I spoke to 600+ founders in San Fransisco. By the end of the night, I felt annoyed. Not at them. At us in the UK... A woman told me she'd failed twice times, burned through her savings, and moved back in with her parents at 31. She listed these like credentials because in that room, they absolutely are... A guy pitched me his company in the toilet. Didn't flinch. Didn't apologise afterwards. Smiled confidentially the whole time. Several founders told me they were sleeping on Sofa's, working multiple jobs to fund their dream and working around the clock to build something which had very little chance of succeeding... 👃🏽 One married couple were building a robot that makes you your own personalised perfume... 🍳 One guy was building a robotic arm that cooks your breakfast for you... 🤖 Another guy was building 3D printers that could make any item you want Everyone speaks the same language here... belief. A city-wide delusion that walls are made of paper, that ignorance is temporary, failure is great, that you should applaud attempts (not just success), and that the only real failure is the one where you didn't swing... In the UK, we tell founders to be realistic. To stay humble. To not get ahead of themselves. To have a backup plan. And if they fail, stutter, or make a mistake - we mock them, ridicule them, and write about their downfall like it's entertainment. I'm not dumb. I realise there is no Linkedin post, that is going to have any impact on our very well established nature. But on an individual level, it helps to realise that other people succeeding in the UK helps everyone - more jobs, a growing economy, more tax receipts, better public services, and so on.. So to celebrate their failure is a form of self-sabotage. We often think the difference between Europe is talent, access, capital. But honestly... the real gap is something else entirely. And I can summarise it in one word... Permission. Permission to be obsessed. To be unbalanced. To have terrible work-life balance without someone on LinkedIn telling you you're toxic. To choose one thing and let everything else suffer for a while. Permission. To look stupid asking a question. To look arrogant giving an answer. To pitch a stranger in a bathroom. To fall flat on your face without having to endure collective ridicule. That permission costs nothing. But it appears to make all the difference! With this in mind, I'm starting work on a new project to give high-potential, under-represented entrepreneurs the implicit permission to pursue their own dreams! (more on that soon 🤐) let me know if you're working on this! And, let me know what you think we do to better enable all of our great talent in the UK?