Stan Boland, UK tech entrepreneur and investor, argues that placing large pools of capital into an ecosystem stimulates startup creation rather than waiting for startups to emerge first.
Assertion Supported
Stan Boland: UK's £30B annual tech funding yields virtually no results
“This, 20, thirty billion a year that we pump in at the front end per annum in tech. So, like, a hundred and fifty billion over a parliament in university funding for science and tech, in SEIS, in EIS, in VCTs, in R&D tax credits, and patent box, and so on. All…”
Opinion
Boland: Cumulative UK tax increases are 'shooting ourselves in the foot'
“Yeah, the principles have been, remove non-DOM status, change inheritance tax rules, you know, change capital gain tax, put fees on private schools, and then assume that everybody's going to be happy to stay, really. I mean, yeah, that, that, I just think that…”
Opinion
Stan Boland: UK EIS and VCT fund managers are low quality
“Because the quality of investment managers is quite low and because they feel they've done a good job if they get anywhere close to just returning capital.”
Opinion
Boland: UK should redirect $7.5B R&D subsidy budget into active venture capital
“In my view, it would be much, much, much better to take that same amount of money and put it into funder funds and put it into active venture.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Boland: Jensen Huang publicly berates NVIDIA staff to force improvements
“So he will tear people apart in public on stuff that they've not got command of, or he thinks they're wrong about, and he will, like, rip them to shreds, and leave them whimpering in the corner to lick their wounds but I think he then sort of forgets it and ho…”
Assertion Partly supported
Stan Boland: UK VC fundraising of $3.7B trails US pro-rata target by $12B
“If you look at how much venture capital was raised by US VCs last year, it was about seventy six billion raised in the US. Pro rata to population, the UK should be 15.4 billion. The UK funds raised 3.7 billion last year, so we're short about twelve billion in …”