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Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

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Re: Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

#11

Post by fearface »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #4
aphroz wrote: post #3

Not at all. Yes Switzerland is probably the best country if you want to follow the rules, have a good quality of life and good education for your children. Not much for developers who are looking for interesting challenges. This is due to the mentality of the population and the risk aversion of the investors. From a Swiss person.

>This is due to the mentality of the population and the risk aversion of the investors Can you please expand on those two points?

Investors have very little risk appetite, enterprise makes big money, but innivation is usually pressured into low-cost as much as possible. It’s hard to find a developer job where you get decent pay and interesting work with a swiss company. Source, I’m a software developer since 20 years in Switzerand

Re: Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

#12

Post by jcfrei »

aphroz wrote: post #3

Not at all. Yes Switzerland is probably the best country if you want to follow the rules, have a good quality of life and good education for your children. Not much for developers who are looking for interesting challenges. This is due to the mentality of the population and the risk aversion of the investors. From a Swiss person.

There are very interesting software companies in Switzerland. And those companies are taking a lot of risks as well. Maybe your impression stems from the fact that it's not a very visible ecosystem and the funding is obviously much smaller than in bigger economies.

Re: Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

#13

Post by somedude895 »

aphroz wrote: post #3

Not at all. Yes Switzerland is probably the best country if you want to follow the rules, have a good quality of life and good education for your children. Not much for developers who are looking for interesting challenges. This is due to the mentality of the population and the risk aversion of the investors. From a Swiss person.

I tend to agree. Apparently it's very hard to get funding for novel ideas in Switzerland. And yes, risk aversion is a big part of Swiss culture, an example of which being that Swiss are some of the most over-insured people, and savings rates also regularly top the charts. A fairly egalitarian society with a high standard of living makes for a people that doesn't like or "have to" take risks

Re: Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

#14

Post by dagw »

rjsw wrote: post #5
ForHackernews wrote: post #2

Betteridge's law of headlines applies. I don't think I've heard of a single one of the "Top Tech Companies in Switzerland" on their chart.

It isn't on the list but how about Logitech.

I'm sure there are interesting technical problems to solve at Logitech, but from the outside it doesn't strike as the sort of company that ambitious young developers are champing at the bit to join. Hell, as a developer SAP seems like a more fun and interesting European "tech giant" than Logitech from the outside, and that is saying something.

Re: Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

#15

Post by ThePhysicist »

atemerev wrote: post #7

Sadly, no. The bureaucracy of opening and running a business here is staggering (and the minimum starting capital for opening an analog of LLC is more than $20,000, and more than $100,000 for a corporation). Perhaps you have heard that there are few taxes in Switzerland; this is not true (and also a lot of obligatory social security payments for the each employee which are almost impossible to manage without a dedica…

Starting a GmbH theoretically requires 25.000 € in Germany, but you only have to pay in half of that in the beginning. I think in Switzerland it's similar?

If you don't want to invest 5-10 T€ to start a company you can look into Estland's eResidency programme, which enables you to start a limited liability company there, giving you access to the EEA market as well.

Re: Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

#16

Post by atemerev »

jcfrei wrote: post #12
aphroz wrote: post #3

Not at all. Yes Switzerland is probably the best country if you want to follow the rules, have a good quality of life and good education for your children. Not much for developers who are looking for interesting challenges. This is due to the mentality of the population and the risk aversion of the investors. From a Swiss person.

There are very interesting software companies in Switzerland. And those companies are taking a lot of risks as well. Maybe your impression stems from the fact that it's not a very visible ecosystem and the funding is obviously much smaller than in bigger economies.

These companies were not financed by venture capital (except for some cryptocurrency companies, which are popular here indeed). Also, some of the software companies were moved here for tax reasons, but they were founded elsewhere.

Re: Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

#17

Post by johncena33 »

dblock wrote: post #6

I’m Swiss, did CS at the University of Geneva and work at AWS in New York. “The lake is not burning” is my favorite way to describe Switzerland when it comes to software and startups. And everything else, in fact.

> The lake is not burning

I am non-native, but fluent English speaker. Can you please explain what does this phrase mean?

Re: Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

#19

Post by est31 »

atemerev wrote: post #7

Sadly, no. The bureaucracy of opening and running a business here is staggering (and the minimum starting capital for opening an analog of LLC is more than $20,000, and more than $100,000 for a corporation). Perhaps you have heard that there are few taxes in Switzerland; this is not true (and also a lot of obligatory social security payments for the each employee which are almost impossible to manage without a dedica…

> Perhaps you have heard that there are few taxes in Switzerland; this is not true

Can you expand? In Germany, the VAT tax ranges between 8% and 19% (temporarily reduced due to Corona). In Switzerland it's between 2.5% and 7.7%. Is it the customs you have to pay for importing things?

Re: Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

#20

Post by atemerev »

ThePhysicist wrote: post #15
atemerev wrote: post #7

Sadly, no. The bureaucracy of opening and running a business here is staggering (and the minimum starting capital for opening an analog of LLC is more than $20,000, and more than $100,000 for a corporation). Perhaps you have heard that there are few taxes in Switzerland; this is not true (and also a lot of obligatory social security payments for the each employee which are almost impossible to manage without a dedica…

Starting a GmbH theoretically requires 25.000 € in Germany, but you only have to pay in half of that in the beginning. I think in Switzerland it's similar? If you don't want to invest 5-10 T€ to start a company you can look into Estland's eResidency programme, which enables you to start a limited liability company there, giving you access to the EEA market as well.

It is not about capital, it is about the bureaucracy (and Germany is not the easiest country to open a company, too).
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