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Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

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Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#281

Post by conradfr »

Legogris wrote: post #233
enriquto wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is simply not enough supply of senior engineers in France to meet the demand. This argument is ridiculous, the problem is that you are not willing to pay enough. (I am working in Paris)

I'm curious: What is "enough" for someone with eq of an MSc in CS and a couple of years work experience with big data and distributed systems? I realize Glassdoor and similar sites aren't the best source of information but 60K EUR per year seems to be "normal" pay for such a profile and offering above that hasn't helped us. We're having trouble even finding relevant people to open up the conversation with. I am inter…

That seems decent but I don't know much about this space (I know that 60k€ as a PHP/Symfony developer is kind of a hard to break ceiling no matter the experience).

Do your ads have a salary range? Employed people tend to ignore those who don't.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#282

Post by kakwa_ »

ccozan wrote: post #193
pilooch wrote: post #41

I run a machine learning company in France. Call it a startup or not, doesn't matter. Most of what I read in the comments here is not exactly true nor relies on statistics (sound like my story is...). For companies acting within the science or innovative space, France is a haven. CIR is a tax return that covers 30% of R&D personnel, JEI is a status that halves the taxes on personnel for 8 years, and nullifies gov tax…

"One major pain is interacting with large French corporations, with payment delays unheard of in the US. This slows many startups down when it does not kill them. Once bootstrapped it seems to get better." I need to second that. I really struggle with working directly with big companies. My own case, a big engineering company in Germany is quite putting my business at risk. Others have paid only after I send them a l…

I don't think it's a French or German, or even European specificity.

I've seen payments delay happens with French companies (one of my last jobs, we were blacklisted from buying servers from Dell directly, the company was a bit short on money, so this late payment was in fact an internal unsaid policy to reduce the need for working capital).

But I've also seen it with a big US company, professional phone subscriptions of all employees were suspended for a day because of late bills, and we were afraid at one point to have some of our racks cut-off because unpaid datacenter bills. I don't know in that case if it was because of an internal policy or plain old bureaucracy and internal delays in this company.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#283

Post by IanCal »

erikb wrote: post #156
IanCal wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "most abject poverty seen in the developed world" needs citing.

Funny how Americans get so shocked about it, while it is quite clear to the rest of the world. Honestly when I was visiting the US the first time, I was shocked how Second World everything was. Most people live in poor areas (of course most well off Americans don't travel to these part of towns so they don't see it). Many non-chain shops are struggling. Food prices are ridiculously high in comparison to the not that…

I'm neither American, nor shocked at the idea that America has poverty. I am, however, a bit of a stickler actual information. Pointing to general issues does absolutely nothing to help source this claim.

The claim was that ~65M people were in "who live in the most abject poverty seen in the developed world."

The actual figure for a poverty measure is 43M. However, that's not what the claim was - it's not simply that people are in poverty but those that are are in "the most abject poverty seen in the developed world".

Either we can find actual information and have a real discussion, or we can throw around vague unsourced claims and get nowhere.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#284

Post by vram22 »

systemtest wrote: post #231
noir_lord wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the UK (not France) and I make ~3050EUR a month (pre tax), I take home after tax ~2400EUR. I've been making money from selling code since 1996 and a full time developer over a decade. While my salary would be low in London (I'd be worth at least another 10-15K down there) in the North of England and particularly where I live that gives me an excellent standard of living, rent on a decent sized two bed is US Sa…

I am a contractor in the Netherlands and I believe it is the best possible place for a developer. We have a very high quality of life and a good balance in income and spending. As a contractor you can earn near 20k per month pre-tax (around 7k per month post-tax) and live in a big home that costs you 1k per month in mortgage. That leaves you a lot of money for your spare time, fun activities and early retirement. I'm…

>As a contractor you can earn near 20k per month pre-tax (around 7k per month post-tax).

Does that mean that taxes are (20 - 7) / 20 * 100 = 65% in NL?

I knew that taxes in some EU countries (west, north) were high, but didn't know it was that high in NL. (I am aware that you get many benefits in return for the high taxes, but thought it was in the range of 40 to 50%, in some of those countries - per what I read.)

