An interesting article but there are reasons why the EU has not created a Google, or a Facebook etc which you seem to be oblivious to.
"The London tech start-up scene is probably – outside of the Valley – the best place to get people to work 16 hours a day in the world." I read this and thought how many EU Laws are you breaking?
When I was at Goldman, the working time directive was first implemented. We were each given waivers to sign. I always wondered what would have happened if I hadn't signed it.
I had the same when I received a job offer from HSBC. They also did not recognise trade unions which wasn't a big deal as I have never been a member of one when the option was available to me.
An interesting piece, Mr. Founder, of an area I know nothing about [well, two areas: tech start-ups and London ].
However, although a valid argument, it doesn't (added to others) outweigh, for me, the problems the EU poses regarding democratic accountability, law-making, and endless integration (eurozone QMV dominance, EU army, and so forth).
It is the sort of argument I can see making a difference, understandably, for some people, but if Silicon Valley can have visa arrangements that don't put people off then that must be our goal too.
F1: will set about writing the post-race piece now. Bit underwhelmed by the race. Maybe I should ditch writing and ask Ferrari if they'd like someone who doesn't ruin races with poor strategy choices.
Not-F1: Remastered Skyrim is out on 28 October. Hmm. With mod support I may buy it. Once again.
But it highlights the more nuanced advantages of being in the community of the EU vs the equally nuanced ('cos we'd manage somehow outside) disadvantages of being outside.
The point being, why would you vote to give yourself a disadvantage in business?
(Ans will there come from those who have no idea whether and when the EU affects our sovereignty: "because our sovereignty is being violated")
What it highlights is that there are some upsides to an open door immigration policy. And I don't think anyone sensible would dispute that. We have a range of skill shortages in this country because we have delusional education establishment who seem less and less interested with what people want of employees in the real world and are obsessed with ticking boxes like diversity instead. This is not a problem that can be fixed overnight in or out of the EU.
The problem is that there are also a lot of downsides to an open ended immigration system as well. The pressure on housing, public services and congestion. The disincentive towards training when you can pick up relevantly qualified people off a never ending shelf. The unfairness for those victims of our educational failures who never get a chance. Like everything in life it is a trade off.
Hmm you seem to be addressing several issues here, David. Education failures need to be addressed, whether we are in or out of the EU, as you say.
But how do we address the need for companies to be competitive while the system is being mended (assuming it is). Should they be required to provide training to compensate for an inadequate education system? Or should they accept a lower level of employee because it's not fair to Brits who have been failed by the system?
Yet again, the EU is a symptom not a cause.
Yes we need to incentivise our companies to invest more in training. Personally I would allow double the spend on training to be set off against tax. Yes there will be consequences for companies frustrated they can't find the employee they want instantly. But the alternative is also unacceptable in the longer run with our population running out of control. The south of England, where nearly all these immigrants go, is already the most densely populated part of the EU. We can only go on like this by making the lives of the people who live there truly unbearable.
These companies are not big enough to offer formal training programmes. They are uniquely focused on monetising ideas and growth. The training would come later when they are established and have products with track records.
There isn't a lot to disagree with here, though I would point out that the US has the single highest start up rate and has a work permit system, though you might point out that they produce rather a lot more STEM graduates than we do.
What we need to look at is having different category visas, it would be like the US O1 visa and no restrictions ir caps placed on their numbers, then the H1 visa with a very high cap of 400k (essentially unlimited) and restrict unskilled migration to very small numbers. I would also allow spouses to work unlike the US. I would even remove the "sponsorship" element so that people who are here that lose theor jobs can stay to find a new one until their visa expires rather than beinf packed off home.
The U.S. clearly produces more STEM graduates in absolute terms but in percentage terms I can't see there being that much difference. I think I read that IT was the biggest employer of STEM graduates
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
If you think either Sean or Richard Tyndall is going to vote "remain" then you simply haven't been paying attention. @rcs1000... maybe.
haha yes @rcs1000 is my most immediate target. Sean I don't care about. Richard, meanwhile, I think is genuinely conflicted between what he would like (EEA, free movement) and what the country is about to vote for (no-EEA, no free movement).
I think he may find himself more in sorrow, and very angrily, therefore, voting Remain because the risks of Out Out are simply not worth it.
But of course he can speak for himself. And does so, often!
So we take back control of our immigration policy and ensure we admit the best and brightest computer science graduates from around the world, each and every year.
Next.
How would this work in practice?
Companies get a visa allocation and can use it when they want to hire?
Or people entering the UK have to show they have desired tech skills in the right area- but then they can come without a job and look?
Agreed, it's nonsense. Using CS degrees is a utterly ineffective way to get the people you need. No point having a talent pool restricted to a bunch of web developers when you are looking for someone with (say) Java skills.
Then you make it about skillsets and not degrees.
This isn't difficult.
Skillsets would be pretty difficult I think. How do you prove to an immigration officer that you can code well in Java/whatever the newest thing is that tech people want?
By having a job offer?
Yes- that's the other way to do it. To put the burden of applying for a VISA/permission to hire a foreigner onto the company rather than the individual.
But the trouble with that I would guess is that it is a lot of hassle for the company...
More barriers. You just don't get it, do you?
This is done in many places though. I know having worked worldwide for over 40 years now. It's no real hassle to be fair and that includes most places where a security check was required and some places a full medical. If companies wish to have the person they do it and be geared for it as we were. The company also takes responsibility for the employee , no welfare, in event of medical requirements or repatriation company is responsible. Works perfectly well in many places where visa might be required. If you settle then there is commonly a points based or similar system based on what you bring to the host country.
I think one of the most ludicrous statements I have seen on here is the view that you would have to prove that you could write in Linux to an immigration officer. I have never put more than a CV forward and never, not ever once be questioned by any immigration service or officer anywhere in the world about skill ability. I'm afraid that view just shows a complete total ignorance of a balanced immigration process and to be honest if you thought you would ever have to do that then you just ain't worth employing.
For the record I have worked in around 100 countries worldwide and my passports ( I have two authorised passports to allow occasion applications when I may be travelling elsewhere) are stuffed with visas none of which were that arduous to get. Quite often a third party service was used with little or no hassle to me or the companies involved. In affect there is an industry that does all of this for you. Just check out Google and type visa required for a specific country and see results.
How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for?
"The latest figures show that between 1993 (the dawn of the single market) and 2015 there were 36 countries – including India, Russia, China, America, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil – who did better than the UK at exporting to the single market. They weren’t “in” it. They didn’t have Brussels making 60 per cent of their laws. And yet they did better than us."
So we take back control of our immigration policy and ensure we admit the best and brightest computer science graduates from around the world, each and every year.
Next.
And if, say, the government is under populist pressure to "crack down" on immigration to bring it in line with some arbitrary target and the required numbers cannot be recruited, then what? This is a particular problem in the IT industry where the skills you need can change very quickly; certainly more quickly than the timescales Governments and civil servants tend to work on.
Its called democracy. If you don't like it, you can vote it out.
Damm those plebs and their popullist ideas.
I live in a safe FPTP seat. I can't vote anyone out.
No one person can vote anyone out. But collectively we can.
And if you think a "safe seat" is a barrier to this, you haven't learnt the lesson of the last general election.
Also in new tech, currently in very international company based in London. The EU makes a big difference. Very hard to get people to transfer from the NYC office. Causes lots of problems and additional cost.
Thinking about it, I have never worked in a team without a significant EU element.
There would be nothing to stop the UK from having an expedited no/low cost visa process for desired industries or skill sets.
Spot on. Where there's a will, there's a way.
I'm guessing you've never had to go through the process of getting a UK visa. Expensive, time consuming and bureaucratic. Rather than go through all that faff, the best candidates will just get a job somewhere else in Europe.
So, an administrative process isn't working well right now is a reason to throw away democracy and self government? How about we just fix the process, get the people we want and reject the others.
I'm a computer science graduate and have gone through two immigration systems including the US H1B. Neither were that complex.
An immigration system that satisfies the screaming right wing press (and their readers who are not subject to it) but does long term economic damage is not worth it. And it's far from obvious what "we" want. Are the govenrnment going to decide employment needs in every single industry?
"MPs want to hear your views about UK aid spending before they debate this petition in Parliament.
On Monday 13 June Steve Double MP and Stephen Twigg MP will be on Twitter to ask the public what they think about UK aid spending.
Join the debate from 12 to 1pm on Twitter using the hashtag #UKAidDebate
More about the MPs involved:
Steve Double MP is a member of a cross-party group of MPs called the Petitions Committee. The Petitions Committee scheduled the debate. Mr Double is leading the debate in Parliament which means he will start it. "
So we take back control of our immigration policy and ensure we admit the best and brightest computer science graduates from around the world, each and every year.
Next.
And if, say, the government is under populist pressure to "crack down" on immigration to bring it in line with some arbitrary target and the required numbers cannot be recruited, then what? This is a particular problem in the IT industry where the skills you need can change very quickly; certainly more quickly than the timescales Governments and civil servants tend to work on.
Its called democracy. If you don't like it, you can vote it out.
Damm those plebs and their popullist ideas.
I live in a safe FPTP seat. I can't vote anyone out.
No one person can vote anyone out. But collectively we can.
And if you think a "safe seat" is a barrier to this, you haven't learnt the lesson of the last general election.
The election where 550 out of 660 seats didn't change hands?
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
If you think either Sean or Richard Tyndall is going to vote "remain" then you simply haven't been paying attention. @rcs1000... maybe.
haha yes @rcs1000 is my most immediate target. Sean I don't care about. Richard, meanwhile, I think is genuinely conflicted between what he would like (EEA, free movement) and what the country is about to vote for (no-EEA, no free movement).
I think he may find himself more in sorrow, and very angrily, therefore, voting Remain because the risks of Out Out are simply not worth it.
But of course he can speak for himself. And does so, often!
Richard would never vote remain. Sovereignty is everything for him. My reading of rcs is that he sees opportunity in disruption and favours Leave on that basis. It is going to be very beneficial to a few very clever, nimble operators.
"Last week, I asked Pablo, our lead Android developer, what he’d have done if he’d have had to get a visa to come work in the UK. He thought for a moment, and said “Started an Android development shop in Spain"
Wouldn't it be better for Spain if this had happened? Perhaps even better for the EU ?
Countries like Latvia and Lithuania have had almost all the clever young graduates removed.
Yes, sure, we do benefit from skilled immigration.
But how is this ever going to produce anything other than an Europe in which the South and the East has been denuded of all its talented people ?
The issues for startups has more to do with investment than trade. The MD could well be man with a laptop in Starbucks. The idea that he has an HR department to go through the red tape to get employees to the UK to work for a company that may not be there a year's time is fanciful. People in that world are flexible so they'll sort something out, but any permanent operation is likely to be in s more convenient place.
Lower investment will be the long term price for leaving the EU. Companies will adjust their investment decisions and commercial relationships to places and people that are in rather than out.
Voting Leave to make non-EU immigration easier is a bizarre action. It's just not going to happen. Can you imagine the Sun headlines?
