What was most striking about the glitzy launch of London's Tech Week[1] was that the speakers weren't pitching to the venture capitalists or tech entrepreneurs or reporters, although there were plenty of them there.
The people they really had in mind were the capital's school kids who made up a big portion of the audience.
Cities like London are keen to attract and retain high-value tech jobs, but as the capital's tech ecosystem is growing there is a strong sense that the mistakes of Silicon Valley should not be repeated.
While the tech companies of Silicon Valley create innovative technologies with far-reaching benefits, and generate vast profits and great wealth for their employees and investors, there are still big downsides.
These companies are regularly criticised for fuelling a property boom that makes it all but impossible for regular workers to live in the city they are employed in.
SEE: Launching and building a startup: A founder's guide[2] (free PDF)
These companies are seen as aloof and disengaged from the broader community and creating extreme inequalities of wealth and opportunity -- of haves (the 'tech bros') and have-nots (everyone else).
London already shares a few of San Francisco's problems: super-high property prices and rents that make it hard for small companies to find a toehold being the most obvious. But while it is growing, London's tech scene is only one element of the capital's economy.
The speakers at the opening of London Tech Week didn't take the easy option of reciting the big numbers that London's boosters have used to demonstrate that the city's tech ecosystem is growing well and still well ahead of Paris and Berlin.
Instead, they made a plea