They are telling you that British technology companies (e.g. software) have failed to become world leaders because of too little growth capital and too much regulation. The solution they want is more of capital and less regulation.
The truth is radically different. Buckle up for reality. The truth is simple. Buckle up. The reasons are simple. Buckle up.
Twenty years ago there were 2 British technology companies in their respective Global 100s. ARM in semiconductors. Sage in software. Today, nothing has changed. ARM and Sage are still the only ones. There have been zero promotions despite huge sums of subsidy.
Here are the real reasons
1. Lack of ambition on the part of the owners
2. Commercial management skill is weak, rare and lacks ambition. Product management, sales management, financial planning skill and talent management are the critical gaps.
3. A general failure to make full use of the business / university interface.
4. Lack of encouragement for the leaders who do try and have a go.
5. Little celebration of success and then investment in further success
6. The British places and British people who have managed to achieve success are barely known, rarely studied for lessons learnt and not thanked.
7. There has been a successful dis-information campaign which has damaged and diverted resources into backwaters leaving the true causes untouched.
8. The Kill Zone has taken care of any companies which overcame these barriers and looked promising. The Kill Zone means a US acquisition but check their vacancies page to see if recruitment stops.
You are reading this and thinking that my account is radically different from anything you have read before. You are sceptical. Well hear this.I'll tell you about my evidence and my credentials and you can make up your own mind. But also, I want you to think about the provenance and energy behind the fake diagnoses.
Who am I?
2026 is my 50th year in the UK computer industry.
I have more medals and accomplishments than, as far as I know, anyone else. People say I am the most successful UK tech commercial executive. Let's take taking a UK software company to US market leader with dominant market share. Done that with 3 separate companies from the UK without becoming a US company. And we reached not just dominance but crushed all the US players out of sight.
NASDAQ?
I led the Micromuse IPO on NASDAQ. Micromuse came from Wandsworth in London SW18. We made Netcool / OMNIbus for BT and I sold it to every other network operator on the planet. Achieving 90% market share we beat HP, IBM, DEC, OSI and CA. Under my leadership the company grew from 10 to 800 people. The value grew from $10m to a peak valuation of $15.2 billion. Any countries difficult to access directly, I used Cisco as a private label OEM for Cisco Infocenter. Cisco sold us as a line item into every PTT. On the planet.
IPR in Netcool? We kept it. As a commercial contract barrister from the number one UK commercial chambers, I made sure we kept all the IPR.
PLAY IT AGAIN - SIMON
I was in demand to tell my story. Simon Galbraith from Redgate Software attended one of the lunch time seminars which I held in the Cambridge Computer Lab. He wanted help with sales. This was 2003. Redgate was then 10 people. So I helped and then coached Simon. I joined the advsiory board. I joined full time. I taught Simon, the team and re-organised.
Redgate is now the crushingly dominant US market leader in over 95% of US top 1000. All from a call centre in Cambridge and without any VC. With 500 people, huge margins and an emphasis on hiring fresh graduates and training them up, this does not fit the narrative. The company has recently been valued at around £1 billion.
Simon also has several more of the same scale such as Gearset.
PIRICAL REACHES THE PINNACLE
Now we have done it a third time. I served as the chairman of my McKinsey colleague, Jason Ku, helping him grow his company to dominant US market leadership from an office in London. Pirical makes a lawyer candidate directory with over 750,000 lawyers detailed. Used by recruiters for candidate sourcing, it is hugely cheaper than headhunter fees. Pirical built a system for.a top London Magic Circle law firm and then sold a copy to every leading law firm on the planet. In my 6 years with them, I personally supervised the campaign to win in Wall Street and we went LEOPARD hunting.
THERE ARE NOW $450 BILLION REASONS TO RING CAMBRIDGE
Having won very big 3 times, we never noticed a single regulatory barrier in our way and with the exception of one occasion never needed any capital to win our battles. Why not share the love? So I founded and grew the Cambridge Computer Lab Ring for companies founded by our graduates. The Cambridge Computer Lab had hired me along the way.
