@paulg have you written anything on the mental attitudes towards success and failure in different places? I’d be interested in hearing your take, specifically (selfishly) UK vs USA.
Not yet, but I probably will one day. I've been here long enough (5 years in July) that I'm starting to feel like I understand what the differences are. One of the biggest obstacles is that starting a startup is intrinsically a somewhat immodest thing to do.
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I’ve been so surprised by the willingness of people in the US to help out, make introductions and generally support us over the past few months and have begun questioning whether London will remain ‘home’ in years to come. Immodesty is right, ambition perceived as hubris perhaps.
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I think America has systems that keep this tradition of helping others out alive and more widespread than in the UK. Fraternities, religion, College, and alumni networks. Heck, YC itself. This does obviously increase the barrier to underserved communities.
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I think you're onto something here. This is especially true for people from poorer/blue collar backgrounds as culturally there is a "they've started a startup, who do they think they are?" - ness about it. This then moves onto "of course it wont work out".
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I have had ideas about differences between US locals, which is probably somewhat universal.
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I think that a lack of optimism about the future is another obstacle. It's hard to imagine launching a space startup when it feels (at least to me, in Europe) that we don't have more than a few years before debt/inflation cause everything to collapse
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In the uk people under 30 don't think they will get anywhere. They can't save for houses easily without family money, the jobs are for the most part disappointing and technical roles lead to middle management. University primarily teaches engineers the ways they can screw up
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