WASHINGTON — America’s employers added 12,000 jobs in October, a total that economists say was held down by the effects of strikes and hurricanes that left many workers temporarily off payrolls. The report provided a somewhat blurry view of the job market at the end of a presidential race that has pivoted heavily on voters’…
When a government announces tax hikes and entrepreneurs celebrate, you know something’s deeply wrong. Yet that’s exactly what happened in Britain this week, as tech founders cheered Labour’s “modest” increase in capital gains tax—simply because they’d feared worse. It’s like watching passengers applaud because their delayed flight finally took off: The relief is real, but it misses the bigger problem.
I’ve watched this drama unfold from a unique vantage point. My company, Cleo, was born in London in 2016 but now operates entirely in the United States. Moving to America went beyond market size—it was a stark recognition that Britain stifles ambitious tech companies.
The surface-level explanations are familiar. Brexit yanked Britain from the world’s largest trading bloc. A decade of austerity squeezed public investment. Political chaos — five prime ministers in five years — spooked investors. But these are symptoms of a deeper disease: Britain has built an economy that rewards playing it safe over taking bold risks.
Look at the London Stock Exchange’s biggest companies. They’re dominated by oil giants such as BP, mining companies such as Rio Tinto, cigarette makers such as British American Tobacco, and traditional banks such as HSBC. These aren’t just mature businesses—they’re sunset industries. They don’t create new jobs, they don’t drive innovation, and they certainly don’t position Britain for the future.
The scale of our missed opportunity becomes clear when you look at the numbers: American venture capital firms manage $270 billion in assets, while European VCs collectively manage just $44 billion. This represents more than a funding gap—it’s a chasm that separates ambition from achievement. It’s the difference between building the next generation of world-changing companies and watching from the sidelines.
Contrast this with America’s transformation. Over the past two decades, the U.S. created conditions where tech companies could prioritize growth over immediate profit. Stock markets embraced companies that poured money into expansion rather than dividends. Their regulators balanced oversight with innovation. The result? Seven of the world’s 10 most valuable companies are now American tech firms.
Britain has the basic ingredients for a similar transformation. Our universities rank among the world’s best. London’s financial sector rivals New York’s. Our talent pool runs deep. Even our cost structure should be an advantage: European tech companies can hire senior software engineers for half what they cost in Silicon Valley, and our employees stay in their jobs nearly twice as long. This combination of talent stability and cost efficiency should be rocket fuel for growth.
Yet despite these advantages, we’ve failed to build the ecosystem that turns promising startups into global giants. When our companies do succeed, they often outperform their American counterparts—which makes our systemic failures all the more frustrating. These failures are painfully concrete. British public markets demand profitability too soon, pushing growing companies to sell out early. Our venture capital scene has plenty of money for startups—but it dries up when companies need hundreds of millions to compete globally. Our regulators often seem more focused on restricting innovation than enabling it.
Even our tax incentives, while well-meaning, reflect this small-thinking mindset. Programs such as the Enterprise Management Incentive scheme help startups give stock options to early employees, and research & development tax credits support initial innovation. But these tools were designed for modest growth, not for building the next Google or Amazon.
This isn’t a partisan issue. Many of Britain’s most important tech-friendly policies were introduced by previous Labour governments. But they were created for a different era, when “tech” meant adding a website to your traditional business, not rebuilding entire industries from the ground up.
Britain needs more than tweaked tax rates. We need a complete rethink of how we support technological innovation. We need stock markets that reward long-term investment. We need regulators who see their role as enabling progress, not just preventing harm. We need growth capital that keeps companies in Britain as they scale.
Most crucially, we need to rebuild our appetite for risk and ambition. The current system pushes British founders toward cautious growth, early exits, or moving abroad. Beyond individual companies, this shapes the very economy we’ll leave to our children.
Labour’s restraint on capital gains, amid broader tax increases, shows they’re listening to Britain’s entrepreneurs. But listening isn’t enough. Britain needs to make a fundamental choice: continue our cautious path and watch the future happen elsewhere or unleash the full potential of our entrepreneurs. We have the talent. We have the ideas. What we need now is the courage to think bigger.
