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Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#101

Post by thcsa »

Loic wrote: post #69

The most important quote: "Sweden’s impressive start-up record can also be attributed to some broader aspects of how the country is set up. Its social safety net, for instance, helps entrepreneurs feel safe to take risks. In Sweden, university is free, and students can get loans for living expenses, which allows anyone to pursue higher education. Health care is free too, and childcare is heavily subsidized. None of t…

Austria also has a very good social safety net, free universities and subsidized childcare - and we have very few startups, because people just don't like to take risks here.

Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#102

Post by johankmagnusson »

ajpkco wrote: post #88
victor106 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some successful startups that are based out of Sweden?

I'd say Spotify, Skype and King (Candy Crush) are good examples. I'd count Mojang (Minecraft) too.

And Tictail and Truecaller. I would also count Skype as Swedish and also Soundcloud even though I think they moved to Berlin pretty early on.

Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#103

Post by tnzn »

flexie wrote: post #76
Loic wrote: post #69

The most important quote: "Sweden’s impressive start-up record can also be attributed to some broader aspects of how the country is set up. Its social safety net, for instance, helps entrepreneurs feel safe to take risks. In Sweden, university is free, and students can get loans for living expenses, which allows anyone to pursue higher education. Health care is free too, and childcare is heavily subsidized. None of t…

Other Scandinavian countries are also doing quite well, way beyond what their size would suggest. But also well beyond other countries with developed welfare systems, such as France. I think these discussions always miss one key factor: Language. If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. If you don't ge…

France's safety net is shit for auto entrepreneurs so this could explain that.

Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#104

Post by KozmoNau7 »

TrickyRick wrote: post #77
erikbye wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swedes are very different from, say, Norwegians. Swedes are forthcoming and ambitious; if you succeed in your ambition, you're celebrated by your countrymen (so long what you're doing is in the politically correct sphere). You're allowed to be proud of your achievements. Norwegians keep their head down; most seem content with what little they have. If you do achieve more success than your average countrymen, you're s…

Strongly disagree. As a swede I've been taught my entire life not to think I'm special or in any way better at anything than anyone else. It's only in recent years I've come to realize that being good at something does actually give you the right to say you're good at it as long as it's true and not empty bragging. That's not to say Swedes aren't hard working but you'll rarely hear a swede talk about their achievemen…

Which also makes it sound extremely crass and impolite when an American expat living here goes into full-on self-aggrandizing mode.

Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#105

Post by KozmoNau7 »

erikbye wrote: post #70
ThomPete wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That summary would apply more or less to any Scandinavian country so those can't be the reason.

Swedes are very different from, say, Norwegians. Swedes are forthcoming and ambitious; if you succeed in your ambition, you're celebrated by your countrymen (so long what you're doing is in the politically correct sphere). You're allowed to be proud of your achievements. Norwegians keep their head down; most seem content with what little they have. If you do achieve more success than your average countrymen, you're s…

Dude, have you ever actually been to Scandinavia? Because wow, those are some deep misconceptions.

Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#106

Post by scrdhrt »

Kiro wrote: post #74
z3t4 wrote: post #71

Sweden have good working morale and extremely high unemployment rates among young people that often have high education. If you start a tech company you will be flooded with applications and you can cherry pick talents. The entry wage for developers are around $25,000 year, yes year, not monthly!

I have no idea why you think that. I can assure you that no developer in Sweden gets paid that little.

As a former tech recruiter in Stockholm I can assure you that they do. These devs, however, usually do not have a degree from university/college, and are either juniors and/or self taught. If you look at the university/college educated devs the story is different, but not by that much.

Entry level median salary for devs without higher education from the year I left recruitment (2013/2014) was 28000 USD per year. Add 3000 USD for entry level devs with university/college education.

YMMV but I don't think things have changed that much since then.

Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#107

Post by Iv »

tnzn wrote: post #103
flexie wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other Scandinavian countries are also doing quite well, way beyond what their size would suggest. But also well beyond other countries with developed welfare systems, such as France. I think these discussions always miss one key factor: Language. If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. If you don't ge…

France's safety net is shit for auto entrepreneurs so this could explain that.

Healthcare is still free. Let's stay a bit smug in front of our mainly US audience.

Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#108

Post by KozmoNau7 »

johankmagnusson wrote: post #96

I've considered launching a start-up of my own here in Sweden so I've given the pros and cons some thought, and it is virtually risk free. To summarise, compared with other countries, we may have even more of the upside but the downside is capped at a very anxiety free level. These are a few of the reasons: - highly skilled labour is cheap in absolute terms and the cost to performance ratio for such workers is probab…

"please fill me in here Norwegians, Danes and Finns!"

Well, Skype is half-Danish, so there's that :-)

Others that I know of are Unity (founded in Copenhagen), Zendesk (started in Copenhagen), Steelseries, Endomondo, Just-Eat, Tradeshift, Trustpilot, Flying Tiger, Sitecore, TC Electronic, Soundboks, Navision.

It kinda depends on how you define "startup". Bu no, not quite as many as Sweden, but we do have our own established large companies that have spun off into daughter companies in different areas or helped create successful startups.

Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#109

Post by mlevental »

flexie wrote: post #76
Loic wrote: post #69

The most important quote: "Sweden’s impressive start-up record can also be attributed to some broader aspects of how the country is set up. Its social safety net, for instance, helps entrepreneurs feel safe to take risks. In Sweden, university is free, and students can get loans for living expenses, which allows anyone to pursue higher education. Health care is free too, and childcare is heavily subsidized. None of t…

Other Scandinavian countries are also doing quite well, way beyond what their size would suggest. But also well beyond other countries with developed welfare systems, such as France. I think these discussions always miss one key factor: Language. If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. If you don't ge…

>If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age.

china and russia beg to differ?

Re: Why Does Sweden Have So Many Startups?

#110

Post by flexie »

tnzn wrote: post #103
flexie wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other Scandinavian countries are also doing quite well, way beyond what their size would suggest. But also well beyond other countries with developed welfare systems, such as France. I think these discussions always miss one key factor: Language. If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. If you don't ge…

France's safety net is shit for auto entrepreneurs so this could explain that.

Still doesn't explain why I can't name a hugely popular programming language, library or framework created by a French programmer but several by Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Dutch, all small countries but where English is a very strong second language. I'm sure there are great French programmers and programming languages, but doesn't is strike you as remarkable that there are not more?

From a country of 5 million (Denmark) you got the creators or cocreators of C++, C#, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Turbo Pascal etc. From a country of 60 million you got ...?

France is a a power house in so many other engineering fields like nuclear power, auto industry, aviation etc so they clearly have engineering talent. But in software, not so much.

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