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#285

Post by mayniac »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #278
mayniac wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the 40-hour work week, minimum wage, and lack of child labor are artifacts of economic development The economy hasn't stopped developing however. 80 hour work weeks at the factory have been replaced with 40 hour weeks with 20 hours of unpaid overtime. Child labour has been replaced with unpaid internships. Minimum wage often doesn't match increases in inflation and cost of living, not to mention regional changes in…

"Unpaid" internships are good -- they allow people who don't provide much value to learn and build their capital. People who want to work more than 40 hours should be allowed to work more than 40 hours, and should be allowed to make agreements with their employer that don't double their expense per hour at 40 hours. The minimum wage is just a price floor, and doesn't actually determine wages for more than an extremel…

FYI, wasn't me who downvoted you (check my karma, I actually can't)

But one by one:

>"Unpaid" internships are good -- they allow people who don't provide much value to learn and build their capital

Unpaid internships are not available to anyone who doesn't have the necessary capital to go without income for a year or so. Which is very few people, and mainly the rich. Or people who can take internships near their parents home provided their parents earn enough to support them and provided they're not in an abusive family situation which is still far too exclusive.

>People who want to work more than 40 hours should be allowed to work more than 40 hours, and should be allowed to make agreements with their employer that don't double their expense per hour at 40 hours.

Sure, but that's still paid overtime, I was talking about unpaid. And a lot of the time it's not a case of "people who want to work more than 40 hours" it's "people who have to work 40 hours". I didn't get a choice at my last job, I either did it or I got fired, and that was with the EU working time directive (it wasn't very effective)

>The minimum wage is just a price floor, and doesn't actually determine wages for more than an extremely small margin of workers, and raising it can increase unemployment among the most vulnerable populations.

A fifth of the UK workforce earned less than the living wage in 2017 [1] and the living wage here isn't that much higher than the minimum wage. I wouldn't describe that as a small margin. All those workers would benefit from increasing the minimum wage. Furthermore regarding increasing unemployment, this isn't a valid argument: it's well established in quite a few countries that minimum wage is not enough to actually live on, so if a business cannot afford to pay the minimum wage people need to survive then they are not an effective business. I really can't emphasise that enough. If people are unemployed because of reasonable increases in minimum wage, it is entirely the fault of the business owners for not being profitable, not the fault of minimum wage law.

>Unions have the economic effect of boosting working-class wages and well-being for people in a particular group: high-skill working class people. They depress wages, increase unemployment, and reduce well-being for the most vulnerable groups, particularly minorities and those with low education. There is no broad positive effect on labor from unions; we know from the data that the benefits accrue to a certain type of worker, and it's nowhere near the lowest classes of worker. These gains are relative, and do not enlarge the pie.

Source please.

>The labor struggle is an intra-class struggle between the more-employable working-class subset and the less-employable, which is exactly what you'd predict looking at who makes up the groups

IMO plain wrong. The labour struggle is between workers and owners of capital, in fact pitting the working class against each other has been a tactic those in power have used for millennia.

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-populati...

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#286

Post by systemtest »

vram22 wrote: post #284
systemtest wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a contractor in the Netherlands and I believe it is the best possible place for a developer. We have a very high quality of life and a good balance in income and spending. As a contractor you can earn near 20k per month pre-tax (around 7k per month post-tax) and live in a big home that costs you 1k per month in mortgage. That leaves you a lot of money for your spare time, fun activities and early retirement. I'm…

>As a contractor you can earn near 20k per month pre-tax (around 7k per month post-tax). Does that mean that taxes are (20 - 7) / 20 * 100 = 65% in NL? I knew that taxes in some EU countries (west, north) were high, but didn't know it was that high in NL. (I am aware that you get many benefits in return for the high taxes, but thought it was in the range of 40 to 50%, in some of those countries - per what I read.)

First of you have 21% VAT. You have to put this on your customers’s invoices and then transfer the tax directly to the tax office. From whats left, we have an income tax bracket system. From 67k you pay 52%. So in this case the total tax rate is roughly 40% because a big portion of your income is in the 52% bracket.

It’s a lot but life is good here. Wouldn’t trade it for anything else.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#287

Post by dctoedt »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #169
geezerjay wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you accuse me of not knowing how labor laws work, and then try to suggest that it is up to employers to enforce employment law/regulation? That's not what I said at all. Please don't attribute to me a claim I never made. > It is employers role to comply with the law, the department of labor enforces it. You don’t need your employers permission to report law violations to the department of labor. Again, you…

That is exactly what you have said, you keep trying to imply that the only way for an employ the address labor abuse is to complain to their management. This is in outright lie. There are entire government agencies devoted to enforcing labor abuse, and anybody can file a complaint with them at no cost at all. In addition to that, it is also trivially easy for an employ to launch a civil suit. Any case with even an ou…

> In addition to that, it is also trivially easy for an employ[ee] to launch a civil suit. Any case with even an ounce of merit will attract lawyers willing to work on commission.

