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Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

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Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#31

Post by quanticle »

hello_moto wrote: post #30
quanticle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In Iowa, you're nobody. In the [Capital City of your ancestor's land], you're something. Imagine that. Really? My experience (as an immigrant) has been quite the opposite. Here in America it's a lot easier to become "somebody". You work hard, develop your skills and learn to market yourself. Once you do that, you're either on a upward trajectory at your current firm or you have the prerequisites to find yourself a b…

My assumption/pre-requisite is that if you can become an immigrant, in a few situations, your family is rich already or successful back home thus you would have connections already and you're probably in mid to high economy class. I think you can say the same thing too everywhere: Work Hard, Develop Skills, Market yourself. Marketing seems to be the key point in developing countries probably because the average peopl…

>My assumption/prerequisite is that if you can become an immigrant, in a few situations, your family is rich already or successful back home thus you would have connections already and you're probably in mid to high economy class.

That's not always a good assumption to make. Not everyone who makes it to the US is rich or well connected. In fact, the vast majority of immigrants to the US have not been rich or well connected back home, which is why they immigrated to the US in the first place.

Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#32

Post by naner »

acabal wrote: post #27
nirvana wrote: post #23

In several of the comments, people have asked why entrepreneurs might want to leave the USA, given the common perception that the USA is a great place to do a business. I'm making this comment in response to those questions as an example of an entrepreneur whose left the USA. My reasons for doing this are obviously going to be different than those who would choose not to, so don't get mad. I'm not trying to persuade…

I completely agree with everything you've said, and that's why I'm doing the same thing. My girlfriend is German so I was thinking of trying for a residency permit there next year. You mentioned the government wasn't supportive; do you have any anecdotes on the difficulty (or otherwise) of getting a short-term German residency permit?

Here's an anecdote from a HN'er trying to start a business in Germany:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3224374

Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#33

Post by mchafkin »

beefman wrote: post #22

Yet another article written for the pleasure of its author. Just tell us what data you have and how they answer the question in your (leading) headline. Three sentences and a table; done.

I take exception to this point--You want a table? Make a table--But so you know: There are very few stats on reverse migration because the U.S. government stopped tracking it in 1957. There have been some really great studies academic studies, if you're interested in checking them out.

http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/immigration-and-...

But even these studies are pretty small and fairly limited. Definitely more research is needed into this area.

Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#34

Post by trevelyan »

hello_moto wrote: post #21
iqster wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's been my impression too. I'm trying to figure out why that is the case. Is it mainly because of laws that make it hard to fire bad employees? Payments such as unemployment benefits, social benefits, etc.? Tax code issues? Or something else entirely?

Lack of exposures mostly. Also Canadians tend to be less ruthless (I'm not going to debate the right or wrong on this but seeing that the biggest and most successful companies are driven by ruthless people...) Canada also has a small (but growing) market. There aren't too many big cities and big spenders. Vancouver, while it's beautiful and nice and all that, the majority businesses tend to revolve around government…

"Also Canadians tend to be less ruthless (I'm not going to debate the right or wrong on this but seeing that the biggest and most successful companies are driven by ruthless people...)"

I agree Americans are more entrepreneurial, but I don't think it's evident that ruthlessness is a desirable trait in business and think that Canada's sane public policy in taxation and health care makes it better to live and hire in Canada than the United States. The problem as parent-post says is that if you need venture capital you simply won't find it, so businesses have to focus on revenue rather than offering free online services.

As far as academia goes, my experience is that when it comes to undergraduate education Canadian universities are better or equal to their American counterparts. But the States have better graduate programs and better endowments at the top-end, so a good student can get a free ride in the States and return to Canada with a prestigious foreign degree that will carry more weight in the job search and that reflects more cutting-edge research. Their counterparts who stay in Canada will conversely have to self-fund graduate work and do more teaching work for lower pay, often getting a separate MA and PhD instead of doing them concurrently as in the best US programs. Prior to 2008, the American economy had always been better than the Canadian economy for about twenty years, so you have twenty years of economic pull as well -- there have traditionally been more and better paying jobs in the States than Canada.

That said, there's an old Canadian joke about a preacher from Saskatchewan who was getting up in years and began to pepper his sermons with asides about how he would soon be leaving for that land from which no man ever returns. And how his parishioners immediately understood that he was moving south of the border.

Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#35

Post by acabal »

naner wrote: post #32
acabal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with everything you've said, and that's why I'm doing the same thing. My girlfriend is German so I was thinking of trying for a residency permit there next year. You mentioned the government wasn't supportive; do you have any anecdotes on the difficulty (or otherwise) of getting a short-term German residency permit?

Here's an anecdote from a HN'er trying to start a business in Germany: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3224374

Thanks for the link. I'm not trying to start a business though, I've happily self-employed with my own website for a few years now. (Though not earning the 60,000 euros suggested by that link.) I'm mainly just looking for a residency permit... i.e., I'm not going to work in Germany, I just don't want immigration getting angry when I try to leave ~12 months later.

Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#36

Post by nirvana »

acabal wrote: post #35
naner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an anecdote from a HN'er trying to start a business in Germany: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3224374

Thanks for the link. I'm not trying to start a business though, I've happily self-employed with my own website for a few years now. (Though not earning the 60,000 euros suggested by that link.) I'm mainly just looking for a residency permit... i.e., I'm not going to work in Germany, I just don't want immigration getting angry when I try to leave ~12 months later.

The netherlands and america have a treaty called the Ducth American Friendship Treaty. Under it, you can get residency in the Netherlands by putting something like 10-12k Euros into a bank (or starting a business with that much value, you'd need a lawyer to navigate the details.) At any rate, as an american citizen you have a sort of inroads to getting residency in the Netherlands. Under this treaty, so long as you maintain that business in the netherlands you can be a resident (and you can work towards citizenship if you were so inclined.)

As a resident of the netherlands, you can live and work in germany visa free because it is part of the free trade zone. I am pretty sure this is the case, but again, I'm not a lawyer and haven't run this idea by a lawyer.

But that's one option that might work for you.

If you'd like to keep in contact with me, I'm interested in corresponding with people doing these kinds of global startup adventures because there's always tips we can share with each other. (Email and twitter in my profile.)

Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#37

Post by nirvana »

henrikschroder wrote: post #29
nirvana wrote: post #23

In several of the comments, people have asked why entrepreneurs might want to leave the USA, given the common perception that the USA is a great place to do a business. I'm making this comment in response to those questions as an example of an entrepreneur whose left the USA. My reasons for doing this are obviously going to be different than those who would choose not to, so don't get mad. I'm not trying to persuade…

Where are you principally doing business?

That sure looks like a straight forward question, but it actually isn't. Business is an abstraction. We do the work we need to do wherever we are, but the business lives elsewhere, while our primary market is global, such that one of the countries with our largest sales (prior to recent pivot) is a country we've never visited.

Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#38

Post by randomdata »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #25
randomdata wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except maybe Canada Canada is generally regarded as a terrible place for startups, unfortunately. The laws are pretty restrictive towards "disruptive" technologies and the government always bends in favour of the existing players.

> Canada is generally regarded as a terrible place for startups, unfortunately. The laws are pretty restrictive towards "disruptive" technologies and the government always bends in favour of the existing players. What the heck are you talking about? Can you please provide some sources for this? Other than telecom and media I can't think of any space in the tech industry that the government is "restrictive" towards. I…

It's not exactly a one off comment. There was an article posted, I believe here, about the state of startups in Canada. I can't seem to find it at the moment, but I do remember a few examples from it:

* iCraveTV, a Canadian online video service, saw the government cave from US pressure to change Canadian laws regarding online video, which ultimately put them out of business. Later, a bunch of US-based startups entered the same space.

* OpenText, a Canadian search engine, was unable to index the general web due to the law in Canada. While still successful in the corporate space, they could have been a player against Google and Bing if things had been different.

* ZENN, a Canadian automobile manufacturer, is unable to sell their cars in Canada due to legislation. For comparison, Terrafugia, US-based company building a car/airplane hybrid has been able to change several laws in the US to allow them to enter the market.

You can attribute the position these companies find themselves in down to management, but the political climate does not help matters. You can still build a decent business in Canada, but building something revolutionary is more easily accomplished by people of other countries.

Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#39

Post by rdouble »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #25
randomdata wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Except maybe Canada Canada is generally regarded as a terrible place for startups, unfortunately. The laws are pretty restrictive towards "disruptive" technologies and the government always bends in favour of the existing players.

> Canada is generally regarded as a terrible place for startups, unfortunately. The laws are pretty restrictive towards "disruptive" technologies and the government always bends in favour of the existing players. What the heck are you talking about? Can you please provide some sources for this? Other than telecom and media I can't think of any space in the tech industry that the government is "restrictive" towards. I…

Cheap labor isn't necessarily a win. It means the best engineers will use NAFTA to go work in the USA where they will be paid 2-3x as much. The last startup I worked for in the Bay Area had over half its engineering staff from Canada.

Re: Why are entrepreneurs leaving the U.S.?

#40

Post by hello_moto »

quanticle wrote: post #31
hello_moto wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My assumption/pre-requisite is that if you can become an immigrant, in a few situations, your family is rich already or successful back home thus you would have connections already and you're probably in mid to high economy class. I think you can say the same thing too everywhere: Work Hard, Develop Skills, Market yourself. Marketing seems to be the key point in developing countries probably because the average peopl…

>My assumption/prerequisite is that if you can become an immigrant, in a few situations, your family is rich already or successful back home thus you would have connections already and you're probably in mid to high economy class. That's not always a good assumption to make. Not everyone who makes it to the US is rich or well connected. In fact, the vast majority of immigrants to the US have not been rich or well con…

Regardless what my assumptions are it's not a matter of "Right or Wrong" because if there are 100 immigrants, there will be 100 paths/experiences :).

Your path is different than the path of these people who come back home because they have better opportunities there than here.

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