alt Hacker NewsIn many ways the UK is a tragic country: top tier talent in many areas, hamstrung by political, management, financial, and media culture rooted in the 19th century, and wholly colonised by offshore owners and foreign powers.
Many of the country's assets and infrastructure are now literally owned abroad, and run for the benefit of foreign owners.
You regularly get outbreaks of talent like GDS, and they regularly get sidelined/eaten/shut down if they're not aligned with corporate ownership.
Yes, I also think ossified social structures have a lot to do with it. You work up the chain of management and eventually you find the son of the Earl of Tossingham, who turns out to be completely ineffectual.
The US has avoided that fate up until this point but when I look at Larry Ellison’s son buying Paramount with dad’s money, the Trump juniors cashing in on their dads name (and to your point, all of them happily taking investment from the Saudis) I do have a sense of history repeating itself.