tired. hungry. happy.

i'm sitting in my hotel room. starving. but looking over and over this room service menu and somehow nothing is sounding good. likewise, i had such an amazing glut of meetings and information today i want to blog. but i'm not sure where to start. i think i'll be processing this trip, and everyone i've met for a long time to come-- and hopefully a return trip.

ok. deep breaths. ordering the penne and asking if they can add chicken. ok done.

now to blogging.

so i've long argued to new york editors i've worked for there's no single picture of "the" silicon valley entrepreneur. it's an amazingly complex scene that simply can't be summed up in one statement -- or for that matter, one profile. London's entrepreneur scene is, no shock, much the same way. maybe more so-- because it's more controversial to be an entrepreneur here-- where in Silicon Valley, it's odd if you're not working for a startup. (or covering them, hello!) otherwise-- why live there?

a few interesting take aways today:

1. you shouldn't compare london to silicon valley because no one is silicon valley. still. i can't help doing it. i've just spent too much time in the valley and the cultural differences between people in two places speaking the same language and basically trying to do the same thing are just fascinating and stunning.

2. index really is the BSD here. on one hand, that's not saying much, because there are so few firms here. according to entrepreneurs, you can count the ones that matter on one hand: index, accel, balderton, and eden. note: 1.5 of those is a silicon valley brand. (balderton used to be benchmark's UK office) on the other hand, indext is impressive because they've successfully outsourced the model and profited from it. the idea is very much "silicon valley style" venture capital -- which from what i hear didn't so much exist here in the 1990s or ever before. it almost took index scooping up returns of MySQL, Skype, and LastFm to even prove it could be a market. and if the valley has taught me anything it's that the biggest proceeds are made when no one thinks there's a market.

3. like anywhere else, there's an in crowd and cliques. Before i left town i asked some of the venture research agencies about US funding levels in the UK and i got a picture that deals had gone down on aggregate but UP in individual amounts. signaling a haves and have-nots scenario. that actually seems quite healthy as an indicator of a budding scene. huge aggregate funding across the board would indicate a bubble. but sizable bets in individual companies seems to indicate a change in the funding scene-- particularly since exits aren't really taking place.

4. entrepreneurs are not the same everywhere. there are common denominators sure. the LastFM guys in particular reminded me of anyone toiling along building something in a down-period of the market who just believes in it and isn't at all trying to "play the game." that said, entrepreneurs in london are fundamentally different. they are not geeks. they are not part of a huge scene. they're not playing a "game" the way the valley is or at least they're not aware of it. not to assign a value judgment one way or the other, but i'd wondered if entrepreneurship was somehow universal and i'm convinced now it's not. which frankly makes traveling and meeting with entrepreneurs around the world more interesting, not less.

penne with chicken is here. more observations to come. i owe tech ticker a post and businessweek a column so at some point (soon hopefully!) i'll condense this all into something more coherent....