Vision
Founders are made, not flown out.
The case for London, and for staying.
The flight
Every year the best teams in this city are told the same thing: to be serious, go west. Some go. The programmes that found them often help them pack.
It is not that San Francisco makes better founders. It backs them earlier, in a room, with conviction. Those are choices. They can be made here.
What London already has
- The deepest pool of technical talent in Europe, and the universities that refill it.
- Customers. The industries the next companies will serve are headquartered here: finance, law, property, insurance, energy, health.
- Capital that has made its money and wants a stake in what comes next.
- A time zone that talks to Asia in the morning and America in the afternoon.
What it lacks
One thing. A room where three people can be backed before it is safe, by someone whose own money went in first.
That is not a policy problem. It is a building and a decision.
The decision
Whitmont is the decision, and London is where the Room will be. Founders who are made here should be able to stay here, and the ones who arrive should find a reason not to leave.
I am one of the ones who arrived. What this city did for me is in the Founder's Letter. It worked once, by accident. It can be built on purpose.