Paul Graham once wrote that all you need to replicate Silicon Valley are two things: rich people and smart, ambitious founders. Everything else, fancy office parks, startup incubators, even government schemes, is extra. He’s right.

London certainly has rich people. But here’s the issue: they’re mostly not tech investors. I’ve organized lots of startup networking events around Canary Wharf, and guess who turns up most often? Property developers. Finance people. Investors who proudly pitch me deals offering “safe” 1 percent returns. Imagine giving someone £150,000 just for a safe 1 percent annual return. Sure, it’s secure, but is that how billionaires got rich? Definitely not. Look at the world’s richest people, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates. Almost every billionaire at the top is in tech, not property or finance. I’m not giving anyone financial advice, by the way. Please don’t sue me.

The other problem London faces is cultural. People here are incredibly risk‑averse. Smart young graduates from Oxford or Cambridge go straight into finance or consultancy instead of building something themselves. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, except it doesn’t produce innovation, it produces predictability. To build the next Silicon Valley, you need founders who embrace risk, who see failure as a learning experience rather than a disaster. That’s what’s still missing here.

Another obstacle London has is simple but important: the weather. London weather is famously awful, grey skies, endless rain. Young, smart, ambitious founders typically prefer somewhere sunny and enjoyable. But oddly enough, I’ve found that when I’m in the UK, especially alone, I work harder than anywhere else. There’s something about the gloomy weather that pushes me to be productive. So maybe bad weather isn’t entirely terrible. Still, sun would be nicer

Rome, though, could be incredible. Think about it, building your startup while sitting at a café, eating pizza bianca and carbonara. Sunshine, amazing food, and fantastic scenery. Rome also has Sapienza, one of Europe’s top universities, with strong engineering and computer science departments. But even with great weather and a world‑class university, Rome struggles with something essential: bureaucracy. Founders hate bureaucracy because startups depend on speed and flexibility, exactly the opposite of Italy’s complicated red tape.

If not London or Rome, then which city in Europe could realistically become the next Silicon Valley? I’ve met some fascinating people at my events who’ve offered insights. For example, I met Maria Ilina at The Sipping Room in Canary Wharf. She came all the way from Lisbon and told me how Lisbon is becoming a big deal for startups. It surprised me, I had no idea Lisbon had grown so popular among smart, ambitious founders. It’s sunny, affordable and welcoming, exactly what young founders want.

Similarly, Peter Hauner, a product manager at UnternehmerTUM in Munich, attended another one of my events [1]. He explained how Berlin is thriving as a startup hub. The city’s universities have great incubators and accelerators, producing exactly the kind of ambitious founders Silicon Valley attracts. Amsterdam also gets mentioned a lot, although it’s more expensive than Lisbon or Berlin.

Maybe Silicon Valley isn’t the only possible destination for smart founders. Why not Europe? Europe has something California never will, history, charm and a deep cultural richness. Imagine combining the ambition, talent and wealth of Silicon Valley with the beauty and history of Rome, the vibrant culture of Lisbon or the creative buzz of Berli

Paul Graham called them “nerds,” but whatever term you prefer, we need more smart, ambitious founders to stop playing safe and start chasing big, risky ideas right here in Europe. All it takes to start Europe’s own Silicon Valley is this cultural shift: investors willing to take bigger risks, founders choosing startups over safe jobs and a shared belief that failure isn’t a disaster but simply part of the journey.

So why settle for Silicon Valley’s template when you could found your own empire in Rome, the city that taught the world how to build them?

Thanks to Liam Mckill, Haroon Akram, and Richard Kelly for reading drafts of this essay.