And here we are today with 371 companies founded by our graduates listed in our Ring Hall of Fame collectively worth $450 billion dollars. These companies and their value are the costless byproduct of the normal activities of a computer science department. No subsidy. No IPR. No help (from outside). We did this in stealth mode to avoid angering the narrative. That proved to be very wise. Our unfair advantage was the cunning use of wooden golf club style honour boards.
Never noticed any regulation. And while some Hall of Fame companies did raise some capital, it was rare and only in small amounts.
I COULD GO ON AND ON FROM CROWN REP TO SEEDCAMP
The G - Cloud Digital marketplace enabled 100s of SMEs to grow their businesses. Kainos was a favourite of mine. I told them to IPO on LSE explaining that as I had run 2 public companies with no relevant experience, it must be childishly simple. The Kainos founders believed me and now have a £1 billion market cap on LSE.
SEEDCAMP
My final story. London Dynamo is the UK's largest road cycling club. Richmond Park laps on Saturday morning was my life. Through and Off. I decided to on-board the newbies each week (to create my own "slow" group.) I rode a handmade Condor Leggero from Gray's Inn Road and had 8 other bikes.
Carlos Espinal shows up one day and I take him in my group. For a few years. We tour in Spain, France, the UK, Wales and everywhere. Then I notice he is Managing Partner at Seedcamp. What caught my eye was his Unicorn count. This was in 2018. In exchange for me teaching Carlos to cycle, I got an interview at Seedcamp as a Venture Partner. And in 2018 I passed and Reshma Sohoni and Carlos hired me.
Out of a portfiolio of 750, Seedcamp now has 9 unicorns. Revolut is worth £75 billion.
CONCLUSION
Never bumped into any regulatory barrier to growth and I'm a barrister.
Capital doesn't write product, sell product or hire people. At least I have never come across a bank account, a bag full of bank notes or bank transfer that can work in a software company. I have never met a King Baby with any relevant management skill (in the UK). Maoblny do in the US. Capital has never been a problem.
So would the authors of the regulatory / capital barrier narrative please meet me at a public debate to explain their claims and their motivation.
Meanwhile everything you need to know has been published by me here
V useful article! Thank you
hard to disagree with this
They are telling you that British technology companies (e.g. software) have failed to become world leaders because of too little growth capital and too much regulation. The solution they want is more of capital and less regulation.
The truth is radically different. Buckle up for reality. The truth is simple. Buckle up. The reasons are simple. Buckle up.
Twenty years ago there were 2 British technology companies in their respective Global 100s. ARM in semiconductors. Sage in software. Today, nothing has changed. ARM and Sage are still the only ones. There have been zero promotions despite huge sums of subsidy.
Here are the real reasons
1. Lack of ambition on the part of the owners
2. Commercial management skill is weak, rare and lacks ambition. Product management, sales management, financial planning skill and talent management are the critical gaps.
3. A general failure to make full use of the business / university interface.
4. Lack of encouragement for the leaders who do try and have a go.
5. Little celebration of success and then investment in further success
6. The British places and British people who have managed to achieve success are barely known, rarely studied for lessons learnt and not thanked.
7. There has been a successful dis-information campaign which has damaged and diverted resources into backwaters leaving the true causes untouched.
8. The Kill Zone has taken care of any companies which overcame these barriers and looked promising. The Kill Zone means a US acquisition but check their vacancies page to see if recruitment stops.
You are reading this and thinking that my account is radically different from anything you have read before. You are sceptical. Well hear this.I'll tell you about my evidence and my credentials and you can make up your own mind. But also, I want you to think about the provenance and energy behind the fake diagnoses.
Who am I?
2026 is my 50th year in the UK computer industry.
I have more medals and accomplishments than, as far as I know, anyone else. People say I am the most successful UK tech commercial executive. Let's take taking a UK software company to US market leader with dominant market share. Done that with 3 separate companies from the UK without becoming a US company. And we reached not just dominance but crushed all the US players out of sight.
NASDAQ?
I led the Micromuse IPO on NASDAQ. Micromuse came from Wandsworth in London SW18. We made Netcool / OMNIbus for BT and I sold it to every other network operator on the planet. Achieving 90% market share we beat HP, IBM, DEC, OSI and CA. Under my leadership the company grew from 10 to 800 people. The value grew from $10m to a peak valuation of $15.2 billion. Any countries difficult to access directly, I used Cisco as a private label OEM for Cisco Infocenter. Cisco sold us as a line item into every PTT. On the planet.
