Sebastian Mallaby: belief

Transcript context

…Would you say it’s South England? Or is it Berlin, or where exactly? Do you think people underrate . . . What do they think about Sweden? Because that’s surprisingly hot, right? You’ve got Spotify based in Stockholm, and all the spinoffs from Spotify, which are bound to come in. Once you’ve got a unicorn which is worth $50, 60 billion — like Spotify is — what that’s telling you is that there’s a whole cadre of people who have experienced dramatic, intoxicating growth from the inside. They are now wealthy. They can start their own new companies. They can become venture capitalists, or they can just become angel advisers to new start-ups. I would say Sweden is going to set up just like Seattle has, based off of Microsoft and Amazon. I think the Spotify halo effect in Stockholm will be pretty big. It’s not just that it’s properly rated; you think it’s underrated? Isn’t Sweden, Stockholm too small to be such a big venture scene if network effects are so important, if clustering is so important? Doesn’t it then have to be London, South England? Or maybe Berlin? I think I would say South England, actually, is the most underrated. Precisely because Spotify is visible, Sweden is doing just fine, but it seems to me properly rated.…

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