Yes, that's the issue. In a small way I've got an interest in Chinse visitors' visas, because I give seminars for a Chinese company on how things work in Britain (e.g. the GP system). In the last few years the flow has sharply dropped, because it's much easier to get visas to go to the Continent - the forms are shorter and you get to visit multiple countries. The organisers say the UK Government has accepted that this is a problem, but years have passed without reform because of the general anti-immigration climate.
Basically, if you set up a barrier, you can't rely on governments to remove it when you want them to.
In any case a very interesting piece, regardless of whether one accepts it - told me a lot I didn't know. Thanks!
An interesting article. Nevertheless, the government does need to act to ensure that more of our talent pool is British. STEM subject student fees should be massively reduced; halved would be my recommendation. This could be in some small part funded by making some useless courses (like Classics, Boris) more expensive. If we really want to reduce immigration then we must first ensure we have the skills in place to do so.
So we take back control of our immigration policy and ensure we admit the best and brightest computer science graduates from around the world, each and every year.
Next.
And if, say, the government is under populist pressure to "crack down" on immigration to bring it in line with some arbitrary target and the required numbers cannot be recruited, then what? This is a particular problem in the IT industry where the skills you need can change very quickly; certainly more quickly than the timescales Governments and civil servants tend to work on.
Its called democracy. If you don't like it, you can vote it out.
Damm those plebs and their popullist ideas.
I live in a safe FPTP seat. I can't vote anyone out.
No one person can vote anyone out. But collectively we can.
And if you think a "safe seat" is a barrier to this, you haven't learnt the lesson of the last general election.
The election where 550 out of 660 seats didn't change hands?
How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for?
just out of interest, is there any actual evidence that the "start-up" model is actually a sensible way to do things? granted, it probably stimulates local pizza and coffee outlets. But anything else?
"The latest figures show that between 1993 (the dawn of the single market) and 2015 there were 36 countries – including India, Russia, China, America, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil – who did better than the UK at exporting to the single market. They weren’t “in” it. They didn’t have Brussels making 60 per cent of their laws. And yet they did better than us."
Does Boris link to these figures? As this article shows, the advantages of being in the Single Market are about a lot more than direct exports.
There would be nothing to stop the UK from having an expedited no/low cost visa process for desired industries or skill sets.
Spot on. Where there's a will, there's a way.
I'm guessing you've never had to go through the process of getting a UK visa. Expensive, time consuming and bureaucratic. Rather than go through all that faff, the best candidates will just get a job somewhere else in Europe.
So, an administrative process isn't working well right now is a reason to throw away democracy and self government? How about we just fix the process, get the people we want and reject the others.
I'm a computer science graduate and have gone through two immigration systems including the US H1B. Neither were that complex.
An immigration system that satisfies the screaming right wing press (and their readers who are not subject to it) but does long term economic damage is not worth it. And it's far from obvious what "we" want. Are the govenrnment going to decide employment needs in every single industry?
This shouldn't be this hard to explain, do you believe in democracy and trust the British people to run their own country? Yes or No
How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for?
just out of interest, is there any actual evidence that the "start-up" model is actually a sensible way to do things? granted, it probably stimulates local pizza and coffee outlets. But anything else?
Not sure what you mean by start-up model. Most companies begin as start-ups.
An interesting article. Nevertheless, the government does need to act to ensure that more of our talent pool is British. STEM subject student fees should be massively reduced; halved would be my recommendation. This could be in some small part funded by making some useless courses (like Classics, Boris) more expensive. If we really want to reduce immigration then we must first ensure we have the skills in place to do so.
Surely fees should be based on graduate earnings and cost to run with a subsidy for the most useful? Many top lawyers studied classics but the average STEM graduate from a Russell Group University will make more than the average classics graduate
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
As we worry about Uk and the USA being centres of various industries it's rather odd that you do have to have a work visa for the United States. Even the Brits do and for the USA and there are multiple types dependent on work to be done. There is even a visa to allow you to land in USA , transit and then go offshore to work. You cannot stay in country other than waiting for flights etc.
So quoting anything to do with USA is just complete tosh as their visa system is rigid and does not cause them or the applicant any issues if you are legitimate. If you are not legitimate then you have serious problems. The people quoting USA either know this having worked there or have never worked there and use this simply as another scare. Perhaps the USA is "isolationist"
For the record again I worked There for many years off and on including dealing as part of my work company visas for personnel of multiple nationalities.
There isn't a lot to disagree with here, though I would point out that the US has the single highest start up rate and has a work permit system, though you might point out that they produce rather a lot more STEM graduates than we do.
What we need to look at is having different category visas, it would be like the US O1 visa and no restrictions ir caps placed on their numbers, then the H1 visa with a very high cap of 400k (essentially unlimited) and restrict unskilled migration to very small numbers. I would also allow spouses to work unlike the US. I would even remove the "sponsorship" element so that people who are here that lose theor jobs can stay to find a new one until their visa expires rather than beinf packed off home.
All of which makes it harder for companies than the current system.
The simple fact is that if we want to leave the EU and restrict free movement there will be prices to pay. This will be one of them. Hopefully London will remain competitive, but the nature of the tech scene will change, and we will create opportunities for other European centres.
Not really, do you have a summa cumme laude from a top university? Have a category A visa valid for 3 years. Really we need to start producing our own STEM graduates as DavidL suggests. Immigration is always a symptom of an under par education system, we're producing graduates and school leavers in this country who are ill suited to work, manyare innumerate or illiterate, some have poor work ethic and too many make the wrong choices.
So we take back control of our immigration policy and ensure we admit the best and brightest computer science graduates from around the world, each and every year.
Next.
How would this work in practice?
Companies get a visa allocation and can use it when they want to hire?
Or people entering the UK have to show they have desired tech skills in the right area- but then they can come without a job and look?
Agreed, it's nonsense. Using CS degrees is a utterly ineffective way to get the people you need. No point having a talent pool restricted to a bunch of web developers when you are looking for someone with (say) Java skills.
Then you make it about skillsets and not degrees.
This isn't difficult.
Skillsets would be pretty difficult I think. How do you prove to an immigration officer that you can code well in Java/whatever the newest thing is that tech people want?
By having a job offer?
Yes- that's the other way to do it. To put the burden of applying for a VISA/permission to hire a foreigner onto the company rather than the individual.
But the trouble with that I would guess is that it is a lot of hassle for the company...
More barriers. You just don't get it, do you?
This is done in many places though. I know having worked worldwide for over 40 years now. It's no real hassle to be fair and that includes most places where a security check was required and some places a full medical. If companies wish to have the person they do it and be geared for it as we were. The company also takes responsibility for the employee , no welfare, in event of medical requirements or repatriation company is responsible. Works perfectly well in many places where visa might be required. If you settle then there is commonly a points based or similar system based on what you bring to the host country.
I think one of the most ludicrous statements I have seen on here is the view that you would have to prove that you could write in Linux to an immigration officer. I have never put more than a CV forward and never, not ever once be questioned by any immigration service or officer anywhere in the world about skill ability. I'm afraid that view just shows a complete total ignorance of a balanced immigration process and to be honest if you thought you would ever have to do that then you just ain't worth employing.
For the record I have worked in around 100 countries worldwide and my passports ( I have two authorised passports to allow occasion applications when I may be travelling elsewhere) are stuffed with visas none of which were that arduous to get. Quite often a third party service was used with little or no hassle to me or the companies involved. In affect there is an industry that does all of this for you. Just check out Google and type visa required for a specific country and see results.
Bloody well said. This whole argument smacks of *it's too hard to even try*. The classic blocking tactic of anyone who likes the status quo.
There would be nothing to stop the UK from having an expedited no/low cost visa process for desired industries or skill sets.
Spot on. Where there's a will, there's a way.
I'm guessing you've never had to go through the process of getting a UK visa. Expensive, time consuming and bureaucratic. Rather than go through all that faff, the best candidates will just get a job somewhere else in Europe.
So, an administrative process isn't working well right now is a reason to throw away democracy and self government? How about we just fix the process, get the people we want and reject the others.
I'm a computer science graduate and have gone through two immigration systems including the US H1B. Neither were that complex.
An immigration system that satisfies the screaming right wing press (and their readers who are not subject to it) but does long term economic damage is not worth it. And it's far from obvious what "we" want. Are the govenrnment going to decide employment needs in every single industry?
This shouldn't be this hard to explain, do you believe in democracy and trust the British people to run their own country? Yes or No
You must have a big problem with our system of representative democracy, which is designed to keep populist ideas in check.
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
It isn't the Roberts the Seans and the Richards that worry me. It's the bingo players in Preston who are screwing us up because they don't like 'darkies'. Even if you can forgive their old fashioned prejudices I'm finding it a lot harder to forgive the leaders of the Leave campaign who are pandering to them. I've been writing a piece on racism in the Leave campaign and intentionally or not the case is overwhelming.
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
As we worry about Uk and the USA being centres of various industries it's rather odd that you do have to have a work visa for the United States. Even the Brits do and for the USA and there are multiple types dependent on work to be done. There is even a visa to allow you to land in USA , transit and then go offshore to work. You cannot stay in country other than waiting for flights etc.
So quoting anything to do with USA is just complete tosh as their visa system is rigid and does not cause them or the applicant any issues if you are legitimate. If you are not legitimate then you have serious problems. The people quoting USA either know this having worked there or have never worked there and use this simply as another scare. Perhaps the USA is "isolationist"
For the record again I worked There for many years off and on including dealing as part of my work company visas for personnel of multiple nationalities.
The point is the US has a much larger domestic market than we do, so the consequences of their system inadvertently turning away the wrong people are lessened.
But it highlights the more nuanced advantages of being in the community of the EU vs the equally nuanced ('cos we'd manage somehow outside) disadvantages of being outside.
The point being, why would you vote to give yourself a disadvantage in business?
(Ans will there come from those who have no idea whether and when the EU affects our sovereignty: "because our sovereignty is being violated")
You can't eat sovereignty.
Well with food up to 30% cheaper as we leave the CAP, maybe there'll be alternatives.
Voting Leave to make non-EU immigration easier is a bizarre action. It's just not going to happen. Can you imagine the Sun headlines?
Yes, that's the issue. In a small way I've got an interest in Chinse visitors' visas, because I give seminars for a Chinese company on how things work in Britain (e.g. the GP system). In the last few years the flow has sharply dropped, because it's much easier to get visas to go to the Continent - the forms are shorter and you get to visit multiple countries. The organisers say the UK Government has accepted that this is a problem, but years have passed without reform because of the general anti-immigration climate.
Basically, if you set up a barrier, you can't rely on governments to remove it when you want them to.
In any case a very interesting piece, regardless of whether one accepts it - told me a lot I didn't know. Thanks!
I suspect the flow has dropped due to the quality of your seminars. A bad workman blames his tools.
An excellent, real world article. Top class talent arrives in London and finds work. Companies get built, they grow, more jobs are created, more tax revenues are generated, the cake gets bigger. Visas kills this stone dead. You need a job before you can come.
One minute you're complaining about crappy british management never training their work force and investing in their businesses, the next it's cheerleading a free for all which means they can walk away from their commitments.
