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Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

independent.co.uk

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Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#71

Post by sametmax »

graniter wrote: post #65

As an American living and working in France, this sounds like a scenario where France would love to have the results and benefits of a startup boom, but they don't want to take the necessary steps to enable it. Having a bunch of free money or easy visas are actually not what will cause a boom. France is notorious for never-ending paperwork and administration, and it's true. It's like trying to swim in molasses. You c…

+1. We have a culture problem.

French companies won't take risks. Banks fund only very classical projects. And it's very hard to get money or when you do get it, it's a small amount. Everybody ask for rock star programmers and put them on boring tasks and don't pay them well. Eventually they quit or never come so they can work for non french companies.

And it's not a problem of skills. The french society produce plenty of skilled managers, devs or innovators.

We just make just those skills will always be underused. We had barriers everywhere to protect the old, avoid uncertainty and fit.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#72

Post by sametmax »

graniter wrote: post #65

As an American living and working in France, this sounds like a scenario where France would love to have the results and benefits of a startup boom, but they don't want to take the necessary steps to enable it. Having a bunch of free money or easy visas are actually not what will cause a boom. France is notorious for never-ending paperwork and administration, and it's true. It's like trying to swim in molasses. You c…

+1. We have a culture problem.

French companies won't take risks. Banks fund only very classical projects. And it's very hard to get money or when you do get it, it's a small amount. Everybody ask for rock star programmers and put them on boring tasks and don't pay them well. Eventually they quit or never come so they can work for non french companies.

And it's not a problem of skills. The french society produce plenty of skilled managers, devs or innovators.

We just make just those skills will always be underused. We had barriers everywhere to protect the old, avoid uncertainty and fit.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#73

Post by marsRoverDev »

allan_s wrote: post #10
vmarsy wrote: post #7

I can see those cuts in corporate tax being good to increase startup competition. Some of the other big remaining issues to see highly successful startups are salaries and lack of tech talent. We could argue that startup salaries aren't the highest anyways, so if salary isn't too big of an issue if French startup can provide equity easily. It seems that when you exercise stock options in France, you don't need to pay…

I agree with you on most parts. However I come from a private "engineering" school focused on computer sciences (named Supinfo) and there's some others (Epitech / Epita ) that though they don't deliver a engineer diploma (as per the law-regulated definition of engineer) but rather a master diploma (but that you can name "engineer in computer science" or somekind of trick like that and the schools play on that to attr…

I am about to start a software startup in Toulouse, where would you recommend hiring people from?

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#74

Post by allan_s »

marsRoverDev wrote: post #73
allan_s wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on most parts. However I come from a private "engineering" school focused on computer sciences (named Supinfo) and there's some others (Epitech / Epita ) that though they don't deliver a engineer diploma (as per the law-regulated definition of engineer) but rather a master diploma (but that you can name "engineer in computer science" or somekind of trick like that and the schools play on that to attr…

I am about to start a software startup in Toulouse, where would you recommend hiring people from?

You mean in term of "where are they graduated from " (which school/uni) ?

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#75

Post by allan_s »

bsaul wrote: post #14
allan_s wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on most parts. However I come from a private "engineering" school focused on computer sciences (named Supinfo) and there's some others (Epitech / Epita ) that though they don't deliver a engineer diploma (as per the law-regulated definition of engineer) but rather a master diploma (but that you can name "engineer in computer science" or somekind of trick like that and the schools play on that to attr…

Imho , schools like those don't do enough "hard" science, like math, to prepare you for the future. Have you done enough linear algebra to work on image processing, or with neural networks , and understand the various parameters to tweak the libraries ? Done enough logic (the math branch) to understand the deep nature , or at least feel the taste of the type systems to come ( scala, haskell and now more and more swif…

I had some course about linear algebra, though I agree only the very basics (matrix multiplication etc. but nothing fancy about convolution etc. so I would need to follow a course to be able to implement a raytracer for example)

About neural network, also we didn't learned it, but we learned prolog and lips. And prolog itself was a "mind blowing" moment that I would not have exchanged against quantum physics or more maths.