Lawyer here. Your second sentence is incorrect: (1) Litigation is far more expensive that you seem to realize; most rank-and-file employees can't afford it – when my wife, also a lawyer, and I were younger, we used to joke that we couldn't afford us. (2) The default rule in the U.S. is that each party pays its own attorney fees unless otherwise stated in a specific statute or in a contract. The availability of class actions helps plaintiffs' lawyers achieve cost savings and increase the likelihood of getting paid, but the conservative wing of the Supreme Court just helped put the kibosh on that by ruling that employers could avoid class actions by insisting on one-at-a-time arbitration, which results in massive duplication of costs. (3) An individual employee's likely damage award is almost never enough to entice a lawyer into taking the case on a contingent-fee basis, i.e., where the lawyer only gets paid if the employee prevails. (4) Consequently, it's extremely difficult for an employee to find a lawyer to take on a garden-variety case against her employer.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#288

Post by kakwa_ »

kolp wrote: post #145
Legogris wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how firing being harder is an issue. In France it's standard with the first several months being a probationary period where you can let the person go on the day, and only after that does it transform into a CDI. This period can be extended once. You can't really blame legislation for needing more than 6-8 months to realize that an employee is not a good fit.

It's much more difficult to justify making someone redundant (licenciement économique) or to fire someone who has become an asshole or isn't performing. In other jurisdictions where I've worked, the employee gets their notice period. In France, the employer is often under implicit threat of an inspecteur du travail, a government work inspector, who will wrap the company up in shitload of bureaucratic audits.

The likelihood of an employer firing people abusively is much greater than an employee being an asshole.

It can indeed hinder start-ups a little because of uncertainty in any new ventures.

But keep in mind that the vast majority of workers are not working in a startup environment. Relaxing a law to fit the legitimate needs of a small number of start-ups with an even smaller proportion of the work force at the detriments of the vast majority doesn't seem like a good idea.

And I've seen people getting fired when redundant and/or toxic for the company. The administration will keep an eye on you if you fire more than a dozen employees per year (for a 1500 employees company), when firing "en masse" (ironically named "plan de sauvegarde de l'emploie") an employers has some obligations like giving opportunities for training, maybe finding another position in the firm, firing people close to retirement with some compensation until their actual retirement (pre-retraite).

Lastly, this protection goes both ways, if you, as an employee, you end-over your resignation, you must remain in the company for 3 months, that way the employer has time to find a replacement and schedule a knowledge transfer in good conditions.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#289

Post by pyrale »

mandor wrote: post #210
IMTDb wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is below France median salary. If you think you can get away with that, you either : - Have developers that are actually not that good - Have good developers that will realise that you are vastly underpaying them and will jump ship Salaries in France are lower than in the US, but if you think good developers are settling for remunerations below the median salary of the country they live in, you will get a wake u…

This is the "net" of a senior researcher (very competitve position, people are about 35-40 year old, about 10-15 years after a good PhD) in public institutions (see http://www.emploitheque.org/grille-indiciaire-etat-Directeur... ) and more than most "researchers" in public institutions ( http://www.emploitheque.org/grille-indiciaire-etat-Charges-d... -- 5-10 years after a PhD). This includes researches in CS and AI.

Nope,these prices for researchers are meant for academia jobs.

Researchers in companies, especially in AI fetch between 60% and 100% more.

Re: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Startup Nation.’ Is It Getting There?

#290

Post by noir_lord »

maxerickson wrote: post #262
pjc50 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Purchasing power parity" is extremely important for comparing these things, especially when it comes to housing. I get the impression that Silicon Valley is a place where $100k isn't quite enough to not have to share accomodation. It's certainly the case that London-weighted salaries don't make up for London-weighted house prices. One of these days remote working will start to make a difference in this inequality.

Wouldn't one of the primary effects of remote work be to put downward pressure on salaries in high cost of living areas?

Possibly but that would also put downwards pressure on the rents/house prices in the high cost of living areas.

Supply and demand, if I could earn 90% of a London salary in the North of England I'd be about 13500-20,000 better off.

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