As one of the founders of a new IT start-up in London I can certainly assure everyone that London again has a lot that's positive for creating new companies here.
But this thriving climate of innovation, creativity and new companies is mostly created by those who are part of that group. It's the people in these IT companies, the large group of creative agencies long established in London and those around these groups, those who create things and less by politics or underlying infrastructure. This in itself can be seen as good, but also as endangered when you look at longer term agendas and recent actions by UK politics.
Our biggest concerns currently are actually the stands of UK politics on ACTA, PIPA, their implementations and European counterparts. Instead of "cruising with the flow" the UK should - like with the financial industry - take up this opportunity and safeguard this newly growing and fast driving IT industry and foster its potential by laws that allow for innovation.
One should not forget those who create new innovative solutions - in particular with disruptive solutions - will always be considered as enemies or someone to "lobby against" by those established players who have stopped innovating (or innovating themselves).
Innovation always also means overstepping lines and creating new things by throwing out established assumptions. Over time those become the hurdles the next generations of innovators have to overcome.
We are looking forward to see some of the promises made by UK politicians with regards to London as a tech-hub actually being enacted and this group of young companies protected against malevolent attempts to stifle that growth by established influential(mostly Non-UK)companies that seemingly still continue to believe that their business models from the last century that are sometimes closer to extortion than doing actual business are sustainable by just "paying the right people".
We actually have to come back to a climate and understanding in politics that values the creation of new things similar to the times when the UK was the foremost industrialised nation - and this is quite a while ago.
In completely unrelated news ;-) did you know that you have to wait up to six weeks in London to get a new telephone line (re)-connected thanks to the years of driving up "Shareholder value" with BT (and less spending on engineering or reducing engineering staff by thousands).
If I was a person from outside of the UK and looking to setup a business in the UK I would absolutely not choose London as my base! I understand all of the reasons in favour of London but I think there are better alternatives. London is full of the type of people who like to make a lot of noise but get little done, costs are extortionate and you can get most of the benefit of London from outside.
My personal choices would be a city along one of the major rail routes into London or one of the major University cities. So they would be Bath, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge and perhaps Birmingham / Warwick. In fact most of these cities have their own start up friendly environments that are linked with the universities and plenty of VC and PE firms in those cities. All of which are less expensive and much more welcoming and friendly places to be, less ego too!
So they would be Bath, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge and perhaps Birmingham / Warwick.
As someone who grew up in Bath (and spent a lot of time in Bristol), let me tell you: you're going to have a very hard time convincing people to move to those cities. There really isn't much going on there.
London might be where people "make a lot of noise but get little done" (citation needed) but it's also the central hub of business, commerce and transport in the country. You can apply everything you just said to New York and Silicon Valley, yet they remain the top places to set up a business in the USA. There are very good reasons for that.
London is certainly a level above every other city in the UK, but as a graduate of Bristol University it's definitely one of the few places in the UK I'd consider living outside London, and seems like it has a lot going for it for the startup crowd. A lot of creative businesses, good culture, youthful, energetic, but still big enough to be interesting and close enough to London for when it's needed.
The University of Bristol is very keen on entrepreneurship too, especially the Engineering + CompSci departments - they're responsible for getting me interested in the whole thing in the first place!
On the other hand, London has more developers than anywhere else in the country, probably both in density & absolute numbers. Pretty much every UK startup I've heard of is located in London.
Yes, it's horribly expensive, but so is SF & SF remains the startup capital of the US.
Strangely Cambridge is the start up place in the UK. They get the most venture funding (even over London). Then tend to be in fairly hardcore technology though. I would call it Europes silicon valley, and not choke too much laughing, with ARM and related companies there.
All the giant advertising agencies are in London, so it makes sense for Google. They're also in New york and elsewhere too - so I don't think that part gains them much.
The UK is the second biggest market for Google, and they pay about 4% tax apparently on that profit. So I think this office was part of an arrangement with the government.
Late follow up: sure, many non-software startups are elsewhere, especially in Cambridge (I used to work for a biotech startup in Cam.) Software / web startups seem to be predominantly in London though. (Maybe the London ones are just noisier?)
> one of the major University cities. So they would be Bath, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge and perhaps Birmingham / Warwick.
Don't discount Manchester (University of Manchester + incubators, University of Salford, Manchester Met), Leeds (University of Leeds, Leeds Met), Sheffield (University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam), and Liverpool (University of Liverpool, Liverpool Hope). Rail and road links between those cities and between those cities and London are of good quality, and should be improved in the future, not forgetting the fact that they're equidistant between London and Scottish cities!
The title is a bit misleading. The campus is not "for Google", but rather a space for start-ups. Only the building is owned by Google.
On a side note, the bear looks like one of the United Buddy Bears from the original Berlin collection. I'm not entirely sure how they got one, but it's an awesome thing to have around. Clearly it's being put to good use, given the Tardis decorating its arm :)
The current 'London' Situation is starting to annoy alot of people. The Olympics is a classic example of an event that is for the entire UK but most of the north (inc. Scotland) and west (including Wales and Ireland off the coast of England) will not benefit. Take a look at this image of a map of the events:
The UK has one of the largest number of Football Clubs in the world. Every Major City and Town has a Football Club and the smaller towns have Rugby Stadiums. Some cities have BOTH. Leicester, for example, has The Tigers Rugby Statium a stones throw from the King Power Football Stadium.
Why are these cities not benefiting from such a hugh event and why is the Govenment not investing in the creation of Tech Campus's in all major cities in the UK?
If Europe, in particular the UK, can pass more anti-copyright and tech-friendly laws, wouldn't it be a no-brainer for most startups/companies to move there?
But this thriving climate of innovation, creativity and new companies is mostly created by those who are part of that group. It's the people in these IT companies, the large group of creative agencies long established in London and those around these groups, those who create things and less by politics or underlying infrastructure. This in itself can be seen as good, but also as endangered when you look at longer term agendas and recent actions by UK politics.
Our biggest concerns currently are actually the stands of UK politics on ACTA, PIPA, their implementations and European counterparts. Instead of "cruising with the flow" the UK should - like with the financial industry - take up this opportunity and safeguard this newly growing and fast driving IT industry and foster its potential by laws that allow for innovation.
One should not forget those who create new innovative solutions - in particular with disruptive solutions - will always be considered as enemies or someone to "lobby against" by those established players who have stopped innovating (or innovating themselves).
Innovation always also means overstepping lines and creating new things by throwing out established assumptions. Over time those become the hurdles the next generations of innovators have to overcome.
We are looking forward to see some of the promises made by UK politicians with regards to London as a tech-hub actually being enacted and this group of young companies protected against malevolent attempts to stifle that growth by established influential(mostly Non-UK)companies that seemingly still continue to believe that their business models from the last century that are sometimes closer to extortion than doing actual business are sustainable by just "paying the right people".
We actually have to come back to a climate and understanding in politics that values the creation of new things similar to the times when the UK was the foremost industrialised nation - and this is quite a while ago.
In completely unrelated news ;-) did you know that you have to wait up to six weeks in London to get a new telephone line (re)-connected thanks to the years of driving up "Shareholder value" with BT (and less spending on engineering or reducing engineering staff by thousands).