I'm learning rust right now, so I think it's more about the mindset, the school being here mostly to open up your mind about subjects.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#76

Post by linkregister »

weberc2 wrote: post #55
linkregister wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that critics are far more shrill than they should be. However, there is some basis for their fears of an authoritarian push: significantly high proportions of his campaign speeches used authoritarian imagery and themes. His closest advisors were outspoken for advocating authoritarian viewpoints. In hindsight, he was using that rhetoric aspirationally with no intention of doing the intensely hard work and dedi…

Even with "authoritarian undertones", it's never been clear to me what sort of Very Bad Things Trump might do to warrant the hysterics. What is a realistic worst-case scenario? Do we really think he's going to make himself dictator or implement some soviet-esque authoritarian government? I don't see a scenario where he does more than temporarily obstruct progress for a few years. I guess it's just odd that everyone i…

From this point, yes. During the campaign, it appeared that Republican leadership were acquiescing to most of his demands. It's clear now that he has little political support for most of his policies. The Republicans are using him as a vehicle to sign bills into law and little else.

The things he wanted to do during his campaign that may have seemed credible: 1) Muslim ban, 2) Libel law strengthening, 3) Increased law enforcement action, "stop and frisk" policies. None of these lead to an authoritarian state, they just erode the Democratic norms of the Republic.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#77

Post by astrange »

throwaway-1209 wrote: post #59
astrange wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person, not the campaign. Besides, he's under investigation now for firing Comey… although not much to investigate when you admit committing crimes on TV.

Let me remind you that you know of this from the same sources which, until Comey's testimony, swore on a stack of bibles that Trump is under investigation.

Is this a primary source?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/87570147199986483...

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#78

Post by throwaway-1209 »

astrange wrote: post #77
throwaway-1209 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me remind you that you know of this from the same sources which, until Comey's testimony, swore on a stack of bibles that Trump is under investigation.

Is this a primary source? https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/87570147199986483...

Different investigation

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#79

Post by prodmerc »

weberc2 wrote: post #29
atonse wrote: post #2

Paradoxically, while Trump has accomplished very little but make speeches, the damage his presidency has done to our image, and perception of how welcoming America is, will be felt for years. It's bringing back memories of our dismal global perception around 2006-2008. (Although this wasn't for "America is unwelcoming" reasons)

I hope no one thinks that Trump is emblematic of a country that elected Obama 4 and 8 years prior. I can only imagine Trump is a passing fad; then again, I said that at every stage of his campaign...

Well, it's more like with each president over the past two decades, everyone became more aware that the US is not the benevolent/welcoming/whatever democracy it said it was.

And with Trump's open imbecilic statements, it's like a switch went off in people's heads - "hey, they US is really not the benevolent/welcoming/whatever democracy it said it was!"

It will reduce it's importance a bit for the next decade. Leave it to Trump's successors to strike the final blows.

I don't know why the fuck you guys are talking about the US and Trump in this thread, btw.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#80

Post by prodmerc »

orbifold wrote: post #21
atonse wrote: post #2

Paradoxically, while Trump has accomplished very little but make speeches, the damage his presidency has done to our image, and perception of how welcoming America is, will be felt for years. It's bringing back memories of our dismal global perception around 2006-2008. (Although this wasn't for "America is unwelcoming" reasons)

At least from my perspective so far he is not significantly worse so far than say George W. Bush, he might be if he starts new wars, but that seems unlikely. Pretty much all the previous presidents screwed over the rest of the world in some way or another. Just to give you an example in 2013 in 35% of Germans believed the US government to be trustworthy (Snowden NSA spying revelations) according to infratest dimap, n…

But they did so covertly. Which is very important, since this is how the USA operates - "we help you guys" while getting benefits for themselves.

Trump just openly bashes everyone, like a complete moron.

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