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Who

Ross Laurie is a Scottish-born founder who has built tech businesses since the dotcom era, mainly in financial services and business transformation. He now spends much of his time in Malta, where he is involved in a games business. He brings an outside-in perspective on Scotland shaped by practical experience of building in multiple jurisdictions.

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What is the core argument?

Scotland has talent and long-running ambition but struggles to turn effort and spending into durable, scaled outcomes. If you can build from anywhere, countries compete on incentives, cost base, speed, and proximity to decision-makers. Scotland needs a 20-year plan grounded in economics, not slogans.

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What are the key themes?

The shared “thing” is missing. Scotland has lost a clear, proud economic identity that founders can anchor to. Activity in space tech and biotech exists, but nothing yet feels like a unifying story that aligns decisions, capital, and talent. Place competes on incentives, not just people. Talent matters, but incentives and practicality increasingly determine where businesses are built. Cost base, speed of decisions, and access to power are now decisive. Cash is the operating system for growth. The decision to build elsewhere is a cash-and-reinvestment decision. Reduced margins mean less experimentation, hiring, and speed to revenue. Founders make decisions based on survival and upside. The support-to-outcomes gap demands a reset. Scotland is high on per-capita support spending but low on outcomes. If spending and outputs do not match, the system should either stop the spending or do something fundamentally different with it. Cost of living and tax divergence are not abstract. Higher costs mean less runway. Tax divergence between Scotland and England is a real factor at the margin. Growth companies are mobile. AI changes the minimum viable team. One-to-five-person teams using AI agents can build and test rapidly. Scotland is well placed for lean execution — but if you can do it from anywhere, the jurisdiction that gives the best return wins. Countries should operate with a P&L. A 20-year plan forces trade-offs and accountability. Strategy without economics becomes branding. Founders need a clear answer to the question: why build here?

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What ideas were discussed?

  • Draft a 20-year plan with explicit economics and trade-offs, not aspirational language.
  • Redefine success metrics from activity and spend to margin and revenue outcomes.
  • Make “why will this fail?” a standard part of support conversations.
  • Treat Scotland as hubs with different density, not a single national centre.
  • Pilot an AI micro-team playbook for one-to-five-person companies.
  • Copy mechanisms from other countries by constraint, not brand.

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Pledge

Ross Laurie committed to red-teaming the first draft of a 20-year Scotland ecosystem vision and publishing a written critique with alternatives — bringing an outside-in perspective grounded in incentives, cost base, and execution speed.

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Published content