scots have got "Yes
= lose lots of jobs immediately" in their heads.

More on the shifty media tactics employed in this excellent piece by George
Monbiot:
[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/16/media-s...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/16/media-
shafted-people-scotland-journalists)

------
CmonDev
Practical answer: having to support one more country flag, one more ISO
country code and maybe one more english flavour locale or a currency :).

~~~
joshfraser
Perhaps a new TLD too?

~~~
s0l1dsnak3123
We already have that :) [http://dotscot.net/](http://dotscot.net/)

------
pjc50
Funny set of points to make, but yes: there's great potential. Games industry
in and around Dundee, centered on graduates of Abertay. Rockstar North. Quite
a few other big names about: Oracle, Cadence, Microsoft. Quite a lot of tech
in financial services. I nearly went to work for a satellite company in
Glasgow called "Clydespace".

A startup scene is not yet so visible. I'd be interested to hear where it is
in Edinburgh.

If there is a spate of businesses pulling back over the border (which I highly
doubt), that would just open up gaps in the market for local entrants to fill.

------
tlarkworthy
8 years outside of EU will not help innovation (research grants, EU students)
or economy (CAP payments, increased borrowing costs).

Spain has reiterated today it will not make Scotland's entrance into the EU
easy ([http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/17/spain-
indepe...](http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/17/spain-independent-
scotland-years-eu-membership))

~~~
lsllc
Surely if Scotland isn't automatically conferred membership of the EU, then
the same applies to newly created state of England, Wales and NI? And it will
be as equally difficult for E+W+NI to re-enter the EU as it will be for a
newly independent Scotland?

Surely?

~~~
ColinCera
The UK will be an altered state, not a newly created one; its membership
status in the EU won't change at all.

------
coriny
"it’s as crazy and unrealistic a dream as an independence referendum used to
seem."

I'm assuming this guy's pretty young as there was one 35 years ago. I kind of
feel that a similar amount of evidence was used in the rest of the analysis as
well.

~~~
arethuza
"there was one 35 years ago"

The 1979 referendum was about devolution (which Scotland has had now for a
while) not independence.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_devolution_referendum,...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_devolution_referendum,_1979)

~~~
coriny
Given that referendum, an independence referendum was always possible. It was
probably only during the 80s that it didn't seem possible, and was definitely
being talked about by the time I lived in Edinburgh 15 years ago. Devolution
was always seen as a process towards strong local political representation,
whether or not ending in full independence (aka membership of the EU).

EDIT: I should note at this point, I honestly don't care how the vote goes and
have very little interest in it. To me, it's been a long ongoing process that
will probably follow the same rough path and end in the same rough place
whatever the vote is.

------
mischanix
My (uninformed) view of the UK is that the reward for being in tech there is
dismal, real money is hard to come by, pays and benefits are just enough to
scrape by, etc.; the article brings up the point that while historically
Scotland has been on the forefront of technology, it hasn't been very active
in the last few decades, which leads me to wonder if the poor rewards have led
to the emigration of those who would otherwise base their tech startup in the
UK.

~~~
matthewmacleod
That's pretty uninformed, yes. There's a pretty big tech scene in the UK; lots
of money is available for good engineers. A developer with a few years of
experience in London will probably make £65k or so, or about $110k. Cost of
living is quite high, but that's pretty good money by any standards.

A major problem is that Scotland's tech talent has drained to London.

~~~
mischanix
Thanks for the info. My perception was driven by the fact that every job ad
from the UK I've with an openly advertised salary that I've seen has that
salary in the range of 25~35k GBP while requiring the candidate to live in
London and be well-experienced which, to me, just seems completely unfeasible.

~~~
fennecfoxen
Anecdotal input for you -- I've had a preliminary interview with a group in
London which _might_ end up hiring me (from the US no less) and which is more
likely to be paying around £70k/yr -- the highest I've seen. Stuff on the
order of £50k seems to be more common. Overall it seems like a step down from
New York, given that it's also just as expensive, but it's hardly as bad as
what you've seen...

------
falsestprophet
Several pleasant European countries have pretty low salary requirements for
work visas for computer programmers: €37,128 for Germany and €30,000 for
Ireland for example.

It probably isn't a coincidence that being a computer programmer in one of
these countries isn't very lucrative.

~~~
ownagefool
[https://www.jobserve.com/de/en/search-jobs-in-Berlin-
Branden...](https://www.jobserve.com/de/en/search-jobs-in-Berlin-
Brandenburg,-Germany/BACKEND-ENGINEER-JAVA-JEE-PYTHON-RUBY-
PERL-9A311B359A80EF6F/)

It's not amazing but it's not terrible.

------
sparkzilla
There's a reasons Scots engineers like me left the country: no jobs.

It is highly unlikely that an independent Scotland will become any kind of
tech powerhouse. Both parties are deeply socialist. If the Scottish National
Party win expect a further move to the left. If the vote is Yes there will be
a huge amount of political and economic instability.

~~~
matthewmacleod
This is FUD.

The SNP are arguably economically to the right of Labour. If they were in
power post-Yes, you'd likely see a cut in corporation tax, for example.

There will be loads of instability, but there's an opportunity in there, and a
guarantee that there will be an effort to find new economic specialties. I'd
bet tech will be one of those. However,as you say, many Scottish engineers
currently leave the country, particularly for London - so, how could it get
any worse?

~~~
sparkzilla
It can get a lot worse.

The key word in your post is "arguably". The plan is to use oil money that may
or may not exist to give more and more freebies to those in government jobs or
on welfare. If there is less oil money than expected, where will the money
come from? More debt and higher taxes. Not a good environment for any
business. The banks have already started moving their head offices and other
companies will follow. the market is too small and the risks too high.

The corporation tax cut is window dressing. It doesn't matter to a company if
they get less tax if there is political instability, and anyway the costs of
dealing with a different currency and cross-border transactions alone will
drive up costs.

You talk of guarantees and bets in the same sentence. Who is making these the
guarantees? I haven't seen any realistic pro-business plans on offer. While
you may place your bets, many people will just walk away from the table.

~~~
smcl
"The plan is to use oil money that may or may not exist to give more and more
freebies to those in government jobs or on welfare" \- that sounds rather
extreme, where in the independence whitepaper is this outlined?

"The banks have already started moving their head offices..." Which banks,
sorry? Do you mean RBS (who talked about how they _may_ or _may not_ move
their registered office to London leaving their operations intact in Scotland)
or Lloyd's (already headquartered in London)? If not these, then which?

There's maybe legit reasons to think about voting "No" \- you needn't muddy
the waters by just simply making things up and talking nonsense.

Remember you're talking to fairly smart people on HN so the FUD is unlikely to
hold much water here, save it for Facebook.

~~~
sparkzilla
Your condescending tone, which is so typical of fact-challenged Yes
supporters, belies the weakness of your arguments.

RBS moved their registered office to London. That means that not only will the
banks profits move to England, but its taxes will too. Sure, some branches
will stay, and some jobs will be maintained, but the main business will be
conducted elsewhere. There is simply too much political and market risk.

Anyway, I have better things to do than debate with random strangers on HN.
Enjoy your socialist paradise.

~~~
smcl
You may accuse me of having a condescending tone and that is up for debate,
but your lies speak for themselves. RBS have not moved their registered
office.

Apparently you don't have better things to do, but enjoy pretending you have
taken the high road.

------
jstalin
I'm cheering for a yes vote from across the atlantic.

