I believe London has co-opted (in the Naomi Klein sense) the US startup scene. We do all the superficial activity: incubators, pitches, hackathons, and so on, but it is driven by government initiatives and established businesses.<p>- There are many copies of the US startup accelerators, but the people running them do not seem to have the same level of experience and connections as in the US.<p>- Much of the activity is due to business students, both at bachelors level and MBA, who are somehow &quot;trained&quot; in &quot;entrepreneurship&quot;. They &quot;win&quot; startup pitch competitions based on some slides and sales forecasts, then troll CS departments, alumni mailing lists and tech meetups looking for coders. I know this is an old stereotype (and that business skills are critical too) but it is very true here.<p>- The government is often heavily involved. I wouldn&#x27;t call myself a libertarian, but I think we would be better off without cringeworthy gov initiatives like &quot;tech city&quot;, state-funded startups (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;interact.innovateuk.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;interact.innovateuk.org&#x2F;</a>) and university entrepreneurship schemes that look a lot like a way to boost new grad employment figures.<p>It all feels like a pale imitation of the US tech industry. Obviously there is some bias in terms of the US companies we hear about, but most people are thinking very small here.<p>A few years ago a friend and I coded up an idea we had over a few weekends. It was more complex than a straight CRUD app and had some nice visualisations, but nothing too crazy. We met several &quot;startup advisors&quot; through our contacts and at meetups. Every time we finished describing our idea, people would ask us if we were having any luck &quot;finding programmers&quot; to implement it.