More must-read commentary published by Fortune:
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Data Foundation and Crosswalk Labs Provide Open Data on Neighborhood-Level Emissions in United States – Technology Today – EIN Presswire
The critically acclaimed film, The Shawshank Redemption, is set to grace our television screens this weekend, giving fans another opportunity to indulge in the 1994 prison drama. The movie will be broadcast on Sunday 3 November at 10pm on BBC Two, and for those who can’t tune in at that time, it will also be…
The critically acclaimed film, The Shawshank Redemption, is set to grace our television screens this weekend, giving fans another opportunity to indulge in the 1994 prison drama. The movie will be broadcast on Sunday 3 November at 10pm on BBC Two, and for those who can’t tune in at that time, it will also be…
Warner Bros. Pictures
Throughout her already prolific career, producer/actor Margot Robbie has proven herself to have a taste that’s as discerning as it is eclectic. Most actors attempt to demonstrate their ability to take on as large of a range of projects as possible, yet the demands of the business and marketing sides of the film industry usually see them typecast in some form, usually in a genre if not a specific type of role. This is why Robbie’s career is worth pointing out for how diverse it is; she’s been able to find a niche for herself that has allowed her to easily move between action films, dramas, period pieces like “Mary Queen Of Scots,” comedies, genre flicks, and prestige pics, all while growing her A-list status and not being relegated to either an awards-bait character actor or a paycheck-bait comic book movie star. As a producer, she’s demonstrated a steady dedication to supporting either emerging or established female talent behind the camera. In short: she’s a real hip lady.
It’s likely she got her personal sense of cool from her family, friends, and so on, but it’s also fairly telling that the film she’s gone on record calling her favorite movie of all time happens to be one of the hippest movies ever made. During a roundtable interview with MTV News on the eve of the release of Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” Robbie was ecstatic when interviewer Josh Horowitz brought up 1993’s “True Romance,” initially to pitch Brad Pitt’s character Floyd as the greatest stoner character of all time. Robbie upped the ante, explaining that not only is “True Romance” her favorite but that she “walked down the aisle to the ‘True Romance’ music” when she was married. Fun fact: that music, by Hans Zimmer, is a winking adaptation of a Carl Orff piece, previously and famously used in a movie that was a huge influence on “True Romance,” Terrence Malick’s “Badlands.” Though naysayers could claim that Robbie was merely brown-nosing Tarantino by picking a movie he wrote, one only needs to look at Robbie’s career for proof that she has a genuine love for the exploits of Clarence and Alabama.
Margot Robbie’s films demonstrate her love for ‘True Romance’
Warner Bros. Pictures
In Tarantino’s filmography, “True Romance” is one of the two scripts he sold off (the other being “Natural Born Killers”) while trying to get his directing career off the ground, which he eventually did one year before “True Romance” was released with “Reservoir Dogs.” While a Tarantino-directed “True Romance” would’ve been a fun time, it would’ve been a different movie than the one we got, which was directed by the late, great Tony Scott. It’s the peanut-butter-and-jelly combination of Tarantino’s film dork edginess and Scott’s slick, experimental humanism that gives “True Romance” its special verve, making it unique within the careers of both filmmakers. While Scott and Tarantino’s influence on ’90s cinema led to a lot of imitators, “True Romance” stands proud as a movie that’s equal parts grounded, over-the-top, satiric, and, yes, romantic.
The core subgenre of “True Romance” is the “lovers on the run” movie, films that involve at least two romantically involved characters who for whatever reason run afoul of the law. These films (“Badlands,” “Thelma & Louise,” and “A Life Less Ordinary,” to give some examples) contrast the affection of the protagonists with the dirty deeds they must do in the name of love. This same tonal contrast between sweet and sour can be seen in many of Margot Robbie’s films, certainly in the trifecta of “Suicide Squad,” “The Suicide Squad,” and “Birds of Prey,” and her penchant for portraying people just this side of the law in movies like “Focus,” “I, Tonya,” and the underseen “Dreamland” demonstrates her interest in finding the hearts of gold within outwardly disreputable criminals. There are echoes of Patricia Arquette’s Alabama from “True Romance” within many of Robbie’s characters, women who unabashedly own their sex appeal as much as their strength and independence: Naomi in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Sharon Tate in “…In Hollywood,” Nellie in “Babylon,” and yes, even “Barbie.”
