[echubb]

Here in Ireland we're constantly hearing about "the knowledge economy" but I think it has yet to materialise. Ever since Intel set up shop here we've managed to attract the biggest movers in technology to set up their European HQ.

So much so in fact that the bigger European countries constantly bitch about us, citing our 12.5% corporation tax rate to mask their own failure in attracting these investments. The real reason probably has to do with the fact our spoken English is the best in the world and years of "free" fees for college places have resulted in a hugely educated population.

Producing indigenous firms which don't serve niche markets is still beyond us. This is probably due to a conservative funding community with the "spend way more than you need, we'll refund it after" model, as well as university students majoring in "safe" subjects like arts, languages or business rather than mathematics and computer science.

Even for those students majoring in compsci, they gear you towards getting a job, not starting your own company.

[dkersten]

I dunno.. I think our corporate tax does have a lot, if not close to everything, to do with companies basing their European headquarters here (eg, see Double Irish/Dutch Sandwich [1]). Our spoken English isn't as amazing as you make it out to be (its certainly not bad, but best in the world?? besides, have you ever been to Cork ;-) or certain parts of Dublin for that matter...) and while the "free" fees certainly helped our education, I still feel our education is inferior to a lot of the rest of the world. For example, computer science-related courses are still not attracting as many students as it should, even though, here in Ireland, IT jobs are much more plentiful than others [2].

Of course, regardless of how great we think we are as a startup hub, I've seen very little focus on startups here. Besides the occasional startup weekend, nubie.ie and Enterprise Ireland (which, IMHO, isn't very useful to a lot of - if not most - Internet tech startups), I see absolutely nothing here that shows any kind of innovation or advancements in the way of startups. Which is a pity, because I think that would be a great start to improving the economic situation.

university students majoring in "safe" subjects like arts, languages or business rather than mathematics and computer science

Funnily (or sadly) enough, I think the "safe" subjects are the ones that are really feeling the full force of the economic problems, while jobs in sciences, from where I stand anyway, are reasonably plentiful (well, compsci anyway, I haven't paid much attention to others since they're not relevant to me personally).

Even for those students majoring in compsci, they gear you towards getting a job, not starting your own company.

Agreed. This is definitely the case here. I think its holding back our potential, but I don't know what could be done about it really.

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-sho...

[2] for example, http://irishdev.com/Home/News/1403-The-State-of-Play--IT-Gra... though from personal experience I know this to be true for all kinds of computer/programming related jobs

[fedd]

> our spoken English is the best in the world

better than in England? :)

[echubb]

Yep. If you go to some parts of South Dublin, Kildare, Cork, Galway (where the technology hubs in ireland are, incidentally) the accents are very neutral and easy to understand. Several European news stations with a spoken english bulletin use Irish presenters for this reason.

[nfg]

> Producing indigenous firms which don't serve niche markets is still beyond us.

I'm not sure about that, I've been in Havok (http://www.havok.com/) for several years now, very successful Irish startup in the Games/Entertainment space (hardly a niche), acquired by Intel three years ago ($100m+). Granted there's room to improve in terms of the number of indigenous startups, but there are success stories out there.

[dkersten]

In my opinion, Havok is an outlier success story though. Sure, there are a few other Irish startups that achieved phenomenal global success, but they are relatively few and far between when compared to the more startup-focused places like SV.

[nfg]

True, I was mostly responding to the notion that:

> Producing indigenous firms which don't serve niche markets is still beyond us

It certainly isn't "beyond us", but as you say it's not happening as much as one would hope.

[dkersten]

Ah, I agree. Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant the first time around.

[patrickk]

What about Stockbyte? Sold for $136m in 2006.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0406/stockbyte-business.html?rss

Also, Jerry Kennelly (who sold Stockbyte), is running a seed capital program somewhat similar to YC, called the Endeavour program: http://www.endeavour.biz/ application date was yesterday. I posted a comment here the other day that we need to stop this Irish attitude of moaning about everything, and start doing stuff.

Another funding program:

http://www.ndrc.ie/

From what I've heard also, the banks are being forced to provide funding to startups, but that there isn't enough demand as of yet.

Check http://siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/ regularly to see what's going on in Ireland in relation to startups.

[dkersten]

Regarding Stockbyte, I never said there wasn't any other successful Irish startups besides Havok, just that they are few. We can hope that this is improving though.

Thanks for the links, though. Very useful. Hopefully the two funding programs are better than EI and the other ones I've seen in the past. I definitely see the startup situation improving here, its just happening very slowly and I think a greater focus on startups would be good for our economy (though I don't know what more can be done to help that along).

[patrickk]

"....though I don't know what more can be done to help that along"

Both my parents are secondary level teachers, yet I hold the controversial opinion that we should put a huge emphasis on teaching the basics of computing and programming to children at the primary school level. I remember doing some light programming in BASIC on a toy VTech "computer" when I was about ten, but I would have progressed far quicker and learned "skillz to pay teh bills" if there was someone who could've opened my eyes to the possibilities of programming at a younger age.

[dkersten]

I agree, that would be a very beneficial thing for science and compsci in general, not just startups.

Actually, I was EXTREMELY disappointed with our second level computer education (in relation to computers). Out of my class, only one other person went on to study something computer related (and not a computer science degree). The school made little effort in trying to promote such things and instead focused on the usual (mechanical) engineering and business type things that are (or were when I was in school, anyway) so popular. Yet those are industries (as far as I see, anyway) badly affected by the recession. Schools, in my experience - I'm sure some are better than others in this respect, put much too little emphasis on computer education, even though it has become such an integral part of most peoples lives and certainly of business. I think some solid computing and programming education for primary level children would be a great advancement for our country, but honestly, second level education is so lacking in that area that I think any additional computing-related education would be beneficial.

In fact, it should be a mandatory part of education for everyone. Even if most people are disinterested and do something else, the problem solving and analysis skills would serve them well whatever they do. It would also expose people to computers and programming who would otherwise have overlooked them. For example, all this hype about getting women into computing could, in my opinion, be tackled by introducing everybody, male and female, at an early age.

[echubb]

I'm not suggesting that Ireland is devoid of successful startups, just they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. We have also had Baltimore, Iona etc but we should be producing way more.

[zeemonkee]

Best in the world ? Try Inverness, Scotland.