As the article says why bother training someone for 3 months when you can ring Krakow.
There isn't a lot to disagree with here, though I would point out that the US has the single highest start up rate and has a work permit system, though you might point out that they produce rather a lot more STEM graduates than we do.
What we need to look at is having different category visas, it would be like the US O1 visa and no restrictions ir caps placed on their numbers, then the H1 visa with a very high cap of 400k (essentially unlimited) and restrict unskilled migration to very small numbers. I would also allow spouses to work unlike the US. I would even remove the "sponsorship" element so that people who are here that lose theor jobs can stay to find a new one until their visa expires rather than beinf packed off home.
All of which makes it harder for companies than the current system.
The simple fact is that if we want to leave the EU and restrict free movement there will be prices to pay. This will be one of them. Hopefully London will remain competitive, but the nature of the tech scene will change, and we will create opportunities for other European centres.
Not really, do you have a summa cumme laude from a top university? Have a category A visa valid for 3 years. Really we need to start producing our own STEM graduates as DavidL suggests. Immigration is always a symptom of an under par education system, we're producing graduates and school leavers in this country who are ill suited to work, manyare innumerate or illiterate, some have poor work ethic and too many make the wrong choices.
So we wouldn't have let Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs in.
London tech companies need immediate access to world class talent. Any visa system reduces that access and also slows it down. That may be a price worth paying, but we should at least be honest about it.
An excellent, real world article. Top class talent arrives in London and finds work. Companies get built, they grow, more jobs are created, more tax revenues are generated, the cake gets bigger. Visas kills this stone dead. You need a job before you can come.
One minute you're complaining about crappy british management never training their work force and investing in their businesses, the next it's cheerleading a free for all which means they can walk away from their commitments.
As the article says why bother training someone for 3 months when you can ring Krakow.
Looks to me like the polls are not shifting much at all and PP are still set to be comfortably the largest party.
Not that it matters too much. Inside the EZ it almost irrelevant what colour of government people choose to elect. They have very little discretion about their big picture fiscal stance anyway and absolutely none about their monetary policy.
The EZ is the future of the EU and it is undemocratic.
The left is on over 45% of the vote according to that poll. Podemos/IU is just 3.5 points behind PP, when PSOE was over six points behind at the last election, and Podemos and IU were not in alliance. The move to the left in just six months is marked.
Yes - also, the Spanish electoral system punishes small parties, so the IU lost out: by joining PODEMOS in any alliance of convenience (which is all it is) they maximimse the electoral benefit. It's close and alliance with the PSOE will be uneasy, but there is a fair chance of a left majority and voters will then expect them to try.
Mr. Eagles, that hyperbole won't persuade many. Tyrie might also recall: 1) The Iraq dossier led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. 2) Blair's also for Remain.
Blair's largely kept his head down (Northern Ireland aside), but the more people know he's for Remain, the better for Leave.
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
As we worry about Uk and the USA being centres of various industries it's rather odd that you do have to have a work visa for the United States. Even the Brits do and for the USA and there are multiple types dependent on work to be done. There is even a visa to allow you to land in USA , transit and then go offshore to work. You cannot stay in country other than waiting for flights etc.
So quoting anything to do with USA is just complete tosh as their visa system is rigid and does not cause them or the applicant any issues if you are legitimate. If you are not legitimate then you have serious problems. The people quoting USA either know this having worked there or have never worked there and use this simply as another scare. Perhaps the USA is "isolationist"
For the record again I worked There for many years off and on including dealing as part of my work company visas for personnel of multiple nationalities.
The point is the US has a much larger domestic market than we do, so the consequences of their system inadvertently turning away the wrong people are lessened.
And the tech sector is lobbying heavily for immigration reform.
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
It isn't the Roberts the Seans and the Richards that worry me. It's the bingo players in Preston who are screwing us up because they don't like 'darkies'. Even if you can forgive their old fashioned prejudices I'm finding it a lot harder to forgive the leaders of the Leave campaign who are pandering to them. I've been writing a piece on racism in the Leave campaign and intentionally or not the case is overwhelming.
Dear Dear , what a condescending arse. If leaving means we get rid of the likes of you I will take the bingo players any day.
There isn't a lot to disagree with here, though I would point out that the US has the single highest start up rate and has a work permit system, though you might point out that they produce rather a lot more STEM graduates than we do.
What we need to look at is having different category visas, it would be like the US O1 visa and no restrictions ir caps placed on their numbers, then the H1 visa with a very high cap of 400k (essentially unlimited) and restrict unskilled migration to very small numbers. I would also allow spouses to work unlike the US. I would even remove the "sponsorship" element so that people who are here that lose theor jobs can stay to find a new one until their visa expires rather than beinf packed off home.
All of which makes it harder for companies than the current system.
The simple fact is that if we want to leave the EU and restrict free movement there will be prices to pay. This will be one of them. Hopefully London will remain competitive, but the nature of the tech scene will change, and we will create opportunities for other European centres.
Not really, do you have a summa cumme laude from a top university? Have a category A visa valid for 3 years. Really we need to start producing our own STEM graduates as DavidL suggests. Immigration is always a symptom of an under par education system, we're producing graduates and school leavers in this country who are ill suited to work, manyare innumerate or illiterate, some have poor work ethic and too many make the wrong choices.
So we wouldn't have let Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs in.
London tech companies need immediate access to world class talent. Any visa system reduces that access and also slows it down. That may be a price worth paying, but we should at least be honest about it.
That's an argument for fully open doors, not discrimination against non-Europeans.
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The way it has been developing is very interesting though. Many Estonian entrepreneurs set up UK registered businesses and use British service providers and investors to develop corporate infrastructure through which they develop their products and wider intellectual property. Relatively speaking, London/UK does not have a lot of home grown intellectual property, but it does have infrastructure which is used by a lot of people from elsewhere. Incidentally the connections between the Tallinn tech providers and the UK have helped upgrade the DVLC, for example.
Until quite recently Estonians did not take the threat of Brexit seriously, but now they are, it is already causing a lot of second thoughts about this well tried business model. Even now, getting critical programmers from say Belarus, Ukraine or Russia over to London, even those who have Schengen visas, so are based in Tallinn, is already a slow and expensive process. Nor is the problem just a practical one: the attitude that would be implied by the sudden imposition of blanket visa requirements will drive the techies away faster than the reality itself. Several start ups are suggesting to me that Berlin is now a safer bet than London.
The referendum debate has been viewed with first bemusement, then concern and now a mixture of shock and anger. This debate has quietly trashed the UK's reputation for intelligence, tolerance and openness, and frankly I just don't see any post Brexit government (if that is what happens) being able to recover the damage to the UK brand anytime soon. The quality of the debate, especially the casual dismissal of the opinion of "experts" in favour of some visceral hunches has been particularly shocking to the well educated and well informed Estonians, the population of a country that is one of the UK's closest friends in the EU and NATO.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
There isn't a lot to disagree with here, though I would point out that the US has the single highest start up rate and has a work permit system, though you might point out that they produce rather a lot more STEM graduates than we do.
What we need to look at is having different category visas, it would be like the US O1 visa and no restrictions ir caps placed on their numbers, then the H1 visa with a very high cap of 400k (essentially unlimited) and restrict unskilled migration to very small numbers. I would also allow spouses to work unlike the US. I would even remove the "sponsorship" element so that people who are here that lose theor jobs can stay to find a new one until their visa expires rather than beinf packed off home.
All of which makes it harder for companies than the current system.
The simple fact is that if we want to leave the EU and restrict free movement there will be prices to pay. This will be one of them. Hopefully London will remain competitive, but the nature of the tech scene will change, and we will create opportunities for other European centres.
Not really, do you have a summa cumme laude from a top university? Have a category A visa valid for 3 years. Really we need to start producing our own STEM graduates as DavidL suggests. Immigration is always a symptom of an under par education system, we're producing graduates and school leavers in this country who are ill suited to work, manyare innumerate or illiterate, some have poor work ethic and too many make the wrong choices.
So we wouldn't have let Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs in.
London tech companies need immediate access to world class talent. Any visa system reduces that access and also slows it down. That may be a price worth paying, but we should at least be honest about it.
They wouldn't have come here. Company founders tend to found the companies where they are based, Microsoft is in WA for that reason and Apple in Palo Alto.
We're talking about people one or more likely two levels down from the company founders. Those are the STEM graduates from other parts of the world who would qualify for the hassle free visa.
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
It isn't the Roberts the Seans and the Richards that worry me. It's the bingo players in Preston who are screwing us up because they don't like 'darkies'. Even if you can forgive their old fashioned prejudices I'm finding it a lot harder to forgive the leaders of the Leave campaign who are pandering to them. I've been writing a piece on racism in the Leave campaign and intentionally or not the case is overwhelming.
Dear Dear , what a condescending arse. If leaving means we get rid of the likes of you I will take the bingo players any day.
Not sure if Roger has even been to a Bingo hall, let alone Preston.
An excellent, real world article. Top class talent arrives in London and finds work. Companies get built, they grow, more jobs are created, more tax revenues are generated, the cake gets bigger. Visas kills this stone dead. You need a job before you can come.
One minute you're complaining about crappy british management never training their work force and investing in their businesses, the next it's cheerleading a free for all which means they can walk away from their commitments.
As the article says why bother training someone for 3 months when you can ring Krakow.
No, it doesn't say that.
"I doubt a new developer produces useful code for at least two months, and they certainly don’t have a positive ROI until they’ve been with us four or five.
If someone needs remedial programming training, or has never written object oriented code before, then – even if they are the smartest people in the world – than that time to positive ROI is going to be a year"
An excellent, real world article. Top class talent arrives in London and finds work. Companies get built, they grow, more jobs are created, more tax revenues are generated, the cake gets bigger. Visas kills this stone dead. You need a job before you can come.
One minute you're complaining about crappy british management never training their work force and investing in their businesses, the next it's cheerleading a free for all which means they can walk away from their commitments.
As the article says why bother training someone for 3 months when you can ring Krakow.
No, it doesn't say that.
It doesn't say that only because you don't even have to go to the bother of phoning.
"For the brightest and the best of the 250,000 Europeans graduating with Computer Science degrees, London is a cheap flight or a bus ride away. They come in their tens of thousands."
The only issue I see with the article is that from my limited reading of the subject, the UK tech start up hub in London currently is a massive dissapointment. I certainly don't see a new Google on the horizon.
They wouldn't have come here. Company founders tend to found the companies where they are based*, Microsoft is in WA for that reason and Apple in Palo Alto.
* where there is massive state investment and satellite industries to support it.
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The way it has been developing is very interesting though. Many Estonian entrepreneurs set up UK registered businesses and use British service providers and investors to develop corporate infrastructure through which they develop their products and wider intellectual property. Relatively speaking, London/UK does not have a lot of home grown intellectual property, but it does have infrastructure which is used by a lot of people from elsewhere. Incidentally the connections between the Tallinn tech providers and the UK have helped upgrade the DVLC, for example.
