Back in July, I read a piece by Tom Coates, called Where are all the UK start-ups? His question is interesting, sociologically, because Americans -- who he contrasts with the Brits -- seem so prone to creating start-ups.

My main question is this: Where are all the bloody start-ups? Where are the small passionate groups of creative technologists (people with clue) getting together to build web applications and public-facing products that push things forward? Where is the Blogger or Flickr or Odeo or Six Apart of the UK? What aspect of this country is it that confounds these aspirations? And I know that Audioscrobbler is wonderful. I really love it. But eventually you have to ask - is that really all we can do?

So is it a lack of money or a poverty of ambition?

A recent ChangeThis manifesto may provide some of the answers to this question. John D. Gartner has produced The Hypomanic American that suggests that Americans are naturally inclined to the euphoric, almost manic mindset of entrepreneurialism, perhaps because the frontier has selected the foolish dreamer types of the world to congregate here.

One statistic in general from the manifesto sparked this juxtapositioning of ideas:

When asked, “Do you think that starting a new business is a respected occupation in your community?” 91 percent of Americans said yes, as compared to 28 percent of British and 8 percent of Japanese respondents.

There you have it. If only 28 percent of British think entrepreneurial activities are likely to be respectable, guess where they are going to work? At larger, more well-established (= less risky) companies.

Coates suggests there is an antipathy in Britain between engineers and business people, and that this leads to a disconnect in their dealings. Personally, I believe there is a complete mismatch between risk-averse banker-types and risk-seeking hypomanic types. The crash-and-maybe-burn-or-maybe-strike-it-rich attitude of many entrepreneurs just runs counter to the mindset of the traditional business sort.

Gartner points out that the hypomanic temperment also leads to all sorts of risky behavior -- including sexual indiscretions -- which may account in part for the attitudes of normal folks in countries that have been exporting their foolish dreamer types for centuries. Britain may have to import hypomanics, or breed them, for a surge in new business startups to occur. Maybe its time for a BBC TV series, glamorizing some team of entrepreneurs, played by very, very beautiful people?

[PS Anyone have Tom's email address? Please email to stowe -AT- corante.com]