Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The State of European Tech 2016

atomico.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 78 posts

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#51

Post by cplanas »

kriro wrote: post #37
glenndebacker wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Every European developer's final 'dream' is to work in the US tech industry - London is the second best thing to reach." Maybe in the pre-Brexit or pre-Trump era but today... . I turned down a London offer because of the uncertainty Brexit brings and I'm certainly not alone. It's not that Great Brittain or the US is that political stable with al that happende the last couple or months.

To be fair, Europe isn't much stabler imo. AFD in Germany in the 15-20% range, Le Pen might win in France etc.

Europe is much, much stabler, at least right now. I follow the political polls in Europe and what you say is... mostly not true.

> AFD in Germany in the 15-20% range

According Wikipedia, no poll ever has given AFD more than a 15%, with the vast majority giving it around a 12.5% (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_German...). Even if AfD would get to 20% (which it's very far away from their predicted results) it's very unlikely they would get to the government.

> Le Pen might win in France

She might, but right now is very unlikely, much more than a Trump victory or Brexit. The problem is that she is losing in the polls by... a lot. For the French presidential election, all polls predict Fillon v. Le Pen. The only two polls conducted since Fillon was chosen candidate give him +34 and +42 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_French...). 42 points was the distance between President-elect Trump and Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, in the last election.

I'm not saying it's impossible. Just very unlikely. The errors in the polling for the US Presidential Election and the Brexit referendum were much smaller.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#52

Post by selestify »

superuser2 wrote: post #39
kriro wrote: post #35

Regarding salary. I think 45-50k Euro is a pretty decent entry level salary in Germany if you're coming out of university (debt free) depending on the region. That may look shocking compared to the SV numbers but you can live a good life off 50k and a lot of the stuff will be taken care of (education of your children, healthcare) which reduces the stress level quite a bit. If you want to start a company, you'll face…

Healthcare is absolutely taken care of for American six-figure tech workers. My premium is $2.50/mo and all my care is free or for a nominal fee, like $20. US healthcare is systemically broken, but not for people who command high wages. Having kids in college is at least 30 years out. Knowing that an expense 30 years away will be taken care of is better than the alternative, but would do nothing for my stress level i…

> Having kids in college is at least 30 years out

It takes 18 years for kids to grow up and go to college right? Do you mean that you know you won't have kids for at least another 12 years?

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#53

Post by CmdrSprinkles »

superuser2 wrote: post #39
kriro wrote: post #35

Regarding salary. I think 45-50k Euro is a pretty decent entry level salary in Germany if you're coming out of university (debt free) depending on the region. That may look shocking compared to the SV numbers but you can live a good life off 50k and a lot of the stuff will be taken care of (education of your children, healthcare) which reduces the stress level quite a bit. If you want to start a company, you'll face…

Healthcare is absolutely taken care of for American six-figure tech workers. My premium is $2.50/mo and all my care is free or for a nominal fee, like $20. US healthcare is systemically broken, but not for people who command high wages. Having kids in college is at least 30 years out. Knowing that an expense 30 years away will be taken care of is better than the alternative, but would do nothing for my stress level i…

Pretty much.

Our firm is actively not in Silicon Valley (or CA at all). And as such, we don't offer six figure starting salaries. And that does hurt us when it comes to getting new grads as they say "I can go work for Google and get paid X. Or I can work for you and get a fraction of that"

But the smart ones realize that cost of living is a LOT cheaper out here and that fraction goes a lot farther. I have colleagues who went the SV-industry route and one weekend over beers we realized I had saved more per year AND had far more "dicking around" money than they did. And I live by myself (no SO not by choice, but no flatmates is) rather than having three flatmates. Their salaries are still a fair amount higher than mine, but my cost of living is a tiny fraction of theirs.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#54

Post by hocuspocus »

superuser2 wrote: post #39
kriro wrote: post #35

Regarding salary. I think 45-50k Euro is a pretty decent entry level salary in Germany if you're coming out of university (debt free) depending on the region. That may look shocking compared to the SV numbers but you can live a good life off 50k and a lot of the stuff will be taken care of (education of your children, healthcare) which reduces the stress level quite a bit. If you want to start a company, you'll face…

Healthcare is absolutely taken care of for American six-figure tech workers. My premium is $2.50/mo and all my care is free or for a nominal fee, like $20. US healthcare is systemically broken, but not for people who command high wages. Having kids in college is at least 30 years out. Knowing that an expense 30 years away will be taken care of is better than the alternative, but would do nothing for my stress level i…

Peace of mind with healthcare isn't so much about one-off costs when you catch a nasty flu. What happens if you're unable to work for months/years due to a health issue? Will you be able to pay your expensive rent and other expenses without worries?