Until quite recently Estonians did not take the threat of Brexit seriously, but now they are, it is already causing a lot of second thoughts about this well tried business model. Even now, getting critical programmers from say Belarus, Ukraine or Russia over to London, even those who have Schengen visas, so are based in Tallinn, is already a slow and expensive process. Nor is the problem just a practical one: the attitude that would be implied by the sudden imposition of blanket visa requirements will drive the techies away faster than the reality itself. Several start ups are suggesting to me that Berlin is now a safer bet than London.
The referendum debate has been viewed with first bemusement, then concern and now a mixture of shock and anger. This debate has quietly trashed the UK's reputation for intelligence, tolerance and openness, and frankly I just don't see any post Brexit government (if that is what happens) being able to recover the damage to the UK brand anytime soon. The quality of the debate, especially the casual dismissal of the opinion of "experts" in favour of some visceral hunches has been particularly shocking to the well educated and well informed Estonians, the population of a country that is one of the UK's closest friends in the EU and NATO.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
So does that mean next time Vladimir gets a bit pushy, the Estonians won't be asking us to help out ? I mean if they're screwing us to the wall and can't accept that we've got as much right to freedom as they have, why should we be sending body bags to council estates in Manchester or Glasgow ?
An excellent, real world article. Top class talent arrives in London and finds work. Companies get built, they grow, more jobs are created, more tax revenues are generated, the cake gets bigger. Visas kills this stone dead. You need a job before you can come.
One minute you're complaining about crappy british management never training their work force and investing in their businesses, the next it's cheerleading a free for all which means they can walk away from their commitments.
As the article says why bother training someone for 3 months when you can ring Krakow.
No, it doesn't say that.
"I doubt a new developer produces useful code for at least two months, and they certainly don’t have a positive ROI until they’ve been with us four or five.
If someone needs remedial programming training, or has never written object oriented code before, then – even if they are the smartest people in the world – than that time to positive ROI is going to be a year"
Make of that what you will
I make of it that start-ups - as opposed to established businesses - do not have the time or the resources for training. They need people who are able to do a specific job immediately. Once they are bigger, with bona fide revenue streams they enter into a new stage of development, including training.
There isn't a lot to disagree with here, though I would point out that the US has the single highest start up rate and has a work permit system, though you might point out that they produce rather a lot more STEM graduates than we do.
What we need to look at is having different category visas, it would be like the US O1 visa and no restrictions ir caps placed on their numbers, then the H1 visa with a very high cap of 400k (essentially unlimited) and restrict unskilled migration to very small numbers. I would also allow spouses to work unlike the US. I would even remove the "sponsorship" element so that people who are here that lose theor jobs can stay to find a new one until their visa expires rather than beinf packed off home.
All of which makes it harder for companies than the current system.
The simple fact is that if we want to leave the EU and restrict free movement there will be prices to pay. This will be one of them. Hopefully London will remain competitive, but the nature of the tech scene will change, and we will create opportunities for other European centres.
Not really, do you have a summa cumme laude from a top university? Have a category A visa valid for 3 years. Really we need to start producing our own STEM graduates as DavidL suggests. Immigration is always a symptom of an under par education system, we're producing graduates and school leavers in this country who are ill suited to work, manyare innumerate or illiterate, some have poor work ethic and too many make the wrong choices.
So we wouldn't have let Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs in.
London tech companies need immediate access to world class talent. Any visa system reduces that access and also slows it down. That may be a price worth paying, but we should at least be honest about it.
America did not let in Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. They were born and educated in the United States.
"How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for"
I have worked for one, my own company with two others and we had a single revolutionary idea that included computer based learning and an in house bespoke software package we developed to support the process that could be used remotely. We put our own cash into this and looked for cash input from universities but at the time it was very restricted so plodded on ourselves anyway.
This is when CBT or CBL was in its infancy for general use anyway back in 90's though of course simulation was not new. We did work for Cable &Wireless. We also did the process for a Fibre optic jointing training school at BT, training for Scotrail on train engineering and also Toyota cars Uk and into specific areas of the Japanese function for production lines. We were rapidly overtaken as larger companies got on board and to be fair became much better. We also made an error in not expanding I suppose and having only the one main product. Could have been so much different .
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The way it has been developing is very interesting though. Many Estonian entrepreneurs set up UK registered businesses and use British service providers and investors to develop corporate infrastructure through which they develop their products and wider intellectual property. Relatively speaking, London/UK does not have a lot of home grown intellectual property, but it does have infrastructure which is used by a lot of people from elsewhere. Incidentally the connections between the Tallinn tech providers and the UK have helped upgrade the DVLC, for example.
Until quite recently Estonians did not take the threat of Brexit seriously, but now they are, it is already causing a lot of second thoughts about this well tried business model. Even now, getting critical programmers from say Belarus, Ukraine or Russia over to London, even those who have Schengen visas, so are based in Tallinn, is already a slow and expensive process. Nor is the problem just a practical one: the attitude that would be implied by the sudden imposition of blanket visa requirements will drive the techies away faster than the reality itself. Several start ups are suggesting to me that Berlin is now a safer bet than London.
The referendum debate has been viewed with first bemusement, then concern and now a mixture of shock and anger. This debate has quietly trashed the UK's reputation for intelligence, tolerance and openness, and frankly I just don't see any post Brexit government (if that is what happens) being able to recover the damage to the UK brand anytime soon. The quality of the debate, especially the casual dismissal of the opinion of "experts" in favour of some visceral hunches has been particularly shocking to the well educated and well informed Estonians, the population of a country that is one of the UK's closest friends in the EU and NATO.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
Regardless of its undoubted merits, Estonia is a rounding error of a country in political, economic and military terms. European industry will be much more influential in ensuring that the Continental System is not reimposed.
How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for?
just out of interest, is there any actual evidence that the "start-up" model is actually a sensible way to do things? granted, it probably stimulates local pizza and coffee outlets. But anything else?
Yes. Our firm, started circa 10 years ago by me and a laptop, now employs circa 50 people in 5 offices, including a number of very talented people from other EU countries.
Being in the EU has helped us. I don't see any of this 'red tape from Brussels' that the mouthfoamers keep blathering about.
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The way it has been developing is very interesting though. Many Estonian entrepreneurs set up UK registered businesses and use British service providers and investors to develop corporate infrastructure through which they develop their products and wider intellectual property. Relatively speaking, London/UK does not have a lot of home grown intellectual property, but it does have infrastructure which is used by a lot of people from elsewhere. Incidentally the connections between the Tallinn tech providers and the UK have helped upgrade the DVLC, for example.
Until quite recently Estonians did not take the threat of Brexit seriously, but now they are, it is already causing a lot of second thoughts about this well tried business model. Even now, getting critical programmers from say Belarus, Ukraine or Russia over to London, even those who have Schengen visas, so are based in Tallinn, is already a slow and expensive process. Nor is the problem just a practical one: the attitude that would be implied by the sudden imposition of blanket visa requirements will drive the techies away faster than the reality itself. Several start ups are suggesting to me that Berlin is now a safer bet than London.
The referendum debate has been viewed with first bemusement, then concern and now a mixture of shock and anger. This debate has quietly trashed the UK's reputation for intelligence, tolerance and openness, and frankly I just don't see any post Brexit government (if that is what happens) being able to recover the damage to the UK brand anytime soon. The quality of the debate, especially the casual dismissal of the opinion of "experts" in favour of some visceral hunches has been particularly shocking to the well educated and well informed Estonians, the population of a country that is one of the UK's closest friends in the EU and NATO.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
If this debate makes the rest of Europe realise that the British people have never been signed up to "the entire European project", then it will have been worthwhile, whatever the result.
If they aren't fine with us walking away, they should have made some effort to make us want to stay.
How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for?
just out of interest, is there any actual evidence that the "start-up" model is actually a sensible way to do things? granted, it probably stimulates local pizza and coffee outlets. But anything else?
If I remember correctly the failure rate of Silicon Roundabout/Tech City companies is very very high. It is, however, an excellent place to purchase used Herman Miller chairs at considerable discounts.
How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for?
just out of interest, is there any actual evidence that the "start-up" model is actually a sensible way to do things? granted, it probably stimulates local pizza and coffee outlets. But anything else?
Yes. Our firm, started circa 10 years ago by me and a laptop, now employs circa 50 people in 5 offices, including a number of very talented people from other EU countries.
Being in the EU has helped us. I don't see any of this 'red tape from Brussels' that the mouthfoamers keep blathering about.
You would have seen it had you been, for example, a fisherman.
Mr. Cicero, thanks for that interesting external perspective.
An issue for the UK electorate is the contempt with which many feel they've been treated by both the EU over years and the UK political class over the last decade or so. That's probably not something that can be appreciated without being here.
There isn't a lot to disagree with here, though I would point out that the US has the single highest start up rate and has a work permit system, though you might point out that they produce rather a lot more STEM graduates than we do.
What we need to look at is having different category visas, it would be like the US O1 visa and no restrictions ir caps placed on their numbers, then the H1 visa with a very high cap of 400k (essentially unlimited) and restrict unskilled migration to very small numbers. I would also allow spouses to work unlike the US. I would even remove the "sponsorship" element so that people who are here that lose theor jobs can stay to find a new one until their visa expires rather than beinf packed off home.
All of which makes it harder for companies than the current system.
The simple fact is that if we want to leave the EU and restrict free movement there will be prices to pay. This will be one of them. Hopefully London will remain competitive, but the nature of the tech scene will change, and we will create opportunities for other European centres.
Not really, do you have a summa cumme laude from a top university? Have a category A visa valid for 3 years. Really we need to start producing our own STEM graduates as DavidL suggests. Immigration is always a symptom of an under par education system, we're producing graduates and school leavers in this country who are ill suited to work, manyare innumerate or illiterate, some have poor work ethic and too many make the wrong choices.
So we wouldn't have let Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs in.
London tech companies need immediate access to world class talent. Any visa system reduces that access and also slows it down. That may be a price worth paying, but we should at least be honest about it.
They wouldn't have come here. Company founders tend to found the companies where they are based, Microsoft is in WA for that reason and Apple in Palo Alto.
We're talking about people one or more likely two levels down from the company founders. Those are the STEM graduates from other parts of the world who would qualify for the hassle free visa.
Zuckerberg had his idea on the East Coast and built his company on the West Coast. Palo Alto and Seattle both have very large support networks, like London.
Visas make things more complicated than they are now for all kinds of reasons. As I say, that may be a price worth paying, but we should be honest about it.
How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for?
just out of interest, is there any actual evidence that the "start-up" model is actually a sensible way to do things? granted, it probably stimulates local pizza and coffee outlets. But anything else?
Yes. Our firm, started circa 10 years ago by me and a laptop, now employs circa 50 people in 5 offices, including a number of very talented people from other EU countries.
Being in the EU has helped us. I don't see any of this 'red tape from Brussels' that the mouthfoamers keep blathering about.
You would have seen it had you been, for example, a fisherman.
Yes indeed. As I would have were I a farrier around the time Henry Ford was in his pomp.
You say "Graduate Developers are more likely to have contributed to Open Source projects"
Isn't this just bias though because you are going from a pool of 60 million people in the UK to a pool of 500 million in the European Union. So you are interviewing the top % of 500 million people and as a result more people will have contributed to open source.
