Are they just a self-perpetuating reputation scam, or do they actually lead to real economic activity and growth? It can be both, but it can't be entirely the former if you think the startup edge is due to the universities.
I didn't see the list of notable startups. There's a section about "noteworthy growth and decline" but it's not got a list. For the other lists it's not clear how they're ordered.
> It's questionable whether the "startup hub seed" would have germinated had the UK not been in the EU
So why didn't it germinate everywhere else in the EU to the same extent?
This seems like wishful thinking. The startup capital of the world is the USA, notably not in the EU. The EU has done many things that are clearly startup and tech-hostile, but it's hard to think of policies that help. The EU is structurally designed to make it easier for France to sell agricultural products and Germany to sell manufactured products, but one of the reasons the UK didn't benefit economically from membership is because the EU doesn't make it easier to sell services (and the UK not benefiting is under-reported but unambiguously the case, see the recent Parliamentary report on trade ratios post leaving [1]). Yet many tech startups are software-as-a-service, so lack of a single market for services really makes the EU irrelevant to the tech ecosystem.
> It's pretty clear that an island company faces more market hurdles than a continental one
It's not that clear. The British Empire was a global trade based empire long before the internet existed. It's only got easier since then.
The universities are not a scam and do count. "Self-perpetuating reputation scheme" simply means positive network externalities for good professors, researchers and students, who seek each other out. The glorious antiquated buildings don't mean much.
Similarly, a startup hub means positive network externalities for good founders, workers and investors. Much like planets clean out orbits, hubs tend to not be nearby. I don't have a good read on whether the London hub will persist or be overcome by an EU one. It will depend on which force wins out.
As for your comments about the EU's role, these seem political in nature and I just happen to mostly disagree.
I didn't see the list of notable startups. There's a section about "noteworthy growth and decline" but it's not got a list. For the other lists it's not clear how they're ordered.
> It's questionable whether the "startup hub seed" would have germinated had the UK not been in the EU
So why didn't it germinate everywhere else in the EU to the same extent?
This seems like wishful thinking. The startup capital of the world is the USA, notably not in the EU. The EU has done many things that are clearly startup and tech-hostile, but it's hard to think of policies that help. The EU is structurally designed to make it easier for France to sell agricultural products and Germany to sell manufactured products, but one of the reasons the UK didn't benefit economically from membership is because the EU doesn't make it easier to sell services (and the UK not benefiting is under-reported but unambiguously the case, see the recent Parliamentary report on trade ratios post leaving [1]). Yet many tech startups are software-as-a-service, so lack of a single market for services really makes the EU irrelevant to the tech ecosystem.
> It's pretty clear that an island company faces more market hurdles than a continental one
It's not that clear. The British Empire was a global trade based empire long before the internet existed. It's only got easier since then.
[1] https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-... (read it carefully, civil service bias is apparent but the data is objective)