Rise above Brexit shock and stay dynamic, tech leaders urge

Call: Baroness Lane Fox of Soho is one of the signatories
Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for DIAGEO

More than 50 technology business chiefs have called on entrepreneurs to “look forward, not backwards” after the shock of the Brexit vote to send a clear message about their optimism for Britain’s future.

The group of mainly London-based tech bosses and investors, led by internet grandee Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho, said in a defiant letter to the Evening Standard it was “vital” to let the world know that the UK “will never stop being a competitive, entrepreneurial and dynamic place to innovate and create jobs”.

The letter concedes that the nation is “shell-shocked” and that most entrepreneurs “wanted the UK to remain in the EU, and we’re all grappling with the new reality we find ourselves in”.

However, it said the “worst thing to do now” would be dwell on the result and not look to the future.

Rohan Silva
Nigel Howard / Evening Standard

The letter added: “The real risk today is that the warnings of economic decline and predictions of a diminished role for Britain in the world become self-fulfilling, which would be a tragedy for the country, and would have a deeply negative impact on people’s jobs and livelihoods.”

The 58 signatories to the letter are a roll call of some of the biggest names in London’s tech industry, which some experts predict will overtake the City as a provider of jobs in the capital.

They include Ed Wray, co-founder of the Hammersmith-based Betfair online gambling exchange; Bruce Daisley, managing director of Twitter in the UK; Rohan Silva, former tech adviser to David Cameron and co-founder of Shoreditch workspace provider Second Home, and Gerard Grech, chief executive of east London technology cluster Tech City.

The signatories said: “Whichever way you voted, now is the time to lean in — and as entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders, that’s what we’ll all be doing in the days, months and years ahead.”

The letter follows a number of blogs from technology firms urging the sector to “Keep Calm and Code On”.

One from Mayfair-headquartered internet investment firm Atomico said: “We’ve seen this over and over again. Microsoft and FedEx started out in the 1973-1975 oil crisis and US recession. Skype was founded in 2002, during what was still the dotcom nuclear winter. Airbnb, Spotify and Uber were born during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. This, if it turns out to be a crisis, will be no different.”

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