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Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

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Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#201

Post by shankr »

aianus wrote: post #188
pjmlp wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything else is lost in US with immediate job termination, no thanks. You can get those 30 pretty much everywhere, either by negotiating it, or taking advantage of the multiple holidays that we enjoy across Europe. And as I mentioned, I don't have any complains regarding salary. There is more in life than being rich.

> There is more in life than being rich. Yes, of course. > Everything else is lost in US with immediate job termination, no thanks. This doesn't matter when you save $60k/year from your $250k FAANG job. Job termination just means a long, fun vacation before you look for your next thing.

Also the idea of people get fired in IT jobs in USA at the drop of the hat is also bit of an exaggeration. Just look at how Airbnb and Uber are handling it.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#202

Post by ajconway »

polycaster wrote: post #197
ajconway wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reason for the rise of apps is that companies see them as a good way of lock-in customers, gather data and increase influence Apps live and thrive because they are convenient and provide the most value to most people. As a user, I wouldn't want the government to tell me what software I should use. As a software engineer, I wouldn't want to be told what software I should write. If the problem lies in bad fo…

> As a user, I wouldn't want the government to tell me what software I should use. As a software engineer, I wouldn't want to be told what software I should write. As far as I am aware nobody is telling anyone what exact software to use or to engineer. Also nobody seems to be calling for that. What has been applied here instead are standards. That's quite a different thing and I'm pretty sure, as a software engineer,…

> Like citizen rights and protection of personal data.

I was under impression that the original comment referred to open software standards (like email protocols), not data protection regulations.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#203

Post by pccole »

patja wrote: post #199

I was appalled when I went to install it and there was no way I could see to avoid handing 100% of my contacts to it. Do people keep a private offline contacts list, or a clean phone just for this? Or do folks just not care about giving away the mobile phone numbers (and addresses? email addresses? birthdays? other notes on the contact about kids names, etc.?) to an app? Am I behind the times and everyone just knows…

No, you're not over-reacting. I refuse to give access to my contacts to any app; however, that doesn't stop my friend, mom, or a cousin from giving access and Facebook/Google building a profile on you. The other issue here is Apple and Google have not updated these permissions to only get access to certain contacts you choose, its either all or nothing.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#204

Post by bromuro »

fluffything wrote: post #175
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The USA is in a position to shutdown all the technological infrastructure of Europe (AWS, Google, Facebook, Azure, ...) and to openly spy its citizens OK, and what can we do about that? We build our own successful cars, we build our own successful planes but it seems like when it comes to building highly scalable world dominating software we are powerless even though our universities churn out tons of talented CS en…

> What does the US do right that we do wrong here? Besides paying our devs worse. The reason there is really no cool tech firms in the EU is because the EU economic policies make them impossible. Working for a startup is an extremely risky decision. As a top engineer, you get shitty pay, and a really good options package that in most cases ends up being worth nothing because most startups fail. In the US, however, if…

Opening a startup in Germany, Italy or Spain means enter a world full of bureaucracy and complicated rules: you need enough money to start and an accountant hopefully knowing their stuff.

Taxes are so high that you will likely struggle (or just close) the first two years and you will eventually start accumulating tax debts. Errors

On the other side, some european countries came to rescue with some smart solutions — like the Estonian e-residency program.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#205

Post by toohotatopic »

fluffything wrote: post #175
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The USA is in a position to shutdown all the technological infrastructure of Europe (AWS, Google, Facebook, Azure, ...) and to openly spy its citizens OK, and what can we do about that? We build our own successful cars, we build our own successful planes but it seems like when it comes to building highly scalable world dominating software we are powerless even though our universities churn out tons of talented CS en…

> What does the US do right that we do wrong here? Besides paying our devs worse. The reason there is really no cool tech firms in the EU is because the EU economic policies make them impossible. Working for a startup is an extremely risky decision. As a top engineer, you get shitty pay, and a really good options package that in most cases ends up being worth nothing because most startups fail. In the US, however, if…

>Working for a startup is an extremely risky decision. As a top engineer, you get shitty pay, and a really good options package that in most cases ends up being worth nothing because most startups fail.

How about structuring it differently? If you e.g. don't receive options but actual shares? Hold those shares not by yourself but via a shell company. Then you never pay income taxes. Since you are in Europe, look up the successors of the current Double Irish.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#206

Post by toohotatopic »

bromuro wrote: post #204
fluffything wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does the US do right that we do wrong here? Besides paying our devs worse. The reason there is really no cool tech firms in the EU is because the EU economic policies make them impossible. Working for a startup is an extremely risky decision. As a top engineer, you get shitty pay, and a really good options package that in most cases ends up being worth nothing because most startups fail. In the US, however, if…

Opening a startup in Germany, Italy or Spain means enter a world full of bureaucracy and complicated rules: you need enough money to start and an accountant hopefully knowing their stuff. Taxes are so high that you will likely struggle (or just close) the first two years and you will eventually start accumulating tax debts. Errors On the other side, some european countries came to rescue with some smart solutions — l…

>you need enough money to start

That's true everywhere, isn't it?

