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Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

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

#121

Post by Hermel »

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.

Nonsense! I’ve been part of the Swiss startup scene for more than a decade and there are plenty of interesting startups and opportunities. If there is a lack of anything, it is technical co-founders that are willing to take a risk. (Working at Google is just too convenient.) In any case, it you are looking for a nice challenge, feel free to consider my latest venture Aktionariat.

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

#122

Post by Rochus »

LeanderK wrote: post #112
Rochus wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dimensi…

> he didn't experience cutting edge technology in switzerland

What ever that is supposed to mean; maybe after looking a couple of days with a very narrow focus.

> The swiss are not really known for a silicon-valley kind of attitude

Well, there is no "hire and fire", and there are no garages and cellars that are worth a billion dollars overnight. But there were and still are a lot of innovations in various fields. Also Germany has great engineers and a lot of innovation, but the state weighs much heavier on the companies than in Switzerland.

EDIT: Perhaps the Global Inovation Index would also be worth a look: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index

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

#123

Post by sam_lowry_ »

durnygbur wrote: post #92
dnet wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tresorit comes from Hungary, they just made a business entity in Switzerland to look better from security/privacy perspective. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tresorit#History

My favourite is Luxoft incorporating in Switzerland so instead of "Russian outsourcing sweatshop" they can claim to be "Swiss fintech".

Skype being Swedish money, Estonian (and some Russian) brains does not make it less of an American company.

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

#124

Post by crx07 »

Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Stockholm would probably be the leading candidates vying for Europe's Silicon Valley, at least as an American looking from the outside. Next to those are the obvious economic hubs where talent exists en masse: London, Berlin, and Paris.

Switzerland? Maybe, there's a lot of tech that crops up there for sure, but much of that is FinTech and certain other specialized areas where there is an advantage to be had under Swiss law or as a result of the country's reputation.

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

#125

Post by Rochus »

Rochus wrote: post #91
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.

>> Not much for developers who are looking for interesting challenges .. From a Swiss person This is simply not true. I'm Swiss and working as a developer and consultant in Switzerland since the nineties. I - as many others - was able to do several studies at a world-class university right on my doorstep without getting into debt. People are fair, hardworking, innovative and responsible. Switzerland has ideal conditi…

Just came accross the 2019 Global Innovation Index report: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_gii_2019.pdf

The ranking on page xxxiv says:

1. Switzerland 2. Sweden 3. United States of America 4. Netherlands 5. United Kingdom 6. Finland 7. Denmark 8. Singapore 9. Germany

... so not too bad after all.

This "is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation. It is published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, in partnership with other organisations and institutions,[1]:333 and is based on both subjective and objective data derived from several sources, including the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum" (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index).

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

#126

Post by outside1234 »

mkl95 wrote: post #64
Gwypaas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better wages in Norway, though a more traditional low tech market focused around resources. They've been trying to diversify for ages but can't comment on the results of that. Haven't heard of any Norwegian Spotify, Mojang, Kings or Klarnas though.

Better wages sums up most of what I've heard from people living in Sweden. They must be staying in Sweden rather than moving to Norway for a good reason though.

Norway is extremely expensive. I would be surprised if the wage increase is not moot.

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

#127

Post by dang »

aerosmile wrote: post #103

> Is Switzerland better than Silicon Valley for software developers? The entire article compares data between Switzerland and other EU countries (the accuracy of which is a whole another topic), and then this is used to compare Switzerland against Silicon Valley?

At least the submitter did a nice job of correcting that in the HN title.

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

#128

Post by Rochus »

lukeqsee wrote: post #118
LeanderK wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"In God we trust, all others must bring data." (Edward Deming)

See https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_gii_2019.pdf, https://ethz.ch/en/industry/entrepreneurs/spinoff/uebersicht..., etc.

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

#129

Post by Rochus »

Rochus wrote: post #120
izacus wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For the sceptics: Nestlé, Roche, Novartis, BBC (now ABB), but also Swatch, Syngenta, Schindler, Logitech, Sonova, Ypsomed, etc. just to name a few.

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

#130

Post by lukeqsee »

Rochus wrote: post #128
lukeqsee wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

" In God we trust, all others must bring data. " (Edward Deming) See https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_gii_2019.pdf , https://ethz.ch/en/industry/entrepreneurs/spinoff/uebersicht... , etc.

That’s a good quote, I shall use it in the future. :)

I never disputed that there’s lots of spin-offs from ETH, but I was unaware of the precise count. It’s higher than I thought. Thanks for bringing the data. However, even with a few dozen startups a year it cannot be termed to a major startup hub. Are there any accelerators, major VCs, or the like in Zürich? I’m not aware of many, if any.

I’m in Ostschweiz, so I don’t know Zürich super well, but here the tech meetups groups for almost everything are And don’t get me wrong—I’m not disappointed in or minimizing the amount cool stuff that comes out of Switzerland. I want to see it grow and succeed. It’d be fantastic if Zürich became a major hub in the future. Hopp Schwiiz! :)

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