From some data the UK punches well above its weight in contribution to sites such as stack overflow and commits to GitHub... So not sure how we have a dearth of open source contributors???
An excellent, real world article. Top class talent arrives in London and finds work. Companies get built, they grow, more jobs are created, more tax revenues are generated, the cake gets bigger. Visas kills this stone dead. You need a job before you can come.
One minute you're complaining about crappy british management never training their work force and investing in their businesses, the next it's cheerleading a free for all which means they can walk away from their commitments.
As the article says why bother training someone for 3 months when you can ring Krakow.
No, it doesn't say that.
"I doubt a new developer produces useful code for at least two months, and they certainly don’t have a positive ROI until they’ve been with us four or five.
If someone needs remedial programming training, or has never written object oriented code before, then – even if they are the smartest people in the world – than that time to positive ROI is going to be a year"
Make of that what you will
I make of it that start-ups - as opposed to established businesses - do not have the time or the resources for training. They need people who are able to do a specific job immediately. Once they are bigger, with bona fide revenue streams they enter into a new stage of development, including training.
whereas I make of it that we don't educate enough of our young people to have the rights skills leaving uni for what the economy needs, and never will have as long as employers put no pressure on the government to ptoduce the right skill mix.
How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for?
just out of interest, is there any actual evidence that the "start-up" model is actually a sensible way to do things? granted, it probably stimulates local pizza and coffee outlets. But anything else?
Yes. Our firm, started circa 10 years ago by me and a laptop, now employs circa 50 people in 5 offices, including a number of very talented people from other EU countries.
Being in the EU has helped us. I don't see any of this 'red tape from Brussels' that the mouthfoamers keep blathering about.
Wait until the single digital market proposals are formulated. Digital markets are the last real unregulated market in the EU, it now has a commissioner if its own. Until those proposals are out companies in the digital space (tech startups) are working on existing single market rules designed for companies in the physical space.
"How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for"
I have worked for one, my own company with two others and we had a single revolutionary idea that included computer based learning and an in house bespoke software package we developed to support the process that could be used remotely. We put our own cash into this and looked for cash input from universities but at the time it was very restricted so plodded on ourselves anyway.
This is when CBT or CBL was in its infancy for general use anyway back in 90's though of course simulation was not new. We did work for Cable &Wireless. We also did the process for a Fibre optic jointing training school at BT, training for Scotrail on train engineering and also Toyota cars Uk and into specific areas of the Japanese function for production lines. We were rapidly overtaken as larger companies got on board and to be fair became much better. We also made an error in not expanding I suppose and having only the one main product. Could have been so much different .
So yeah fair cop.....not much really.
So you did that in the UK, with no visa issues to worry about.
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
It isn't the Roberts the Seans and the Richards that worry me. It's the bingo players in Preston who are screwing us up because they don't like 'darkies'. Even if you can forgive their old fashioned prejudices I'm finding it a lot harder to forgive the leaders of the Leave campaign who are pandering to them. I've been writing a piece on racism in the Leave campaign and intentionally or not the case is overwhelming.
Dear Dear , what a condescending arse. If leaving means we get rid of the likes of you I will take the bingo players any day.
Not sure if Roger has even been to a Bingo hall, let alone Preston.
He's right though, isn't he?
EDIT. And read Cicero's post. It is damning. The damage that is being done to the UK's prospects and reputation to further Boris's personal ambition is literally sickening.
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The way it has been developing is very interesting though. Many Estonian entrepreneurs set up UK registered businesses and use British service providers and investors to develop corporate infrastructure through which they develop their products and wider intellectual property. Relatively speaking, London/UK does not have a lot of home grown intellectual property, but it does have infrastructure which is used by a lot of people from elsewhere. Incidentally the connections between the Tallinn tech providers and the UK have helped upgrade the DVLC, for example.
Until quite recently Estonians did not take the threat of Brexit seriously, but now they are, it is already causing a lot of second thoughts about this well tried business model. Even now, getting critical programmers from say Belarus, Ukraine or Russia over to London, even those who have Schengen visas, so are based in Tallinn, is already a slow and expensive process. Nor is the problem just a practical one: the attitude that would be implied by the sudden imposition of blanket visa requirements will drive the techies away faster than the reality itself. Several start ups are suggesting to me that Berlin is now a safer bet than London.
The referendum debate has been viewed with first bemusement, then concern and now a mixture of shock and anger. This debate has quietly trashed the UK's reputation for intelligence, tolerance and openness, and frankly I just don't see any post Brexit government (if that is what happens) being able to recover the damage to the UK brand anytime soon. The quality of the debate, especially the casual dismissal of the opinion of "experts" in favour of some visceral hunches has been particularly shocking to the well educated and well informed Estonians, the population of a country that is one of the UK's closest friends in the EU and NATO.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
So does that mean next time Vladimir gets a bit pushy, the Estonians won't be asking us to help out ? I mean if they're screwing us to the wall and can't accept that we've got as much right to freedom as they have, why should we be sending body bags to council estates in Manchester or Glasgow ?
The UK and Estonia are very close military allies, but as your hostile attitude shows: even that incredibly close relationship is now seen to be at risk. The point is that Vlad's nukes are pointed at your house as much (if not more) than they are pointed at Tallinn: if you don't recognize that Putin is a common threat, then that would make the UK a pretty unreliable ally. The Brexit debate is already suggesting to some of the UK's best friends that Britain cannot be relied on. Good news is 10,000 US troops are moving to the eastern flank. Bad news is that the US is just as pi**ed off with the UK as everyone else.
The implied threat to NATO that you and others make is only adding to the deep concern.
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The way it has been developing is very interesting though. Many Estonian entrepreneurs set up UK registered businesses and use British service providers and investors to develop corporate infrastructure through which they develop their products and wider intellectual property. Relatively speaking, London/UK does not have a lot of home grown intellectual property, but it does have infrastructure which is used by a lot of people from elsewhere. Incidentally the connections between the Tallinn tech providers and the UK have helped upgrade the DVLC, for example.
Until quite recently Estonians did not take the threat of Brexit seriously, but now they are, it is already causing a lot of second thoughts about this well tried business model. Even now, getting critical programmers from say Belarus, Ukraine or Russia over to London, even those who have Schengen visas, so are based in Tallinn, is already a slow and expensive process. Nor is the problem just a practical one: the attitude that would be implied by the sudden imposition of blanket visa requirements will drive the techies away faster than the reality itself. Several start ups are suggesting to me that Berlin is now a safer bet than London.
The referendum debate has been viewed with first bemusement, then concern and now a mixture of shock and anger. This debate has quietly trashed the UK's reputation for intelligence, tolerance and openness, and frankly I just don't see any post Brexit government (if that is what happens) being able to recover the damage to the UK brand anytime soon. The quality of the debate, especially the casual dismissal of the opinion of "experts" in favour of some visceral hunches has been particularly shocking to the well educated and well informed Estonians, the population of a country that is one of the UK's closest friends in the EU and NATO.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
It seems a pretty one-sided kind of friendship. One where the UK gives, but doesn't take.
It should have been clear for years that lots of people in the UK are unhappy with the EU's direction of travel (for that matter, there are people in other EU countries who are similarly unhappy). But, the doctrine of More Europe remains orthodoxy.
'Shares of G4S, the UK security company, fell heavily on Monday after it said Omar Mateen had worked for it since 2007. G4S shares dropped as much as 6% and were the biggest fallers of the 350 biggest British companies.
G4S, the world’s biggest security firm, said Mateen carried a gun as part of his duties and that it was trying to establish whether any weapons used in the attack were related to his employment. The company said it had screened Mateen as recently as 2013 with “no findings”, Reuters reported.'
"How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for"
I have worked for one, my own company with two others and we had a single revolutionary idea that included computer based learning and an in house bespoke software package we developed to support the process that could be used remotely. We put our own cash into this and looked for cash input from universities but at the time it was very restricted so plodded on ourselves anyway.
This is when CBT or CBL was in its infancy for general use anyway back in 90's though of course simulation was not new. We did work for Cable &Wireless. We also did the process for a Fibre optic jointing training school at BT, training for Scotrail on train engineering and also Toyota cars Uk and into specific areas of the Japanese function for production lines. We were rapidly overtaken as larger companies got on board and to be fair became much better. We also made an error in not expanding I suppose and having only the one main product. Could have been so much different .
So yeah fair cop.....not much really.
So you did that in the UK, with no visa issues to worry about.
The 90s is a different country. The internet changed everything wrt tech.
An excellent, real world article. Top class talent arrives in London and finds work. Companies get built, they grow, more jobs are created, more tax revenues are generated, the cake gets bigger. Visas kills this stone dead. You need a job before you can come.
One minute you're complaining about crappy british management never training their work force and investing in their businesses, the next it's cheerleading a free for all which means they can walk away from their commitments.
As the article says why bother training someone for 3 months when you can ring Krakow.
No, it doesn't say that.
"I doubt a new developer produces useful code for at least two months, and they certainly don’t have a positive ROI until they’ve been with us four or five.
If someone needs remedial programming training, or has never written object oriented code before, then – even if they are the smartest people in the world – than that time to positive ROI is going to be a year"
Make of that what you will
I make of it that start-ups - as opposed to established businesses - do not have the time or the resources for training. They need people who are able to do a specific job immediately. Once they are bigger, with bona fide revenue streams they enter into a new stage of development, including training.
whereas I make of it that we don't educate enough of our young people to have the rights skills leaving uni for what the economy needs, and never will have as long as employers put no pressure on the government to ptoduce the right skill mix.
I am not sure how doing significant damage to one of our great success stories is going to help with that, but I guess we'll soon find out.
An excellent, real world article. Top class talent arrives in London and finds work. Companies get built, they grow, more jobs are created, more tax revenues are generated, the cake gets bigger. Visas kills this stone dead. You need a job before you can come.
Yup. The visas you need to enter the United States have already killed Silicon Valley stone dead.
"The outsourcing firms are increasingly dominating the program, federal records show. In recent years, they have obtained many thousands of the visas — which are limited to 85,000 a year — by learning to game the H-1B system without breaking the rules"
H-1Bs are useless for startups. You need to apply in the first 5 days of April to get into the lottery, and then you've perhaps a 1/3 to 1/4 chance of your candidate getting selected. After that it'll be at least a six month wait for a visa. Fortunately for them, US startups have a large pool of American talent.
We could have a quotaless system, but then that's not really controlled migration, and it's hard to see how some sort of stricter quotaless system would be achievable without a lot more red tape.
There isn't a lot to disagree with here, though I would point out that the US has the single highest start up rate and has a work permit system, though you might point out that they produce rather a lot more STEM graduates than we do.
What we need to look at is having different category visas, it would be like the US O1 visa and no restrictions ir caps placed on their numbers, then the H1 visa with a very high cap of 400k (essentially unlimited) and restrict unskilled migration to very small numbers. I would also allow spouses to work unlike the US. I would even remove the "sponsorship" element so that people who are here that lose theor jobs can stay to find a new one until their visa expires rather than beinf packed off home.
