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

Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

nextrends.swissnexsanfrancisco.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 197 posts

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#91

Post by whatshisface »

llukas wrote: post #66
whatshisface wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but if nobody in your country wants to conquer the world then the others will never reap the benefits of someone having conquered a piece of it.

How they'd reap the benefits if big corps and rich individuals do not pay their share of taxes? SF locals that are priced out of their city would have likely different opinion.

You have to strike a balance. If there's no personal ambition then there's no wealth to redistribute. If there's no fairness then one person takes everything and the whole thing stops. To that end, why shouldn't people fully invest themselves in their role? Expecting CEOs to manage social fairness would be a massive conflict of interest - so we should probably expect other people to keep tabs on that.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#92

Post by bogomipz »

timewarrior wrote: post #3

I have been involved with Swissnex and been advising Swiss startups for some time. I also go to Switzerland every other year if not every year and meet with startups there. Things I noticed: 1. Incredibly smart people. 2. Behind Silicon Valley on best technology and product building practices by at least 2 years. 3. Great work ethic and social responsibility. 4. Do not have world conquering ambitions - which kinda wo…

>"I think one of the biggest challenge for Switzerland tech scene is that there is no viable immigration path for a non-EU citizen"

This is not true. It's up to the local canton to grant citizenship[1]. It has noting to do with EU vs non-EU either. Switzerland itself is not actually part of the EU[2]. For someone who visits so often, it seems odd that you don't know that. In fact even in the video in your link says that the same committee that rejected this person's citizenship awarded it to a Turkish individual and Turkey is not part of the EU.

>"Do not have world conquering ambitions"

Yes in the majority of the world this is actually considered quite normal and acceptable. Many would even say "preferable."

[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/becoming-a-citizen/29288376

[2] https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/countries/member-c...

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#93

Post by mattgreenrocks »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #50
timewarrior wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be in SF and in South Bay. Recently moved to Seattle , closely associated to the India and Swiss tech ecosystem. In my experience further away you are from SF, less cutting edge you are. In my experience even South Bay is 6 months behind SF. SF is a big melting pot, where a huge amount of talent are trying out new things and they are open to sharing their experiences - be it about latest technologies or lat…

I don't read the bit about the South Bay but that's absurd. gRPC - Mountain View Cgroups - Mountain View Golang, Rust - Mountain View Protobufs - Mountain View Blaze - Mountain View React - Menlo Park Buck - Menlo Park Thrift - Menlo Park And this is only a fraction of it. Do you even work in tech? You sound like a talking head...

Are those technologies all legitimately the best, or is the Matthew Effect part of it?

The recent notion that the only good tech is popular tech is, quite frankly, aesthetically repulsive.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#94

Post by wil421 »

barrkel wrote: post #36
romanovcode wrote: post #5

Hey, but at least you get paid more in U.S., right?

Zurich, along with London, has the highest salaries for development in Europe. You may need to work in a finance-related position, but you can make fairly big bucks.

The population of Zurich seems quite small to support a large amount of developers. Everyone here is comparing London, SF, and other places that have over 4 million more people.

Zurich also has a high cost of living and well above any US cities.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#95

Post by mattgreenrocks »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #14
timewarrior wrote: post #3

I have been involved with Swissnex and been advising Swiss startups for some time. I also go to Switzerland every other year if not every year and meet with startups there. Things I noticed: 1. Incredibly smart people. 2. Behind Silicon Valley on best technology and product building practices by at least 2 years. 3. Great work ethic and social responsibility. 4. Do not have world conquering ambitions - which kinda wo…

> Behind Silicon Valley on best technology and product building practices by at least 2 years. Can you elaborate on that? Are these "best practices" around technology or process? Are they found in books, or are the books out of date and you just have to 'be there' to discover them?

The notion that SF somehow is the place to look for best practices is also a bit disturbing. It simply just makes the most noise.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#96

Post by toomanybeersies »

chrisseaton wrote: post #70
rconti wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting paid while in grad school? Or you're saying the pay goes up as you go from graduate degree to Ph.D?

If you aren't getting paid to be in grad school, then that was a hint that they didn't really want to take you. Any reputable grad school place will be paying you.

Depends on the country. In New Zealand it's not common to be paid to do post grad.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#98

Post by mediaman »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #58
beatpanda wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge gap between investments banks consider too risky and the kinds of things SV investors in particular want to fund.

Depends on your growth strategy. If you're prepared to start lean and can demonstrate early signs of revenue then I'd imagine you'd find banks willing to cut a business loan.

Very, very few banks lend in that scenario, which are typically zero or near-zero collateral.

Yes, if you have plenty of receivables, and they're diversified, you can find banks to fund some working capital. But not operating expenses.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#99

Post by tormeh »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #81
tormeh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't build a product company like this. Products require lots of development before any revenue arrives. Underdeveloped capital markets (VCs, stock exchanges etc.) is why Europe's software industry is mostly services. The difference between SV and anywhere else is access to risk-tolerant money. SV is not primarily an IT cluster, it's a VC cluster.

> "You can't build a product company like this." Sure you can, you just bootstrap through monetising the ground work. For example, if you want a product company you can start out as a freelance design agency. The bulk of the initial design work will be for clients, but you can be involved with low volume manufacturing on the side. As the company grows, not only do you have the funds to take on progressively more ambi…

No, because you're making a service company. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. The org chart you need for product and the one you need for services are different. The necessary mindset of the employees are different.

Not only that, but the buyers of product and services are often different as well.

Sure, building up a huge services company lets you squirrel off some funds for product development, but how often do you see this in practice? The only example I can think of is IBM, and they're moving in the other direction.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#100

Post by pm90 »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #90
soperj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that, but there are cases even in small countries where this didn't happen. Like trademe in New Zealand which was just like ebay. Ebay still hasn't become the major place to do auctions in new zealand.

On the other hand, Trademe has never managed to penetrate markets outside New Zealand with any of its products, which limits its value. Xero, however, has massive potential for growth, because it's international.

> On the other hand, Trademe has never managed to penetrate markets outside New Zealand with any of its products, which limits its value.

I don't understand why that is necessarily a bad thing. If someone is looking to make a shit ton of money, have a chance to monopolize or dominate the international market, then yes, that makes sense. But if you're happy and content serving nationally, and so are your customers, I really don't see why someone would want to expand internationally.

Post reply on HN