Robbie’s body of work is a testament to just how well she understands the appeal of her favorite film of all time, as she takes to heart the multi-faceted aspects seen in “True Romance.” In other words, she’s not simply a fan of the snappy dialogue, slick cinematography, fashion, etc. She has an eye on the big picture, a quality that’s allowed her to continue to be a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. To sum it up by paraphrasing “True Romance” itself: she’s so cool.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Throughout her already prolific career, producer/actor Margot Robbie has proven herself to have a taste that’s as discerning as it is eclectic. Most actors attempt to demonstrate their ability to take on as large of a range of projects as possible, yet the demands of the business and marketing sides of the film industry usually see them typecast in some form, usually in a genre if not a specific type of role. This is why Robbie’s career is worth pointing out for how diverse it is; she’s been able to find a niche for herself that has allowed her to easily move between action films, dramas, period pieces like “Mary Queen Of Scots,” comedies, genre flicks, and prestige pics, all while growing her A-list status and not being relegated to either an awards-bait character actor or a paycheck-bait comic book movie star. As a producer, she’s demonstrated a steady dedication to supporting either emerging or established female talent behind the camera. In short: she’s a real hip lady.
It’s likely she got her personal sense of cool from her family, friends, and so on, but it’s also fairly telling that the film she’s gone on record calling her favorite movie of all time happens to be one of the hippest movies ever made. During a roundtable interview with MTV News on the eve of the release of Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood,” Robbie was ecstatic when interviewer Josh Horowitz brought up 1993’s “True Romance,” initially to pitch Brad Pitt’s character Floyd as the greatest stoner character of all time. Robbie upped the ante, explaining that not only is “True Romance” her favorite but that she “walked down the aisle to the ‘True Romance’ music” when she was married. Fun fact: that music, by Hans Zimmer, is a winking adaptation of a Carl Orff piece, previously and famously used in a movie that was a huge influence on “True Romance,” Terrence Malick’s “Badlands.” Though naysayers could claim that Robbie was merely brown-nosing Tarantino by picking a movie he wrote, one only needs to look at Robbie’s career for proof that she has a genuine love for the exploits of Clarence and Alabama.
Margot Robbie’s films demonstrate her love for ‘True Romance’
Warner Bros. Pictures
In Tarantino’s filmography, “True Romance” is one of the two scripts he sold off (the other being “Natural Born Killers”) while trying to get his directing career off the ground, which he eventually did one year before “True Romance” was released with “Reservoir Dogs.” While a Tarantino-directed “True Romance” would’ve been a fun time, it would’ve been a different movie than the one we got, which was directed by the late, great Tony Scott. It’s the peanut-butter-and-jelly combination of Tarantino’s film dork edginess and Scott’s slick, experimental humanism that gives “True Romance” its special verve, making it unique within the careers of both filmmakers. While Scott and Tarantino’s influence on ’90s cinema led to a lot of imitators, “True Romance” stands proud as a movie that’s equal parts grounded, over-the-top, satiric, and, yes, romantic.
The core subgenre of “True Romance” is the “lovers on the run” movie, films that involve at least two romantically involved characters who for whatever reason run afoul of the law. These films (“Badlands,” “Thelma & Louise,” and “A Life Less Ordinary,” to give some examples) contrast the affection of the protagonists with the dirty deeds they must do in the name of love. This same tonal contrast between sweet and sour can be seen in many of Margot Robbie’s films, certainly in the trifecta of “Suicide Squad,” “The Suicide Squad,” and “Birds of Prey,” and her penchant for portraying people just this side of the law in movies like “Focus,” “I, Tonya,” and the underseen “Dreamland” demonstrates her interest in finding the hearts of gold within outwardly disreputable criminals. There are echoes of Patricia Arquette’s Alabama from “True Romance” within many of Robbie’s characters, women who unabashedly own their sex appeal as much as their strength and independence: Naomi in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Sharon Tate in “…In Hollywood,” Nellie in “Babylon,” and yes, even “Barbie.”