All of which makes it harder for companies than the current system.
The simple fact is that if we want to leave the EU and restrict free movement there will be prices to pay. This will be one of them. Hopefully London will remain competitive, but the nature of the tech scene will change, and we will create opportunities for other European centres.
Not really, do you have a summa cumme laude from a top university? Have a category A visa valid for 3 years. Really we need to start producing our own STEM graduates as DavidL suggests. Immigration is always a symptom of an under par education system, we're producing graduates and school leavers in this country who are ill suited to work, manyare innumerate or illiterate, some have poor work ethic and too many make the wrong choices.
So we wouldn't have let Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs in.
London tech companies need immediate access to world class talent. Any visa system reduces that access and also slows it down. That may be a price worth paying, but we should at least be honest about it.
They wouldn't have come here. Company founders tend to found the companies where they are based, Microsoft is in WA for that reason and Apple in Palo Alto.
We're talking about people one or more likely two levels down from the company founders. Those are the STEM graduates from other parts of the world who would qualify for the hassle free visa.
Zuckerberg had his idea on the East Coast and built his company on the West Coast. Palo Alto and Seattle both have very large support networks, like London.
Visas make things more complicated than they are now for all kinds of reasons. As I say, that may be a price worth paying, but we should be honest about it.
You wouldn't build a tech company on the east coast. London's tech scene is a lot like the City for me, it will adapt. I think having a global visa system with everyone under the same rules would be more beneficial overall than having unrestricted migration from one part of the world. That's true for the City as well, though I've not heard of anyone sounding the alarm over recruitment if we left, only over the loss of the financial passport.
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
It isn't the Roberts the Seans and the Richards that worry me. It's the bingo players in Preston who are screwing us up because they don't like 'darkies'. Even if you can forgive their old fashioned prejudices I'm finding it a lot harder to forgive the leaders of the Leave campaign who are pandering to them. I've been writing a piece on racism in the Leave campaign and intentionally or not the case is overwhelming.
Dear Dear , what a condescending arse. If leaving means we get rid of the likes of you I will take the bingo players any day.
Not sure if Roger has even been to a Bingo hall, let alone Preston.
Roger does this all the time though no doubt from the chandelier clad bingo halls at the posh end of France better known as exclusive members only Casinos.
I utterly resent the fact that leavers are painted as racist. Roger hates the British so much he cannot see he is himself racist. I personally welcome immigration from all parts but it has to be controlled and the people arriving have to be able to contribute. Our foreign aid budget and mine along with millions of other people's charitable contributions help many of the rest in the world.
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
So does that mean next time Vladimir gets a bit pushy, the Estonians won't be asking us to help out ? I mean if they're screwing us to the wall and can't accept that we've got as much right to freedom as they have, why should we be sending body bags to council estates in Manchester or Glasgow ?
The UK and Estonia are very close military allies, but as your hostile attitude shows: even that incredibly close relationship is now seen to be at risk. The point is that Vlad's nukes are pointed at your house as much (if not more) than they are pointed at Tallinn: if you don't recognize that Putin is a common threat, then that would make the UK a pretty unreliable ally. The Brexit debate is already suggesting to some of the UK's best friends that Britain cannot be relied on. Good news is 10,000 US troops are moving to the eastern flank. Bad news is that the US is just as pi**ed off with the UK as everyone else.
The implied threat to NATO that you and others make is only adding to the deep concern.
Tosh.
You raised the issue of a minnow making a threat, frankly HMG will stand by its NATO commitments as it always does. But if Estonia really was that interested in keeping the UK in the EU then it should have stuck its neck out to say there is a serious issue in the UK which we need to solve and people like yourself on trade councils should have been making that point clearly to your opposite numbers.
There does seem to be a lot of opprobrium targeted at white, British people on here from a few people. "Bingo players from Preston", "ignorant" and that's without going into fruitcakes, loons etc. Typical racist-type prejudice hidden under a smug and arrogant superiority complex. Perhaps we should call these posh racists what they are?
Bigots.
Roger can be funny and informative, but a democrat he is not.
Lord Snooty and some metropolitan liberals do have a lot in common. Lady bucket is a prime example, and Roger, despite some of his endearing qualities is too
The problem is that stereotyping is common to all groups in society - I'm guilty of it myself - but at least I know I'm doing it.
Here we go ... Muslims tend to hate gays and blow people up, gays tend to be drama queens, luvvies are self-obsessed monomaniacs, scousers have a chip on both shoulders, gypos are thieves (see also scousers), and that's without starting on "darkies".
It's just happens that some are acceptable to the Establishment.
Edit: the professional whingers say it's all about power. Since when has the wwc been "powerful"?
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The way it has been developing is very interesting though. Many Estonian entrepreneurs set up UK registered businesses and use British service providers and investors to develop corporate infrastructure through which they develop their products and wider intellectual property. Relatively speaking, London/UK does not have a lot of home grown intellectual property, but it does have infrastructure which is used by a lot of people from elsewhere. Incidentally the connections between the Tallinn tech providers and the UK have helped upgrade the DVLC, for example.
Until quite recently Estonians did not take the threat of Brexit seriously, but now they are, it is already causing a lot of second thoughts about this well tried business model. Even now, getting critical programmers from say Belarus, Ukraine or Russia over to London, even those who have Schengen visas, so are based in Tallinn, is already a slow and expensive process. Nor is the problem just a practical one: the attitude that would be implied by the sudden imposition of blanket visa requirements will drive the techies away faster than the reality itself. Several start ups are suggesting to me that Berlin is now a safer bet than London.
The referendum debate has been viewed with first bemusement, then concern and now a mixture of shock and anger. This debate has quietly trashed the UK's reputation for intelligence, tolerance and openness, and frankly I just don't see any post Brexit government (if that is what happens) being able to recover the damage to the UK brand anytime soon. The quality of the debate, especially the casual dismissal of the opinion of "experts" in favour of some visceral hunches has been particularly shocking to the well educated and well informed Estonians, the population of a country that is one of the UK's closest friends in the EU and NATO.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
ave Cicero. With a name like that you set the standard of rhetoric almost impossibly high.
'Shares of G4S, the UK security company, fell heavily on Monday after it said Omar Mateen had worked for it since 2007. G4S shares dropped as much as 6% and were the biggest fallers of the 350 biggest British companies.
G4S, the world’s biggest security firm, said Mateen carried a gun as part of his duties and that it was trying to establish whether any weapons used in the attack were related to his employment. The company said it had screened Mateen as recently as 2013 with “no findings”, Reuters reported.'
And the tech sector is lobbying heavily for immigration reform.
Yes, and the tech sector also complains a great deal about regulation, and taxes — not that they pay much, but they are very happy to take whacking great tax breaks — and they don't want to shoulder much responsibility for training.
I suppose we should just bow down before these new Masters of the Universe and give them everything they want.
Or alternately tell them to go f*ck themselves for once.
How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for?
just out of interest, is there any actual evidence that the "start-up" model is actually a sensible way to do things? granted, it probably stimulates local pizza and coffee outlets. But anything else?
Yes. Our firm, started circa 10 years ago by me and a laptop, now employs circa 50 people in 5 offices, including a number of very talented people from other EU countries.
Being in the EU has helped us. I don't see any of this 'red tape from Brussels' that the mouthfoamers keep blathering about.
You would have seen it had you been, for example, a fisherman.
Yes indeed. As I would have were I a farrier around the time Henry Ford was in his pomp.
What an arrogant comment! Try saying in an Aberdeen pub on a Saturday night.
An excellent, real world article. Top class talent arrives in London and finds work. Companies get built, they grow, more jobs are created, more tax revenues are generated, the cake gets bigger. Visas kills this stone dead. You need a job before you can come.
Yup. The visas you need to enter the United States have already killed Silicon Valley stone dead.
"The outsourcing firms are increasingly dominating the program, federal records show. In recent years, they have obtained many thousands of the visas — which are limited to 85,000 a year — by learning to game the H-1B system without breaking the rules"
H-1Bs are useless for startups. You need to apply in the first 5 days of April to get into the lottery, and then you've perhaps a 1/3 to 1/4 chance of your candidate getting selected. After that it'll be at least a six month wait for a visa. Fortunately for them, US startups have a large pool of American talent.
We could have a quotaless system, but then that's not really controlled migration, and it's hard to see how some sort of stricter quotaless system would be achievable without a lot more red tape.
Which is why start ups and tech companies tend to use the O1 visa (as do the Wall St banks).
'Shares of G4S, the UK security company, fell heavily on Monday after it said Omar Mateen had worked for it since 2007. G4S shares dropped as much as 6% and were the biggest fallers of the 350 biggest British companies.
G4S, the world’s biggest security firm, said Mateen carried a gun as part of his duties and that it was trying to establish whether any weapons used in the attack were related to his employment. The company said it had screened Mateen as recently as 2013 with “no findings”, Reuters reported.'
It's a lose-lose for G4S - the FBI cleared the bloke too.
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
So does that mean next time Vladimir gets a bit pushy, the Estonians won't be asking us to help out ? I mean if they're screwing us to the wall and can't accept that we've got as much right to freedom as they have, why should we be sending body bags to council estates in Manchester or Glasgow ?
The UK and Estonia are very close military allies, but as your hostile attitude shows: even that incredibly close relationship is now seen to be at risk. The point is that Vlad's nukes are pointed at your house as much (if not more) than they are pointed at Tallinn: if you don't recognize that Putin is a common threat, then that would make the UK a pretty unreliable ally. The Brexit debate is already suggesting to some of the UK's best friends that Britain cannot be relied on. Good news is 10,000 US troops are moving to the eastern flank. Bad news is that the US is just as pi**ed off with the UK as everyone else.
The implied threat to NATO that you and others make is only adding to the deep concern.
Tosh.
You raised the issue of a minnow making a threat, frankly HMG will stand by its NATO commitments as it always does. But if Estonia really was that interested in keeping the UK in the EU then it should have stuck its neck out to say there is a serious issue in the UK which we need to solve and people like yourself on trade councils should have been making that point clearly to your opposite numbers.
You didn't.
Well said.
On a side note, Labour's 48 hour referendum intervention will be pushed aside as a result of the Orlando shooting.
There isn't a lot to disagree with here, though I would point out that the US has the single highest start up rate and has a work permit system, though you might point out that they produce rather a lot more STEM graduates than we do.
What we need to look at is having different category visas, it would be like the US O1 visa and no restrictions ir caps placed on their numbers, then the H1 visa with a very high cap of 400k (essentially unlimited) and restrict unskilled migration to very small numbers. I would also allow spouses to work unlike the US. I would even remove the "sponsorship" element so that people who are here that lose theor jobs can stay to find a new one until their visa expires rather than beinf packed off home.
All of which makes it harder for companies than the current system.
The simple fact is that if we want to leave the EU and restrict free movement there will be prices to pay. This will be one of them. Hopefully London will remain competitive, but the nature of the tech scene will change, and we will create opportunities for other European centres.
