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I have said the same thing in another post, but I don’t think Australians want to invest in anything innovative. That’s why Atlassian is better listing overseas, only they could truly see the value of Atlassian.
Unfortunately the challenge it deeper than just lack of capital. It’s how Australia as a country treats STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) industry vs FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate) industry.
Currently vast majority of the private debt are going into the FIRE industry. The general consensus of the Australian population is “why invest in STEM when I can invest in secondhand Sydney housing and get ~10%-20% return per year. I will probably lose money investing in those companies, but nothing will beat brick and mortar”. Australia doesn’t lack capital, it’s just that no capital wants to go to STEM. Even with all the political/regulatory/tax road blocks removed, no Aussie wants to invest in anything that don’t guarantee the same return as houses.
Also FIRE jobs currently get vastly more renumeration compared to STEM, and takes a lot less time to get qualified. Real estate agents, financial planners and mortgage brokers only require a diploma that takes several months to complete vs STEM which takes a few years.
I agree with you about investing in STEM jobs and changing the culture. These are definitely things which we need to address if we are to gradually change our economy to increase the percentage of jobs from next-generation industries.
And I agree with you in the past that Australians have not liked investing in innovation.
However, I don’t agree that Australians don’t like investing in innovation in 2015. Matt Barrie has made the point that the Freelancer IPO was in huge demand:
“Mr Barrie said that there was more than $300 million of interest in just $15 million worth of Freelancer’s equity.”
I think it’s that the tech sector needed to have a few large wins to start to educate the investment community about how this stuff works. We learnt it all back during the first dot com boom, but then we forgot it.
Now the rules have changed and we’re learning it all again and bringing investors with us. I think we’ll get where we need to be very shortly — as I have mentioned on Delimiter a number of times, the money is flowing in the streets right now in terms of technology startups. Funding rounds are getting larger every year and the investment funds are getting larger every year. We’re cycling upwards continually :)
I published some more analysis on this back in May 2012 which may be useful:
“Australia’s IT startup scene: Blooming, not dying”
I think the best change they could make is to have an option in Superannuation for small portion of Super to be invested in innovation funding. I would definitely invest at least 5% of my Super towards such purposes.
And I think the start-up is booming only because the Aussie Dollar has dropped from the ridicules high of 90 odd cents, thanks to the unwinding of the mining sector… If only we still had a manufacturing sector (and auto sector post 2017).
Also I think you should consider opening the comments sections to unpaid members. It is very important that we get a community going. Even if unpaid members can’t read the articles, having them in discussions would encourage exchange of dialog between members. Currently you don’t have a critical mass of people to engage conversations in the comments section of paid articles.
“Also I think you should consider opening the comments sections to unpaid members.”
I’m not subbed and can reply
The comments aren’t locked — anyone can comment :)
Also local tech employees are not feeling optimistic.
You’re absolutely correct KX, unfortunately this is a cultural thing that won’t change anytime soon. The Sydney property market is an industry in itself now, a fantasy land of over priced stock.
We seem have a passion for anti-intellectualism in Australia with STEM the main casualty.
Wide ride should be wild ride… Unless you’re talking about lots of fatties or something?
I hadn’t heard of Sausage Software. The Wikipedia entry is hilarious. It lists “Weenies”as one its products. And when you go to the external link you go a page that sells real sausages in the US! Someone needs to complete the Sausage Software history part on Wikipedia as well.
I have said the same thing in another post, but I don’t think Australians want to invest in anything innovative. That’s why Atlassian is better listing overseas, only they could truly see the value of Atlassian.
Unfortunately the challenge it deeper than just lack of capital. It’s how Australia as a country treats STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) industry vs FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate) industry.
Currently vast majority of the private debt are going into the FIRE industry. The general consensus of the Australian population is “why invest in STEM when I can invest in secondhand Sydney housing and get ~10%-20% return per year. I will probably lose money investing in those companies, but nothing will beat brick and mortar”. Australia doesn’t lack capital, it’s just that no capital wants to go to STEM. Even with all the political/regulatory/tax road blocks removed, no Aussie wants to invest in anything that don’t guarantee the same return as houses.
Also FIRE jobs currently get vastly more renumeration compared to STEM, and takes a lot less time to get qualified. Real estate agents, financial planners and mortgage brokers only require a diploma that takes several months to complete vs STEM which takes a few years.
I agree with you about investing in STEM jobs and changing the culture. These are definitely things which we need to address if we are to gradually change our economy to increase the percentage of jobs from next-generation industries.
And I agree with you in the past that Australians have not liked investing in innovation.
However, I don’t agree that Australians don’t like investing in innovation in 2015. Matt Barrie has made the point that the Freelancer IPO was in huge demand:
“Mr Barrie said that there was more than $300 million of interest in just $15 million worth of Freelancer’s equity.”
I think it’s that the tech sector needed to have a few large wins to start to educate the investment community about how this stuff works. We learnt it all back during the first dot com boom, but then we forgot it.
Now the rules have changed and we’re learning it all again and bringing investors with us. I think we’ll get where we need to be very shortly — as I have mentioned on Delimiter a number of times, the money is flowing in the streets right now in terms of technology startups. Funding rounds are getting larger every year and the investment funds are getting larger every year. We’re cycling upwards continually :)
I published some more analysis on this back in May 2012 which may be useful:
“Australia’s IT startup scene: Blooming, not dying”
https://delimiter.com.au/2012/05/18/australias-it-startup-scene-blooming-not-dying/
I think the best change they could make is to have an option in Superannuation for small portion of Super to be invested in innovation funding. I would definitely invest at least 5% of my Super towards such purposes.
And I think the start-up is booming only because the Aussie Dollar has dropped from the ridicules high of 90 odd cents, thanks to the unwinding of the mining sector… If only we still had a manufacturing sector (and auto sector post 2017).
Also I think you should consider opening the comments sections to unpaid members. It is very important that we get a community going. Even if unpaid members can’t read the articles, having them in discussions would encourage exchange of dialog between members. Currently you don’t have a critical mass of people to engage conversations in the comments section of paid articles.
“Also I think you should consider opening the comments sections to unpaid members.”
I’m not subbed and can reply
The comments aren’t locked — anyone can comment :)
Also local tech employees are not feeling optimistic.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-27/gen-y-want-to-take-their-work-elsewhere/6808476
You’re absolutely correct KX, unfortunately this is a cultural thing that won’t change anytime soon. The Sydney property market is an industry in itself now, a fantasy land of over priced stock.
We seem have a passion for anti-intellectualism in Australia with STEM the main casualty.
Wide ride should be wild ride… Unless you’re talking about lots of fatties or something?
I hadn’t heard of Sausage Software. The Wikipedia entry is hilarious. It lists “Weenies”as one its products. And when you go to the external link you go a page that sells real sausages in the US! Someone needs to complete the Sausage Software history part on Wikipedia as well.
Comments are closed.