>Taxes are so high that you will likely struggle (or just close) the first two years

You pay taxes on profits. Especially during the first years you should have so many expenses that taxes shouldn't be a problem.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#207

Post by fluffything »

toohotatopic wrote: post #205
fluffything wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does the US do right that we do wrong here? Besides paying our devs worse. The reason there is really no cool tech firms in the EU is because the EU economic policies make them impossible. Working for a startup is an extremely risky decision. As a top engineer, you get shitty pay, and a really good options package that in most cases ends up being worth nothing because most startups fail. In the US, however, if…

>Working for a startup is an extremely risky decision. As a top engineer, you get shitty pay, and a really good options package that in most cases ends up being worth nothing because most startups fail. How about structuring it differently? If you e.g. don't receive options but actual shares? Hold those shares not by yourself but via a shell company. Then you never pay income taxes. Since you are in Europe, look up t…

> If you e.g. don't receive options but actual shares?

Everything your employer gives you as part of your salary is subject to the salary tax. Whether your employee gives you options or shares, doesn't matter, you need to taxate them, and that requires assigning them a value.

If your employer gives you options, you can only exercise them when the shares you buy have a value (via an IPO, acquisition, etc.), so you pay taxes on the value when you exercise them - verifying this value is trivial for the tax office (check purchase price of shares, IPO share value, etc.).

For publicly traded companies, if your employee gives you shares, you pay taxes when you get the shares on the value of the shares on the day that you got them.

If your employee gives you shares from a private hold company, those shares have no value until the company gets public or acquired. You'll taxate them not on the share price that the share had when you got them, but the one it has when it went public.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#208

Post by fluffything »

toohotatopic wrote: post #206
bromuro wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opening a startup in Germany, Italy or Spain means enter a world full of bureaucracy and complicated rules: you need enough money to start and an accountant hopefully knowing their stuff. Taxes are so high that you will likely struggle (or just close) the first two years and you will eventually start accumulating tax debts. Errors On the other side, some european countries came to rescue with some smart solutions — l…

>you need enough money to start That's true everywhere, isn't it? >Taxes are so high that you will likely struggle (or just close) the first two years You pay taxes on profits. Especially during the first years you should have so many expenses that taxes shouldn't be a problem.

In Germany you need 20k Euros cash, and an accountant, and to pay all the "bureaucracy costs" of registering a new company.

That's something you have to pay independently of whether your startup is making money or not.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#209

Post by toohotatopic »

fluffything wrote: post #208
toohotatopic wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you need enough money to start That's true everywhere, isn't it? >Taxes are so high that you will likely struggle (or just close) the first two years You pay taxes on profits. Especially during the first years you should have so many expenses that taxes shouldn't be a problem.

In Germany you need 20k Euros cash, and an accountant, and to pay all the "bureaucracy costs" of registering a new company. That's something you have to pay independently of whether your startup is making money or not.

That's for a GmbH [1] where you create an independent legal entity. Actually it's 25k and almost 1k in legal fees. Though, you only need an accountant if you have millions in assets or plenty of employees. [3]

However, that's for an independent legal entity. If you want to start a business, you can simply register a business, even online [2] for about 25 to 100 euros. If you don't have wealth to protect you don't need a legal entity anyway.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesellschaft_mit_beschr%C3%A4n...

[2] https://www.freistaat.bayern/dokumente/onlineservice/7333142...

[3] Actually you can buy an old, empty, GmbH for about 5k but then you lose those 5k instead of having them on your balance sheet like you do when you start your GmbH with 25k.

Re: Germany's data chief tells ministries WhatsApp is a no-go

#210

Post by pjmlp »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #187
pjmlp wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything else is lost in US with immediate job termination, no thanks. You can get those 30 pretty much everywhere, either by negotiating it, or taking advantage of the multiple holidays that we enjoy across Europe. And as I mentioned, I don't have any complains regarding salary. There is more in life than being rich.

Nobody is talking about being rich but if you look at house prices in the major European metro areas or tech hubs, they're out of reach even for devs while that's not the case in the US.

Yet most people get to buy houses just with one credit instead of the multiple morgages in US.
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