Not really, do you have a summa cumme laude from a top university? Have a category A visa valid for 3 years. Really we need to start producing our own STEM graduates as DavidL suggests. Immigration is always a symptom of an under par education system, we're producing graduates and school leavers in this country who are ill suited to work, manyare innumerate or illiterate, some have poor work ethic and too many make the wrong choices.
So we wouldn't have let Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs in.
London tech companies need immediate access to world class talent. Any visa system reduces that access and also slows it down. That may be a price worth paying, but we should at least be honest about it.
They wouldn't have come here. Company founders tend to found the companies where they are based, Microsoft is in WA for that reason and Apple in Palo Alto.
We're talking about people one or more likely two levels down from the company founders. Those are the STEM graduates from other parts of the world who would qualify for the hassle free visa.
Zuckerberg had his idea on the East Coast and built his company on the West Coast. Palo Alto and Seattle both have very large support networks, like London.
Visas make things more complicated than they are now for all kinds of reasons. As I say, that may be a price worth paying, but we should be honest about it.
You wouldn't build a tech company on the east coast. London's tech scene is a lot like the City for me, it will adapt. I think having a global visa system with everyone under the same rules would be more beneficial overall than having unrestricted migration from one part of the world. That's true for the City as well, though I've not heard of anyone sounding the alarm over recruitment if we left, only over the loss of the financial passport.
Fair enough. I disagree. My experience of observing and reporting on the tech-based start-up scene for 20+ years is that flexibility and speed are everything. Anything that slows development down is a potential killer. Low bureaucracy, plus immediate access to finance and talent are what have helped London. I guess we'll find out soon enough what happens when you take one of those components away. My guess is that we are going to do a lot of good for places like Berlin and Barcelona. I hope I'm wrong.
Excellent article Tech Founder. Having read your very persuasive piece I'm interested to know why you haven't managed to persuade your chum and investor RCS 1000? Your case seems overwhelming.
I work in the service sector too and everyone is worried. Advertising in the UK is second only to the US and in terms of creativity probably above them. British agencies have a presence in nearly every country in the world.
What this vote is telling them -particularly as it's based on a quasi racist campaign-is very worrying indeed
Robert, Sean, at some point even Richard T will come over to Remain.
They realise that take away immigration (they profess and I believe them not to worry about it), and all you are left with is some nebulous sovereignty guff which they are hard-pressed to put their finger on and which, in any case, does not compensate for the very real diminution in our trading environment and more general risks to our economy that a Leave vote entails.
If you think either Sean or Richard Tyndall is going to vote "remain" then you simply haven't been paying attention. @rcs1000... maybe.
haha yes @rcs1000 is my most immediate target. Sean I don't care about. Richard, meanwhile, I think is genuinely conflicted between what he would like (EEA, free movement) and what the country is about to vote for (no-EEA, no free movement).
I think he may find himself more in sorrow, and very angrily, therefore, voting Remain because the risks of Out Out are simply not worth it.
But of course he can speak for himself. And does so, often!
Sorry guys but you really are on the wrong track here. There is no available option which is worse than staying in the EU. If we leave I would prefer EEA but if not that then still full Brexit is miles better than staying in.
And the tech sector is lobbying heavily for immigration reform.
Yes, and the tech sector also complains a great deal about regulation, and taxes — not that they pay much, but they are very happy to take whacking great tax breaks — and they don't want to shoulder much responsibility for training.
I suppose we should just bow down before these new Masters of the Universe and give them everything they want.
Or alternately tell them to go f*ck themselves for once.
@tlg88 >Interesting thread - but this sounds more like a case for reform of our higher education. Also, say one of these startups produces the next Google, what good is it to the UK? I don't want to sound like a chippy lefty, but how much tax do tech companies like Google pay in tax here or anywhere else?
Why wouldn't they pay significant taxes?
ARM, for example, paid £74m of "income taxes" on £450m of "cash generated" in the last calendar year. Plus payroll taxes plus CGT by shareholders etc.
Don't forget that the demented warblings of the "Fair Tax" trolls are 99% hot air and manufactured outrage.
But ARM makes things does it not? Isn't that sort of company easier to tax in a conventional manner?
ARM's model is, iirc, research then ip licensing to partners.
However, they are perhaps the largest UK tech startup and the questions as how much tax such pay.
I guess you could look also at eg Sage, or some video games companies.
There does seem to be a lot of opprobrium targeted at white, British people on here from a few people. "Bingo players from Preston", "ignorant" and that's without going into fruitcakes, loons etc. Typical racist-type prejudice hidden under a smug and arrogant superiority complex. Perhaps we should call these posh racists what they are?
Bigots.
Roger can be funny and informative, but a democrat he is not.
Lord Snooty and some metropolitan liberals do have a lot in common. Lady bucket is a prime example, and Roger, despite some of his endearing qualities is too
The problem is that stereotyping is common to all groups in society - I'm guilty of it myself - but at least I know I'm doing it.
Here we go ... Muslims tend to hate gays and blow people up, gays tend to be drama queens, luvvies are self-obsessed monomaniacs, scousers have a chip on both shoulders, gypos are thieves (see also scousers), and that's without starting on "darkies".
It's just happens that some are acceptable to the Establishment.
Edit: the professional whingers say it's all about power. Since when has the wwc been "powerful"?
Brendan O'Neill wrote an excellent article on the bigotry against the WWC a while ago.
"How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for"
I have worked for one, my own company with two others and we had a single revolutionary idea that included computer based learning and an in house bespoke software package we developed to support the process that could be used remotely. We put our own cash into this and looked for cash input from universities but at the time it was very restricted so plodded on ourselves anyway.
This is when CBT or CBL was in its infancy for general use anyway back in 90's though of course simulation was not new. We did work for Cable &Wireless. We also did the process for a Fibre optic jointing training school at BT, training for Scotrail on train engineering and also Toyota cars Uk and into specific areas of the Japanese function for production lines. We were rapidly overtaken as larger companies got on board and to be fair became much better. We also made an error in not expanding I suppose and having only the one main product. Could have been so much different .
So yeah fair cop.....not much really.
So you did that in the UK, with no visa issues to worry about.
The 90s is a different country. The internet changed everything wrt tech.
Let me declare an interest, since I am involved in the Tallinn tech scene, being based here in Estonia. (Amongst other things, I am also the President of the British Estonian Chamber of Commerce). Estonia has a good claim to being the most technologically advanced society in the world and has become a stand out place for the development of new technology: not just Skype or Transferwise, but a whole new Fintech scene is being developed by Estonians both in Tallinn and in the UK.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
So does that mean next time Vladimir gets a bit pushy, the Estonians won't be asking us to help out ? I mean if they're screwing us to the wall and can't accept that we've got as much right to freedom as they have, why should we be sending body bags to council estates in Manchester or Glasgow ?
The UK and Estonia are very close military allies, but as your hostile attitude shows: even that incredibly close relationship is now seen to be at risk. The point is that Vlad's nukes are pointed at your house as much (if not more) than they are pointed at Tallinn: if you don't recognize that Putin is a common threat, then that would make the UK a pretty unreliable ally. The Brexit debate is already suggesting to some of the UK's best friends that Britain cannot be relied on. Good news is 10,000 US troops are moving to the eastern flank. Bad news is that the US is just as pi**ed off with the UK as everyone else.
The implied threat to NATO that you and others make is only adding to the deep concern.
Tosh.
You raised the issue of a minnow making a threat, frankly HMG will stand by its NATO commitments as it always does. But if Estonia really was that interested in keeping the UK in the EU then it should have stuck its neck out to say there is a serious issue in the UK which we need to solve and people like yourself on trade councils should have been making that point clearly to your opposite numbers.
You didn't.
Well said.
On a side note, Labour's 48 hour referendum intervention will be pushed aside as a result of the Orlando shooting.
'The London tech start-up scene is probably – outside of the Valley – the best place to get people to work 16 hours a day in the world. It attracts people who want to build things, don’t mind living in shitty apartments, for low wages, because they want to work for exciting companies, building groundbreaking things. It attracts people who want to say “I was there at the beginning of Google.”'
So in other words the best place outside of the Valley to exploit people?
I really detest this attitude that tends to exist amongst start ups. You mention that there is a lack of STEM graduates, but the truth is probably there is a lack of desireability to enter the Tech Space because of the wages and some of the conditions. Many of my fellow graduates I know went from Engineering / Comp Sci into Banking, Legal or Consultancy because the pay and benefits is much much better. So perhaps the tech scene needs to look at why they are losing UK talent.
Me? I am Computer Engineering graduate and took a pay cut upon graduation to enter the tech industry because it is what interests me. I could have made more money at this point elsewhere so maybe I too am a sucker but I realise this is an issue that makes tech less desirable.
I suspect the flow has dropped due to the quality of your seminars. A bad workman blames his tools.
Meow!
More seriously, I'm one of 20 people who do them. The flow has dropped 90%. The problem is that the anti-immigration atmosphere trumps the problems that HMG accepts affect Chinese business visitors.
There does seem to be a lot of opprobrium targeted at white, British people on here from a few people. "Bingo players from Preston", "ignorant" and that's without going into fruitcakes, loons etc. Typical racist-type prejudice hidden under a smug and arrogant superiority complex. Perhaps we should call these posh racists what they are?
Bigots.
Roger can be funny and informative, but a democrat he is not.
Lord Snooty and some metropolitan liberals do have a lot in common. Lady bucket is a prime example, and Roger, despite some of his endearing qualities is too
The problem is that stereotyping is common to all groups in society - I'm guilty of it myself - but at least I know I'm doing it.
Here we go ... Muslims tend to hate gays and blow people up, gays tend to be drama queens, luvvies are self-obsessed monomaniacs, scousers have a chip on both shoulders, gypos are thieves (see also scousers), and that's without starting on "darkies".
It's just happens that some are acceptable to the Establishment.
Edit: the professional whingers say it's all about power. Since when has the wwc been "powerful"?
Stereotyping and erecting straw men is easier than thinking.
"How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for"
I have worked for one, my own company with two others and we had a single revolutionary idea that included computer based learning and an in house bespoke software package we developed to support the process that could be used remotely. We put our own cash into this and looked for cash input from universities but at the time it was very restricted so plodded on ourselves anyway.
This is when CBT or CBL was in its infancy for general use anyway back in 90's though of course simulation was not new. We did work for Cable &Wireless. We also did the process for a Fibre optic jointing training school at BT, training for Scotrail on train engineering and also Toyota cars Uk and into specific areas of the Japanese function for production lines. We were rapidly overtaken as larger companies got on board and to be fair became much better. We also made an error in not expanding I suppose and having only the one main product. Could have been so much different .
So yeah fair cop.....not much really.
So you did that in the UK, with no visa issues to worry about.
Cable and Wireless and Toyota are international companies. So yes amongst others USA , Qatar and UAE. ( Qatar was the most difficult they said they could build it themselves). I don't recollect any major issues at the time other than some forms. No doubt you will tell me I was wrong but as you seem to be trying to either catch me out or prove a point despite the detail I gave there is little point in engaging further.
You also presumed the Fibre optic training school was in UK.