Also you're a bit naive if you think raising kids will cost you only once they go to college. If you compare direct (daycare, preschool) and indirect (like moving to a good neighborhood) costs in the Bay area vs. a big European city, the difference is easily 5 figures year. And then there are things like parental leave.

But of course, as a 20-something you might not need these things.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#55

Post by expertentipp »

freekh wrote: post #42

Yeah, so this is a pr stunt. However there are many really good startup scenes here in Europe in my experience. Stockholm is one of them: "everything" in the heart and kids departments taken care of. Lots of ambition and talent. Comparatively low vagues so less burn. Lacking VCs, but the startups that have made it invest a lot here (time and money and mentoring). Compared to the craze in sf, i would say this is the p…

Sweet, how's the apartment rental market in Stockholm?

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#56

Post by s_kilk »

selestify wrote: post #52
superuser2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare is absolutely taken care of for American six-figure tech workers. My premium is $2.50/mo and all my care is free or for a nominal fee, like $20. US healthcare is systemically broken, but not for people who command high wages. Having kids in college is at least 30 years out. Knowing that an expense 30 years away will be taken care of is better than the alternative, but would do nothing for my stress level i…

> Having kids in college is at least 30 years out It takes 18 years for kids to grow up and go to college right? Do you mean that you know you won't have kids for at least another 12 years?

Well, if theyre ~20 right now, and don't want to have kids until their 30s, that sounds about right

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#57

Post by nec4b »

You can ask yourself how many big companies that came into existance for example in last 20 years are from the USA or from the EU. That tells you a lot how vibrat the industry is on either side of the atlantic.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#58

Post by matt_o »

matt4077 wrote: post #41
matt_o wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually 25000 euros. This was somewhat fixed with the introduction of the mini-GmbH (GmbH - something like Ltd.), but a mini-GmbH comes with some extra strings attached, so it's still very far from a UK Ltd. or a US LLC in terms of ease of setting up. This is indeed an obstacle to creating a company, but there are quite a few more, all having to do with just plain ol' bureaucracy (handling monthly tax reporting…

There have always been options to start without capital requirements, usually at the price of personal liability. The idea is that you need a bit of "skin in the game" to protect vendors. If you're in something like software and have no immediate plans for employees or large investments you can get the bureaucracy done in 30 min. It's literally a one-page form with address, name, purpose.

Well, my "self-employement" form was actually 8 pages long and it featured a lot more items than address, name, purpose and processing it took about 4 weeks. To be fair, I could start my business as soon as I sent that out, but I could not invoice clients until I got the reply, which included my new tax number. This is how it works in Germany. Add on top of that the mandatory monthly VAT tax reporting.

That is a significantly higher cost of entry when compared with an Ltd/LLC, not to mention a sole proprietorship.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#59

Post by throwaway1892 »

cplanas wrote: post #51
kriro wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Europe isn't much stabler imo. AFD in Germany in the 15-20% range, Le Pen might win in France etc.

Europe is much, much stabler, at least right now. I follow the political polls in Europe and what you say is... mostly not true. > AFD in Germany in the 15-20% range According Wikipedia, no poll ever has given AFD more than a 15%, with the vast majority giving it around a 12.5% ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_German... ). Even if AfD would get to 20% (which it's very far away from their predic…

And even if Le Pen is elected in France, the election for the parliament the following month would surely go in the opposite direction, meaning her power would be limited (since, in France, the government is chosen from the party with the majority in the parliament).

Still, I don't think that Le Pen would be that bad, especially considering the failures of the two last présidents.

Re: The State of European Tech 2016

#60

Post by matt4077 »

matt_o wrote: post #58
matt4077 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have always been options to start without capital requirements, usually at the price of personal liability. The idea is that you need a bit of "skin in the game" to protect vendors. If you're in something like software and have no immediate plans for employees or large investments you can get the bureaucracy done in 30 min. It's literally a one-page form with address, name, purpose.

Well, my "self-employement" form was actually 8 pages long and it featured a lot more items than address, name, purpose and processing it took about 4 weeks. To be fair, I could start my business as soon as I sent that out, but I could not invoice clients until I got the reply, which included my new tax number. This is how it works in Germany. Add on top of that the mandatory monthly VAT tax reporting. That is a sign…

Here's the sole proprietorship form, it's actually one page: http://www.hamburg.de/Dibis/form/pdf/Formular-Gewerbeanmeldu... – but obviously it depends a lot on the individual circumstances (like the tax ID you need for cross-border transactions). VAT is annoying, but it's only monthly if you're above 120000 Euro or so. We've started only filling in our revenue (which I can get within a few seconds) and file the tax we paid to suppliers with the yearly declaration. It's much faster to do it all in one go.
Post reply on HN