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

nextrends.swissnexsanfrancisco.org

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

#101

Post by tomc1985 »

sailingparrot wrote: post #7
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…

> Do not have world conquering ambitions - which kinda works against them. Works against them towards what? Not wanting to conquer the world is legitimate, I don't see why everyone should absolutely want to become the next Bezos.

Agreed. The world is saturated with wannabe empires. Stop trying to take over the world!

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

#102

Post by timewarrior »

bogomipz wrote: post #92
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 t…

Probably I used the wrong word. Maybe a better word is no definitive path after getting permanent residency. It depends on the whim and fancy of the local canton. Most countries have a definitive path after getting permanent residency.

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

#103

Post by briandear »

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...

Swift - Cupertino ARKit - Cupertino Multitouch - Cupertino iOS - Cupertino Android - Mountain View Netflix and all of their innovation: Los Gatos Haven’t touched San Jose even..

I agree with you completely, suggesting San Fran is more cutting edge than the South Bay is a bit ridiculous.

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

#104

Post by ZenoArrow »

tormeh wrote: post #99
ZenoArrow wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

To counter your hypothetical "can't be done", here's a real example of a product company that's grown a single person selling electronics kits from their college dorm room to a product company making $33 million in revenue less than 10 years later:

https://www.adafruit.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adafruit_Industries#History

A similar example being this product company, which started out in 2012 with two people and a laser cutter, growing to a product company that employs 30+ people within the space of 5 years:

https://shop.pimoroni.com/

https://shop.pimoroni.com/pages/about-us

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

#105

Post by briandear »

timewarrior wrote: post #69
hueving wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is satire, right? You're suggesting that ideas don't make it from SF to mountain view in less than 6 months with thousands of people commuting between the two each day and cross pollination of meetups on both sides. Containerization and its orchestration all started in the south bay. Pray tell, what was in use in SF for 6 months before it hit the startups based in MV, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, etc.

No, this isn't satire. Please check my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16218591 There are always exceptions (like your containerization example), which can be attributed to serious tech players like Yahoo, Google and FB in South Bay. However holistically, SF has had much more unicorns and near unicorns. The contrast between SF and rest of the world has been more pronounced in recent year vs pre-20…

And the most valuable company in the word is in the South Bay — worth more than every San Fran unicorn — combined.

Valuation has zero to do with innovation and using unicorns as a measure of bleeding edge tech is nonsense. Some of the very beat tech doesn’t necessarily turn into the best businesses.

And don’t forget, the South Bay has one of the most innovative middle-out compression innovators in history: Pied Piper.

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

#106

Post by wbl »

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...

You've just described serialization five times. BBN had all that decades ago, who knows what they have now, and that's in Newton MA.

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

#107

Post by ZenoArrow »

mediaman wrote: post #98
ZenoArrow wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> "But not operating expenses."

I'm not referring to operating expenses. I'm referring to investment in growth. The idea is to prove you have a business that can turn a profit by bootstrapping it yourself, then get a small business loan from a bank to take it to the next level.

There are also other sources of business loans. Here's one example:

https://www.fundingcircle.com/uk/businesses/

Here's another:

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/small-business/3-potential-b...

The idea that VC money is needed to grow a certain type of business simply isn't true. If you're prepared to be patient, you can avoid any VC involvement.

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

#108

Post by mattgreenrocks »

timewarrior wrote: post #65
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Quite a few of these were produced out of Google and FB, so it makes sense they would be based out of MV/Meno Park. However most of the unicorns or near unicorns since 2010 have been based in SF. Dropbox, AirBnb, Uber, Lyft, Stripe, Zenefits, SoFi, Credit Karma, CloudFlare, DocuSign, Wish, Slack, Github, Instacart, Prosper, Automattic, Eventbrite, Okta, Docker, Gusto, Nextdoor. Let list could go on and on. I stand by…

I’d argue SV does so well because SV is fundamentally extractive in how it uses tech. It uses tech as a way to strip mine a particular domain, often bypassing incumbents in the process. There is nothing innovative about this process. It is not ‘high’ tech so much as applied tech. Another take on this: look at the type of people that SV idolizes by and large. Are they mostly hackers? Or business people?

SV is a colony of capital B business, and they keep the makers around because they have to.

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

#109

Post by masonic »

soperj wrote: post #42
timewarrior wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you build an AirBnb like solution limited to Switzerland market. AirBnb will eventually come and eat your lunch. In today's globalized world - if you are not one of the bigger players and do not have moat (govt contract, some other kind of exclusivity) - other bigger players will come after you.

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.

eBay in the USA has largely abandoned its original private party auction market. The vast majority of items are now fixed-price general commercial crap from overseas manufacturers. Note that their advertising campaigns of the last few years have featured only fixed-price items and target whim buyers ("If you're ready, come and get it") complete with bogus representations of the capabilities of their mobile interface.

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

#110

Post by refurb »

timewarrior wrote: post #21
pkaye wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not that US is any better for Indians. Based on current estimates, if someone from India applies for an employment based Green Card now, they might get it in 70 years. And life is a pain because you have to do a lot of paperwork throughout. I thought that is because so many Indians applying for green cards but there is a limit by country so it takes a long time?

Yes, that is one of the main factors. And the ground reality is that right now a new employment based Green Card petitioner from India would need to wait 70 years.

Right, because no single country can take more than 5% of the resident visa in a given year.

That's a good thing no? Diversity of immigrants? Otherwise 80%+ of all immigrants would be Indian/Chinese.

Doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Gives other countries a chance to immigrate.

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