

UK Government plans to create a "Silicon Valley" in London - Stevenup7002
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/11/04/uk-government-plans-east-london-tech-cluster-startup-visa-review-of-ip-law-200-million-in-finance-what/

======
gamble
Are you a government bureaucrat desperate to leaven all the recent talk of
cutbacks and austerity with a touch of high-tech fairy dust? Enjoy the idea of
hobnobbing with exciting personalities like Steve Ballmer and Mark Hurd?
Follow my simple guide and your country can also enjoy the limitless
prosperity and social harmony with which the technology industry has blessed
California!

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!

~~~
robfitz
I'm guessing you aren't currently a part of the east london startup community.

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.

------
jcdreads
Our pg has, of course, had much to say about the feasibility of this kind of
thing:

* <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]

~~~
eru
Working in the UK seems to be relatively easy for people from Commonwealth
countries, e.g. India. For EU citizens it's even simpler. I don't know about
the conditions for Americans working here, though.

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.

~~~
wlievens
Pretentious, maybe, but it hosts a world-class company (ARM).

~~~
eru
More than one. But it takes quite a few swallows to make a summer. (I am
working in the Cambridge Science Park.)

------
donaldc
If they're serious, and it sounds like they are, I'd suggest two more changes
that weren't mentioned in the article:

(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.

~~~
redwoods
This is not quite right: 1\. In the UK you are not required to work three
months after giving notice unless it is a provision of your contract of
employment. If you don't have a written contract - then you will be entitled
to a statutory notice period that roughly accrues in weekly units depending on
years worked - but with cap. However,you can be paid in lieu of notice. It is
fine to employ someone on one months notice - and less if they have worked for
you for less than twelve months. 2\. Restrictive covenants are unenforceable
in the UK if they are unreasonably wide. ie you may be restricted for a year
from hopping into a company that does the same thing in the same area. But not
from using you transferable skills in a different company or different area.
If someone tries to get you to sign to a two year, 200 mile radius,
transferable skill / different business restriction - sign it and don't worry
as it will not be enforceable.

------
kapitalx
When asked can Chile make a Silicon Valley by pouring money into it?, the
Chilean minister of economy speaking at Stanford responded that unlike other
countries (such as Russia, and now UK) Chile will try the following instead of
pouring money into it: 1\. Create Role Models (Young Chilean entrepreneurs
that succeed) 2\. Reform the laws (bankruptcy and immigration laws) 3\. Invest
in Universities to promote technology 4\. Start networking programs with
Silicon Valley (for example they brought a bunch of their entrepreneurs here
to work for a while, and are taking some entrepreneurs from here to mix the
cultures).

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.

~~~
eru
Yes. I also caught an interview with Chile's president the other day. It
contained remarkably little bullshit for a politician (almost nothing). The
interview was about the miners' rescue.

~~~
kapitalx
I found the Chilean minister of economy's talk quite interesting and smart,
but I guess his audience was Stanford students and not the general public, so
he could talk differently.

~~~
eru
That may be true. Even some politicians I heard at home where quite
reasonable.

------
viraptor
I really like the comment:

    
    
        > “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
    

I wonder how that happened.

------
ig1
(copied from the dup'd thread)

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.

~~~
billpaetzke
Funny you should mention the Bronx! NYC is doing just that. Heh. Article
posted today: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1866360>

------
semanticist
Thrilled to see more investment money for London. It's so often overlooked
compared to the rest of the UK.

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.

~~~
hartror
It is the network effect. Sure you could try to get all your friends onto
Friendster but most of them are already on Facebook. (poor example I know, why
would anyone want to do that!?).

------
lshepstone
Love the sentiment, but I'm not sure they're going about it in the right way.
Of course any attention and funding is better than none, but instead of
getting McKinsey to advise someone or open a few offices in East London I
would much rather:

* 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.

------
nickthedart
This is a nice idea but I believe is in the wrong location and the government
has missed an opportunity. London simply has far too expensive housing and is
too crowded and a lot of smart people won't live there. Silicon Fen in near
Cambridge also has very high housing costs. A UK silicon valley needs to
happen where its cheap to live, geeks actually want to live there, and there
are decent transport links to London. I think a better tactic would be to
electrify the Midland Mainline to make the trains to/from the north faster.
Then you could make tech hubs in places like Nottingham (which is a fun place
for 20-somethings to go out AND has cheap family housing too) or Sheffield
(ditto and has rock climbing on the doorstep as well). Its ridiculous how so
much tech work in the UK is concentrated in the crowded expensive south-east,
and I believe an enlightened government would try to capitalise on the talent
in the rest of the UK.

~~~
redwoods
Shoreditch - Silicon Ditch - is a great area to work - it has a great buzz and
creativity - and living is not too expensive if you head further into east
london - you don't have to live in west london, which admittedly is too
pricey.

------
redwoods
Any votes for Silicon Ditch? "Silicon Roundabout" is one name that has stuck
for the tech cluster around the ugly traffic circle in the Old Street area of
Shoreditch, East London. I think "Silicon Ditch" is catchier and maybe
articulates the British penchant for self-deprecation better...

~~~
petercooper
Too similar/evocative of the existing "Silicon Fen" just 50 miles north.

~~~
redwoods
Yes but Silicon Ditch definitely evokes the grimey feel of Old Street. A
founder of Huddle described Silicon Valley as Reading (UK) but with sun and
palm trees. Even if you filled Old Street with sun and palm trees - it would
still be grime - central (though I love working there).

------
gazrogers
It's hard to express how angry this makes me feel.

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.

------
davidedicillo
The problem is that you can't "create" Silicon Valley.

~~~
Stevenup7002
I totally agree, the bay area will always be preferred over other centers. But
I think this will be a great alternative for European entrepreneurs that can't
secure a visa to start up in the US.

~~~
bsk
>>the bay area will always be preferred over other centers

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.

------
ohashi
link to full article: [http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/11/04/uk-government-
plans-east...](http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/11/04/uk-government-plans-east-
london-tech-cluster-startup-visa-review-of-ip-law-200-million-in-finance-
what/)

------
DjDarkman
It would be refreshing.... the US is far too restrictive with it's Visas.

