Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

wearedevelopers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 194 posts

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

#111

Post by thx2099100 »

durnygbur wrote: post #84
izacus wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The commute of most of those workers is usually less than half of what most rockstars of Sillicon Valley need to endure, not to mention that the public transport extends to border towns in France and is significantly better than the one in SV. Geneva lies directly on the border so those towns are way closer to most workplaces than Oakland is to San Francisco. The issue with Geneva is that there's no more physical spa…

The problem might be there are thousands of French, Italians, and other Europeans sharing the same Swiss dream while standing in the traffic jams. I doubt the rents by the Swiss border in France are at the "French level".

The rent in those region from what I've heard from colleagues (I work as a SWE in Paris) is trough the roof. you also have to pay taxes in both countries, but compensation wise you'll still end up with a significantly better deal even taking into account things like cost of living. The commute is not better for me or my colleagues in the Paris region.

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

#112

Post by LeanderK »

Rochus wrote: post #110
LeanderK wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, but I was wondering whether they managed to built a high-tech ecosystem around the ETH. I know that at least google has offices there, but I don't know what it's like in zurich and how much cutting edge high-tech is actually done at these offices.

See e.g. https://ethz.ch/en/industry/entrepreneurs/spinoff.html , https://ethz.ch/en/industry/entrepreneurs/spinoff/uebersicht... , or https://www.technopark.ch/ Why do you think Google and other big companies have large development departments in Switzerland? There are a lot of very well educated and hardworking people, and job satisfaction is high.

yeah, I know. And the ETH graduates are probably top-quality. But the parent poster said that he didn't experience cutting edge technology in switzerland and I wondered whether it's the same in Zurich.

In germany, I've experience that you can excel at one technical property (usually your core product, manufacturing something, designing some material) while also being very conservative in virtually every other dimension. It's different in startups, but I wonder about zurich in general. So I think that both is possible, moving very slow and being very conservative, while on the other hand excelling at one particular thing (where you would need the high-quality ETH graduates). It's usually that IT is not the main focus here (in germany), so you can end up in slowly moving, very conservative, magnitudes behind cutting edge organisation. The swiss are not really known for a silicon-valley kind of attitude. I think it's a mindset and a lot of companies only see IT as cost instead of investment, much less as a driver of innovation. That's why I'm asking.

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

#113

Post by jason0597 »

solarkings wrote: post #97

I'm sick of seeing titles like this one. Why can't Switzerland simply be Switerland instead of a clone of the Silicon Valley? We all have our own cultures and different types of innovation can spring from each one of them.

I agree. I never understood the fetishisation of Silicon Valley... it's not the be-all and end-all for everything tech related.

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

#114

Post by UMetaGOMS »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #107
langitbiru wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there is a quote: "In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." Sometimes I wonder whether one of the factors that makes US the mecca of technology is the lack o…

The primary advantage of the US is cultural. It is not just the anomalously high risk tolerance and wealth, but people who attempt audacious goals tend to be celebrated. Americans shed the Tall Poppy Syndrome that is a very visible feature of virtually all other European cultures, perhaps because the US was predominantly settled by "tall poppies". After years of working in various parts of Europe, I think it distills…

To put it another way, European culture values humility over ego, and does not applaud those who manage to exploit those "lesser" than themselves quite so much.

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

#115

Post by mekoka »

This article seems to want to define "Silicon Valley" in terms of companies starting up and the prospect of employment. But in my opinion, these numbers considered over a short period aren't necessarily a relevant base for comparison.

The majority of startups fails. So for an individual considering the risk of that adventure, it's not only important to prepare for take off, it's also important to make sure the landing will not be too rough. Especially the emergency landing. In the US, entrepreneurship is so ingrained in the culture that the costs and stigmas associated with failure are lower than in many (most?) other places in the world. They're therefore not as big a deterrent.

In order for me to consider Switzerland as a possible alternative to Silicon Valley, I'd have to ask some questions like, how well is the risk of entrepreneurship understood? What happens when the majority of these startups fails in the next 5 years? How willing will entrepreneurs be to try a second time? How many current "second-chance" entrepreneurs (those who've already tried and failed at least once before) are there?

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

#116

Post by est31 »

mekoka wrote: post #115

This article seems to want to define "Silicon Valley" in terms of companies starting up and the prospect of employment. But in my opinion, these numbers considered over a short period aren't necessarily a relevant base for comparison. The majority of startups fails. So for an individual considering the risk of that adventure, it's not only important to prepare for take off, it's also important to make sure the landin…

Indeed, thanks to at-will employment, failing as a founder is not a financial ruin.

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

#117

Post by abcet »

esarbe wrote: post #104
abcet wrote: post #75

Speaking of tech companies, Chatroulette (3m monthly users) is located in Zug, Switzerland and we are hiring. I am the founder. Sorry for spam.

What's your tech stack?

Functional Scala-backend - distributed event driven system FRP/RxJs/React Front end

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

#118

Post by lukeqsee »

LeanderK wrote: post #83
lukeqsee wrote: post #26

As an American immigrant to Switzerland, don’t move here to be on the cutting technical edge. You will be sorely disappointed. It’s a function of societal mentality (slow to change as a way of ensuring enduring stability) and size (fewer people, fairly spread out, only two or three cities big enough to be tech hubs). I moved here for a lot of other reasons, and I’m very happy with my decision and its benefits, but a…

I've heard there's a lot of cutting technical edge in zurich due to the ETH, would you disagree?

Good point. I should have qualified.

ETH is an excellent school—I'd be happy to have an ETH degree! They produce tons of good research in computer science (especially geospatial), material science, and others. I think Google is especially there because of the geospatial workforce (and generally highly qualified technologists).

By "cutting technical edge", I specifically meant 1) large numbers of smart people solving important problems in startups and 2) large numbers of smart people pushing practical technology forward in novel ways. In general, most dev jobs in CH are C++ or Java. I know of a handful of good startups, but not too many. The mentality is generally quite conservative, so most companies do standard technology solutions for standard companies—nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn't say you can compare Zürich to Berlin, Barcelona, London, Tallinn, or any of the US startup hubs (and it's not just attributable to population size).

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

#119

Post by jason0597 »

pjc50 wrote: post #76

The main thing I would have thought it has in common is being an incredibly expensive place to live. > In 2019 Switzerland attracted $ 445 million of investments That's, what, half a startup by SV standards?

How many of the startups in SV are juicero type projects?

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

#120

Post by Rochus »

izacus wrote: post #77
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.

Exactly. It's an amazing place to live, has good tech scene, but it's not Silicon Valley. Also the economic focus is completely different - they focus on small enterprises and medium sized businesses which form a significantly more resilient economy (there's a reason why Switzerland did rather well in this pandemic). Asking why the Swiss don't invest in same industries like Californians do would be like asking Morroc…

> they focus on small enterprises and medium sized businesses

Some of the largest companies have emerged in Switzerland.

Post reply on HN