Julie Devonshire OBE, director of the Entrepreneurship Institute at King’s College London, explores what is preventing the UK from producing globally-recognised tech entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg.
All nations want to produce a Zuckerberg of their very own but so few have. America seems especially good at it and has gained materially from big entrepreneurial successes. Britain could gain too so why can’t we produce a Zuckerberg?
Firstly, Britain can, and has previously. Richard Branson is at least one such example. Perhaps Branson’s wealth is not quite in the same super-league as the founders of Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft – but the extent of his entrepreneurial achievements, and the notoriety of his endeavour is equally as famous.
What this highlights, however, is how remarkably rare entrepreneurial success at this global level is. The term sometimes used to describe these industry titans is “Lions”....