331–340 of 442 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Southern France has wonderful weather and the Mediterranean Sea. The EU should start a special economic zone for startups there (a split of later taxes going into the EU budget).
What happened to Sophia-Antipolis near Antibes? That area was spun out as "silicon valley of europe". No tax specialization AFAIK but it did have a dense concentration of tech companies at least two decades ago.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We should rid of the term 'poaching'. There's no such thing. We're not animals, we are free to accept a better offer it comes along. The CEO should have counter offered with something more substantial, but he couldn't so the engineers went to greener pastures.
You mean, humans aren’t animals?
It has been accepted for decades by the scientific community, and the general population at large, that humans are, in fact, animals. But language takes time to react to changes changes. And that’s why “we are not animals” is still being used, even though the meaning today is “we should not be treated like we treat other animals”.
Hopefully all of this is clear.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly correct. I tried to explain this to a public official from an east cost town who was flying back from the Bay Area trying to "learn the secrets" of creating an innovation hub. When I explained this situation (non-competes are illegal, stuff you do at home is yours) to him he literally said "That's crazy! Why would anyone hire anyone if they knew they could walk out the door to a competitor, or even to start a…
Your comment reminds me of this tweet: https://mobile.twitter.com/zackkanter/status/130493861651941... The cognitive dissonance humans are capable of is amazing. To actually say “We would never allow that in our town.” in the pejorative while flying back from a trip specifically meant to learn how to be like another town . If you’re not going to act on an author’s central point, don’t try to do any of the other parts…
>The recipe for success of Silicon Valley...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about other labour laws? Isn't it hard to fire people in Italy, whereas CA has at-will? My friend whose father ran a well known cultural institution there also says organised crime is a problem, effectively an extra tax. Basically he was told he'd have to "hire" certain people, or else... On top of other issues there's the fact that once SV is established somewhere, it turns into a magnet for all the new startup…
yeah Italy got it's problems, but it's a easy counter-example of what parent posts proposed as a thesis: that the secret ingredient was non-competes, education and climate. it is readily apparent that the success pillar from silicon valley were not these three.
From what I can tell, Italian universities churn out some really great programmers, which mostly end up moving to other countries where it's easier for companies to actually run. Kind of a shame -- in addition to climate, Italy has food and history going for it as well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Southern France has wonderful weather and the Mediterranean Sea. The EU should start a special economic zone for startups there (a split of later taxes going into the EU budget).
Currently in Paris as everything is centralized there but indeed, if the opportunity ever presented itself I would move to Nice in a heartbeat, the rest of the bigger cities (Marseilles, Montpellier) suffer a bad reputation though...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand it's France, and the French are notorious for not wanting to speak English, while at the same time not many people from Europe speak French. Hard to build a truly European zone that way.
I think quite a lot of people can speak French, but have a similar stance against the French people, why would we speak French if you can't bother speaking differently language like English.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly correct. I tried to explain this to a public official from an east cost town who was flying back from the Bay Area trying to "learn the secrets" of creating an innovation hub. When I explained this situation (non-competes are illegal, stuff you do at home is yours) to him he literally said "That's crazy! Why would anyone hire anyone if they knew they could walk out the door to a competitor, or even to start a…
Your comment reminds me of this tweet: https://mobile.twitter.com/zackkanter/status/130493861651941... The cognitive dissonance humans are capable of is amazing. To actually say “We would never allow that in our town.” in the pejorative while flying back from a trip specifically meant to learn how to be like another town . If you’re not going to act on an author’s central point, don’t try to do any of the other parts…
Massachusetts certainly can't do anything about winter although by "great weather," depending upon your preferences most of the world is pretty much screwed relative to the Bay area.
But great schools relative to the Boston area? They're probably as good overall.
And, while California has particularly weak enforcement of non-competes, Massachusetts recently weakened non-competes and, in any case, there's a pretty long history of people moving among tech companies in the area. And many companies in the Northeast don't have non-competes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
An important piece of context for the renaissance, which is often lost in modern discussions, is that it was not a movement which was attempting to be "innovative" or conceptualised itself as such. Rather, it was fundamentally backwards-looking: an attempt to recapture the glory of antiquity. People were digging up the ruins of a conspicuously more advanced civilisation -- which could do mind-bending things like draw…
Afaik, the old civilizations were rather rudimentary in perspective? There are some traces of it, but no mind bending anything.
Also, we tend to take things we’re familiar with for granted, and overlook them when comparing different societies. So of course, ancient civilisations were terrible for other reasons, but still...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
UK is trying hard not to be a part of Europe it seems :) Anyway I've seen similar laws in several countries in EU, but I talked to a lawyer friend and he said he looked into it (briefly) and couldn't find examples of it being enforced through court in my country (Croatia). As for termination - probation periods exist for sure but passed that it's really hard to get rid of people, the two year thing exists if you give…
I can't imagine how toxic it is when person are being reinstated to position in court. What did she do afterwards? Did she happily work at the position or dismissed voluntarily right after reinstating?
Yep - I mean once the company is >500 employees and has mixed ownership (funds etc.) it's mainly just between her and management that got overturned and they know better than to keep pressing on it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
UK is trying hard not to be a part of Europe it seems :) Anyway I've seen similar laws in several countries in EU, but I talked to a lawyer friend and he said he looked into it (briefly) and couldn't find examples of it being enforced through court in my country (Croatia). As for termination - probation periods exist for sure but passed that it's really hard to get rid of people, the two year thing exists if you give…
> got reinstated to previous position In which office? A or B