King Charles meets with US tech leaders

Britain's King Charles met with U.S. tech leaders on Tuesday as part of his four-day state visit, discussing ​challenges for early-stage startups as the UK touts itself ‌as a top destination for technology firms.

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

Charles noted issues facing ⁠companies formed from work at universities and the difficulty of those ​startups 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."

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.

Charles responded, "You're all ‌deadly ⁠competitors," to laughter.

Huang joked back: "No one has to die." King Charles responded, "Really?" to more laughter.

Bezos recounted starting Amazon in 1995 and that he struggled to raise $1 million from investors, $50,000 at a time, and ​noted 40 said ​no.
The king ⁠responded, "And all those 40 are kicking themselves," to wide laughter.

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 President Donald Trump's visit to the UK that companies including ⁠Microsoft, ​Nvidia, Google and OpenAI had pledged 31 ​billion pounds ($42 billion) in British investments over the next few years, in AI, quantum ​computing and civil nuclear energy.

- Reuters