Comments
An interesting piece, Mr. Founder, of an area I know nothing about [well, two areas: tech start-ups and London
However, although a valid argument, it doesn't (added to others) outweigh, for me, the problems the EU poses regarding democratic accountability, law-making, and endless integration (eurozone QMV dominance, EU army, and so forth).
It is the sort of argument I can see making a difference, understandably, for some people, but if Silicon Valley can have visa arrangements that don't put people off then that must be our goal too.
F1: will set about writing the post-race piece now. Bit underwhelmed by the race. Maybe I should ditch writing and ask Ferrari if they'd like someone who doesn't ruin races with poor strategy choices.
Not-F1: Remastered Skyrim is out on 28 October. Hmm. With mod support I may buy it. Once again.
I think he may find himself more in sorrow, and very angrily, therefore, voting Remain because the risks of Out Out are simply not worth it.
But of course he can speak for himself. And does so, often!
"The latest figures show that between 1993 (the dawn of the single market) and 2015 there were 36 countries – including India, Russia, China, America, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil – who did better than the UK at exporting to the single market. They weren’t “in” it. They didn’t have Brussels making 60 per cent of their laws. And yet they did better than us."
And if you think a "safe seat" is a barrier to this, you haven't learnt the lesson of the last general election.
Also in new tech, currently in very international company based in London. The EU makes a big difference. Very hard to get people to transfer from the NYC office. Causes lots of problems and additional cost.
Thinking about it, I have never worked in a team without a significant EU element.
"MPs want to hear your views about UK aid spending before they debate this petition in Parliament.
On Monday 13 June Steve Double MP and Stephen Twigg MP will be on Twitter to ask the public what they think about UK aid spending.
Join the debate from 12 to 1pm on Twitter using the hashtag #UKAidDebate
More about the MPs involved:
Steve Double MP is a member of a cross-party group of MPs called the Petitions Committee. The Petitions Committee scheduled the debate. Mr Double is leading the debate in Parliament which means he will start it. "
On Monday 13 June you will be able to watch the petition debate live from 4.30pm on Parliament TV: http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/d3ed341d-af80-4b35-aee4-f1e20d8f40c4
Wouldn't it be better for Spain if this had happened? Perhaps even better for the EU ?
Countries like Latvia and Lithuania have had almost all the clever young graduates removed.
Yes, sure, we do benefit from skilled immigration.
But how is this ever going to produce anything other than an Europe in which the South and the East has been denuded of all its talented people ?
Lower investment will be the long term price for leaving the EU. Companies will adjust their investment decisions and commercial relationships to places and people that are in rather than out.
Basically, if you set up a barrier, you can't rely on governments to remove it when you want them to.
In any case a very interesting piece, regardless of whether one accepts it - told me a lot I didn't know. Thanks!
If we really want to reduce immigration then we must first ensure we have the skills in place to do so.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brexits-not-a-price-worth-paying-its-better-to-remain-hk8tcl0nc
So quoting anything to do with USA is just complete tosh as their visa system is rigid and does not cause them or the applicant any issues if you are legitimate. If you are not legitimate then you have serious problems. The people quoting USA either know this having worked there or have never worked there and use this simply as another scare. Perhaps the USA is "isolationist"
For the record again I worked There for many years off and on including dealing as part of my work company visas for personnel of multiple nationalities.
As the article says why bother training someone for 3 months when you can ring Krakow.
London tech companies need immediate access to world class talent. Any visa system reduces that access and also slows it down. That may be a price worth paying, but we should at least be honest about it.
1) The Iraq dossier led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
2) Blair's also for Remain.
Blair's largely kept his head down (Northern Ireland aside), but the more people know he's for Remain, the better for Leave.
A rare bit of relief given the heavy weather their campaign is experiencing.
The way it has been developing is very interesting though. Many Estonian entrepreneurs set up UK registered businesses and use British service providers and investors to develop corporate infrastructure through which they develop their products and wider intellectual property. Relatively speaking, London/UK does not have a lot of home grown intellectual property, but it does have infrastructure which is used by a lot of people from elsewhere. Incidentally the connections between the Tallinn tech providers and the UK have helped upgrade the DVLC, for example.
Until quite recently Estonians did not take the threat of Brexit seriously, but now they are, it is already causing a lot of second thoughts about this well tried business model. Even now, getting critical programmers from say Belarus, Ukraine or Russia over to London, even those who have Schengen visas, so are based in Tallinn, is already a slow and expensive process. Nor is the problem just a practical one: the attitude that would be implied by the sudden imposition of blanket visa requirements will drive the techies away faster than the reality itself. Several start ups are suggesting to me that Berlin is now a safer bet than London.
The referendum debate has been viewed with first bemusement, then concern and now a mixture of shock and anger. This debate has quietly trashed the UK's reputation for intelligence, tolerance and openness, and frankly I just don't see any post Brexit government (if that is what happens) being able to recover the damage to the UK brand anytime soon. The quality of the debate, especially the casual dismissal of the opinion of "experts" in favour of some visceral hunches has been particularly shocking to the well educated and well informed Estonians, the population of a country that is one of the UK's closest friends in the EU and NATO.
The idea that the UK can just walk away from the entire European project, expecting that the rest of Europe will be just fine with that, defies credulity. A lot of people will be extremely angry at the disruption and chaos that would be caused, and in any Brexit negotiations even the UK's friends are set to be playing hardball.
We're talking about people one or more likely two levels down from the company founders. Those are the STEM graduates from other parts of the world who would qualify for the hassle free visa.
If someone needs remedial programming training, or has never written object oriented code before, then – even if they are the smartest people in the world – than that time to positive ROI is going to be a year"
Make of that what you will
"For the brightest and the best of the 250,000 Europeans graduating with Computer Science degrees, London is a cheap flight or a bus ride away. They come in their tens of thousands."
"How many tech-based start ups with one idea and seeking early stage funding have you worked for"
I have worked for one, my own company with two others and we had a single revolutionary idea that included computer based learning and an in house bespoke software package we developed to support the process that could be used remotely. We put our own cash into this and looked for cash input from universities but at the time it was very restricted so plodded on ourselves anyway.
This is when CBT or CBL was in its infancy for general use anyway back in 90's though of course simulation was not new. We did work for Cable &Wireless. We also did the process for a Fibre optic jointing training school at BT, training for Scotrail on train engineering and also Toyota cars Uk and into specific areas of the Japanese function for production lines. We were rapidly overtaken as larger companies got on board and to be fair became much better. We also made an error in not expanding I suppose and having only the one main product. Could have been so much different .
So yeah fair cop.....not much really.
Being in the EU has helped us. I don't see any of this 'red tape from Brussels' that the mouthfoamers keep blathering about.
If they aren't fine with us walking away, they should have made some effort to make us want to stay.
An issue for the UK electorate is the contempt with which many feel they've been treated by both the EU over years and the UK political class over the last decade or so. That's probably not something that can be appreciated without being here.
Visas make things more complicated than they are now for all kinds of reasons. As I say, that may be a price worth paying, but we should be honest about it.
Tony Lloyd 42 votes
Ivan Lewis 24
Andy Burnham 15
Isn't this just bias though because you are going from a pool of 60 million people in the UK to a pool of 500 million in the European Union. So you are interviewing the top % of 500 million people and as a result more people will have contributed to open source.
From some data the UK punches well above its weight in contribution to sites such as stack overflow and commits to GitHub... So not sure how we have a dearth of open source contributors???
http://nlpx.net/archives/172
EDIT. And read Cicero's post. It is damning. The damage that is being done to the UK's prospects and reputation to further Boris's personal ambition is literally sickening.
The implied threat to NATO that you and others make is only adding to the deep concern.
It should have been clear for years that lots of people in the UK are unhappy with the EU's direction of travel (for that matter, there are people in other EU countries who are similarly unhappy). But, the doctrine of More Europe remains orthodoxy.
G4S, the world’s biggest security firm, said Mateen carried a gun as part of his duties and that it was trying to establish whether any weapons used in the attack were related to his employment. The company said it had screened Mateen as recently as 2013 with “no findings”, Reuters reported.'
"The outsourcing firms are increasingly dominating the program, federal records show. In recent years, they have obtained many thousands of the visas — which are limited to 85,000 a year — by learning to game the H-1B system without breaking the rules"
H-1Bs are useless for startups. You need to apply in the first 5 days of April to get into the lottery, and then you've perhaps a 1/3 to 1/4 chance of your candidate getting selected. After that it'll be at least a six month wait for a visa. Fortunately for them, US startups have a large pool of American talent.
We could have a quotaless system, but then that's not really controlled migration, and it's hard to see how some sort of stricter quotaless system would be achievable without a lot more red tape.
I utterly resent the fact that leavers are painted as racist. Roger hates the British so much he cannot see he is himself racist. I personally welcome immigration from all parts but it has to be controlled and the people arriving have to be able to contribute. Our foreign aid budget and mine along with millions of other people's charitable contributions help many of the rest in the world.
You raised the issue of a minnow making a threat, frankly HMG will stand by its NATO commitments as it always does. But if Estonia really was that interested in keeping the UK in the EU then it should have stuck its neck out to say there is a serious issue in the UK which we need to solve and people like yourself on trade councils should have been making that point clearly to your opposite numbers.
You didn't.
Bigots.
Roger can be funny and informative, but a democrat he is not.
Lord Snooty and some metropolitan liberals do have a lot in common. Lady bucket is a prime example, and Roger, despite some of his endearing qualities is too
The problem is that stereotyping is common to all groups in society - I'm guilty of it myself - but at least I know I'm doing it.
Here we go ... Muslims tend to hate gays and blow people up, gays tend to be drama queens, luvvies are self-obsessed monomaniacs, scousers have a chip on both shoulders, gypos are thieves (see also scousers), and that's without starting on "darkies".
It's just happens that some are acceptable to the Establishment.
Edit: the professional whingers say it's all about power. Since when has the wwc been "powerful"?
This post shows you are worthy of your moniker.
I suppose we should just bow down before these new Masters of the Universe and give them everything they want.
Or alternately tell them to go f*ck themselves for once.
On a side note, Labour's 48 hour referendum intervention will be pushed aside as a result of the Orlando shooting.
However, they are perhaps the largest UK tech startup and the questions as how much tax such pay.
I guess you could look also at eg Sage, or some video games companies.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2012/02/an-acceptable-hatred/
So in other words the best place outside of the Valley to exploit people?
I really detest this attitude that tends to exist amongst start ups. You mention that there is a lack of STEM graduates, but the truth is probably there is a lack of desireability to enter the Tech Space because of the wages and some of the conditions. Many of my fellow graduates I know went from Engineering / Comp Sci into Banking, Legal or Consultancy because the pay and benefits is much much better. So perhaps the tech scene needs to look at why they are losing UK talent.
Me? I am Computer Engineering graduate and took a pay cut upon graduation to enter the tech industry because it is what interests me. I could have made more money at this point elsewhere so maybe I too am a sucker but I realise this is an issue that makes tech less desirable.
More seriously, I'm one of 20 people who do them. The flow has dropped 90%. The problem is that the anti-immigration atmosphere trumps the problems that HMG accepts affect Chinese business visitors.
You also presumed the Fibre optic training school was in UK.