IPR in Netcool? We kept it. As a commercial contract barrister from the number one UK commercial chambers, I made sure we kept all the IPR.
PLAY IT AGAIN - SIMON
I was in demand to tell my story. Simon Galbraith from Redgate Software attended one of the lunch time seminars which I held in the Cambridge Computer Lab. He wanted help with sales. This was 2003. Redgate was then 10 people. So I helped and then coached Simon. I joined the advsiory board. I joined full time. I taught Simon, the team and re-organised.
Redgate is now the crushingly dominant US market leader in over 95% of US top 1000. All from a call centre in Cambridge and without any VC. With 500 people, huge margins and an emphasis on hiring fresh graduates and training them up, this does not fit the narrative. The company has recently been valued at around £1 billion.
Simon also has several more of the same scale such as Gearset.
PIRICAL REACHES THE PINNACLE
Now we have done it a third time. I served as the chairman of my McKinsey colleague, Jason Ku, helping him grow his company to dominant US market leadership from an office in London. Pirical makes a lawyer candidate directory with over 750,000 lawyers detailed. Used by recruiters for candidate sourcing, it is hugely cheaper than headhunter fees. Pirical built a system for.a top London Magic Circle law firm and then sold a copy to every leading law firm on the planet. In my 6 years with them, I personally supervised the campaign to win in Wall Street and we went LEOPARD hunting.
THERE ARE NOW $450 BILLION REASONS TO RING CAMBRIDGE
Having won very big 3 times, we never noticed a single regulatory barrier in our way and with the exception of one occasion never needed any capital to win our battles. Why not share the love? So I founded and grew the Cambridge Computer Lab Ring for companies founded by our graduates. The Cambridge Computer Lab had hired me along the way.
And here we are today with 371 companies founded by our graduates listed in our Ring Hall of Fame collectively worth $450 billion dollars. These companies and their value are the costless byproduct of the normal activities of a computer science department. No subsidy. No IPR. No help (from outside). We did this in stealth mode to avoid angering the narrative. That proved to be very wise. Our unfair advantage was the cunning use of wooden golf club style honour boards.
Never noticed any regulation. And while some Hall of Fame companies did raise some capital, it was rare and only in small amounts.
I COULD GO ON AND ON FROM CROWN REP TO SEEDCAMP
The G - Cloud Digital marketplace enabled 100s of SMEs to grow their businesses. Kainos was a favourite of mine. I told them to IPO on LSE explaining that as I had run 2 public companies with no relevant experience, it must be childishly simple. The Kainos founders believed me and now have a £1 billion market cap on LSE.
SEEDCAMP
My final story. London Dynamo is the UK's largest road cycling club. Richmond Park laps on Saturday morning was my life. Through and Off. I decided to on-board the newbies each week (to create my own "slow" group.) I rode a handmade Condor Leggero from Gray's Inn Road and had 8 other bikes.
Carlos Espinal shows up one day and I take him in my group. For a few years. We tour in Spain, France, the UK, Wales and everywhere. Then I notice he is Managing Partner at Seedcamp. What caught my eye was his Unicorn count. This was in 2018. In exchange for me teaching Carlos to cycle, I got an interview at Seedcamp as a Venture Partner. And in 2018 I passed and Reshma Sohoni and Carlos hired me.
Out of a portfiolio of 750, Seedcamp now has 9 unicorns. Revolut is worth £75 billion.
CONCLUSION
Never bumped into any regulatory barrier to growth and I'm a barrister.
Capital doesn't write product, sell product or hire people. At least I have never come across a bank account, a bag full of bank notes or bank transfer that can work in a software company. I have never met a King Baby with any relevant management skill (in the UK). Maoblny do in the US. Capital has never been a problem.
So would the authors of the regulatory / capital barrier narrative please meet me at a public debate to explain their claims and their motivation.
Meanwhile everything you need to know has been published by me here
https://medium.com/@stephenallott