Robbie’s body of work is a testament to just how well she understands the appeal of her favorite film of all time, as she takes to heart the multi-faceted aspects seen in “True Romance.” In other words, she’s not simply a fan of the snappy dialogue, slick cinematography, fashion, etc. She has an eye on the big picture, a quality that’s allowed her to continue to be a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. To sum it up by paraphrasing “True Romance” itself: she’s so cool.
(Photo provided)Star Pools owner Terry Gerberg points to intangibles when
asked how serving in the military impacted his life as an entrepreneur.
A specialist E-4 during a four-year stint in the Army
Reserves in Texas, Gerberg doesn’t require much of the book knowledge he
learned from his time in the service, which focused on decontamination
operations, but the Army still aided him immeasurably as a small-business
owner.
“Being in the military really helped me as far as being
able to talk to people and lead people,” he said. “The military instills
amazing leadership skills.”
After Gerberg, a Texas native, got out of the Army
Reserves in 2008, he took the advice of one of his brothers, who was working
for a pool company in the Atlanta area.
“The company was involved with repairing equipment, pool
plastering, and other things,” Gerberg said. “He told me I should check it out,
and I really liked it.”
He later joined another company and learned how to handle
pool-leak detection. Eventually, he took over as the head of the Myrtle Beach
area for the company.
After several years of working for someone else, Gerberg
decided to start his own company in 2022.
Star Pools, based in Conway, locates and fixes leaks,
repairs fiberglass, and does commercial work. It even began installing
fiberglass pools this year. Star also has a retail store for pool supplies and
offers free water testing.
“We fix problems that can be five or 10 years old, such
as locating and fixing leaks,” Gerberg said. “A lot of companies don’t want to
fix problems; they just want to install new pools. That’s where we come in.”
Gerberg has seven employees and another 20 individuals he
uses as contract labor. He’s working to get into the market south of Florence
and said someday he’d like his company to serve all of South Carolina.
Gerberg said there’s a big difference between working for
a company and owning a company.
“Working for someone else is a lot easier than owning
your own business,” he said. “You never turn it off when you own your own
business. There are many nights when I lay awake thinking about jobs that are
coming up and how to best handle them.
“I don’t have anyone to call when I have questions, and
instead people are calling me with questions,” he added. “It’s a different kind
of stress, but it’s 100 percent worth it. You can control everything you do.”
Gerberg offered advice for those considering starting
their own businesses.
“Do all the research you can before you jump into it, and
don’t jump into it blind like I did,” he said. “There’s a big learning curve,
so do your homework.”
Gerberg also stressed the importance of being scrupulous
and straightforward.
“I pride myself on being very transparent and honest, and
that’s how I get my business,” he said. “I don’t advertise, but instead rely on
word of mouth.”
Ibotta launches SNAP rewards benefiting more than 40 million people in the United States – Technology Today – EIN Presswire
BritishAmerican Business (BAB) has announced the appointment of Alastair Borthwick, Chief Financial Officer of Bank of America, as its Chair, and Sean Doyle, Chairman and CEO of British Airways, as its Vice Chair.Alastair succeeds Gavin Patterson, who has completed his term as Chair, and BAB extends its gratitude to Gavin for his leadership and contribution to the Board. BritishAmerican Business CEO Duncan Edwards said: “We are grateful to Gavin for his service and pleased to have Alastair and Sean take on these leadership roles. These are two iconic British and American companies and the combined knowledge and leadership that Alastair and Sean bring to the table will be invaluable to BAB. Their guidance will help ensure that BAB continues to be the most influential and effective organisation for its members.”Incoming Chair Alastair Borthwick said:“BritishAmerican Business plays a crucial role in protecting and enhancing the economic corridor between the United States and the United Kingdom. As a longstanding member of BAB, I look forward to supporting global leaders across the network as we continue to strengthen transatlantic trade and investment.”
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