King Charles meets with US tech leaders, talks start-up challenges

WASHINGTON - Britain’s King Charles met with US tech leaders on April 28 as part of his four-day state visit, discussing challenges for early-stage start-ups as Britain touts itself as a top destination for technology firms.

Among the leaders King Charles met with were Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Alphabet president Ruth Porat.

King Charles noted issues facing companies formed from work at universities and the difficulty of those start-ups getting funding.

“These are the people I always think have the greatest difficulty getting off the ground,” he told the CEOs. “They get into this terrible valley of death.”

Mr Huang noted big areas of opportunity, such as AI and quantum robotics: “We just need a vibrant VC ecosystem and a startup culture,” he told the king, referring to venture capital.

King Charles responded, “You’re all deadly competitors,” to laughter.

Mr Huang joked back: “No one has to die.”

King Charles responded, “Really?” to more laughter.

Mr Bezos recounted starting Amazon in 1995 and that he struggled to raise US$1 million from investors, US$50,000 at a time, and noted 40 said no.

The King responded, “And all those 40 are kicking themselves,” to wide laughter.

King Charles compared people who passed up investing in Amazon to the popular Harry Potter books and how many publishers turned down the book.

The meeting follows an announcement in September during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain that companies including Microsoft, Nvidia, Google and OpenAI had pledged £31 billion (S$53.51 billion) in British investments over the next few years, in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and civil nuclear energy. REUTERS