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Poll: HN readers, where's your residence?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: HN readers, where's your residence?

#311

Post by m0th87 »

Being from the (rest of the) US, what disturbs me about this poll is how much entrepreneurial talent we might be missing out on.

At current count, ~2/3 of readers are from outside the US. These results seem to be backed up by pitdesi's post.

Since HN is so centered on startups, that's quite a few founders and potential entrepreneurs who could be working on the next Google. And all things being equal, there is a 2/3 chance that that next Google won't be happening in the US.

The Valley is amazing, but it's nothing without talent. Making our immigration law more amenable to founders obviously won't cause a mass migration of founders here, but surely some will be attracted to our awesome startup hubs. And we need every edge we can get.

We really need a startup visa.

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Edit: A couple of the responses have misinterpreted what I was hoping to convey. Of course I don't think everyone is dying to come to the US. What I am simply arguing is that 1) HN is a decent proxy of the startup community, 2) much of that community is outside of the US, 3) is there anything the US can do to attract some of that talent?

This is a question every country should be asking themselves, because startups are engines of prosperity. For the US, I think the startup visa is a good solution.

Re: Poll: HN readers, where's your residence?

#312

Post by dignan »

"(Rest of the) United States" and "(Rest of) Europe" seem too broad, since they have by far the largest numbers of votes :(

There should probably be a separate poll for the US and Europe where regions within Europe and the US are differentiated :)

Re: Poll: HN readers, where's your residence?

#315

Post by CWuestefeld »

tokenadult wrote: post #294

Even if the poll is posted for many hours on HN's front page, we shouldn't rely on it for an inference of where HN participants live, in the level of detail shown in the poll. Just three days ago HN had a good thread about gaps in statistics knowledge even among persons with a university education, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3285742 and polls like this on HN are a good illustration (in the comments) about wh…

One professor of statistics, who is a co-author of a highly regarded AP statistics textbook, has tried to popularize the phrase that "voluntary response data are worthless" to go along with the phrase "correlation does not imply causation."

And look how successful the campaign to educate about correlation versus causation has been...

Just as you note, people tend to believe whatever the heck they want to believe.

Re: Poll: HN readers, where's your residence?

#316

Post by wladimir »

kunley wrote: post #176
itmag wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Although many Europeans are at work and may not be on HN" Uhm, that's exactly why I'm on HN.

OT, but frankly such attitude is recurring and I can't imagine how it is compatible with HN "ethos". If you're at work, be effective there or change the work. What's to be so proud in slacking during work hours? Would you want such people working in your startup?

HN isn't that bad because you can read articles on how to improve your coding skills, learn about libraries that can help you be more productive by not reinventing the wheel, and so on. As long as it doesn't get in the way of work that has to be done, there's much worse ways of slacking off.

Re: Poll: HN readers, where's your residence?

#317

Post by PhilipDaineko »

m0th87 wrote: post #311

Being from the (rest of the) US, what disturbs me about this poll is how much entrepreneurial talent we might be missing out on. At current count, ~2/3 of readers are from outside the US. These results seem to be backed up by pitdesi's post. Since HN is so centered on startups, that's quite a few founders and potential entrepreneurs who could be working on the next Google. And all things being equal, there is a 2/3 c…

Didn't read all previous comments, but your last sentence is really cool.

Here, in Belarus, we have a startup challenge called "Belarus Startup" and the prize is a payed trip to the Valley :)

Startup visa is a cool idea

Re: Poll: HN readers, where's your residence?

#319

Post by davedx »

m0th87 wrote: post #311

Being from the (rest of the) US, what disturbs me about this poll is how much entrepreneurial talent we might be missing out on. At current count, ~2/3 of readers are from outside the US. These results seem to be backed up by pitdesi's post. Since HN is so centered on startups, that's quite a few founders and potential entrepreneurs who could be working on the next Google. And all things being equal, there is a 2/3 c…

Conversely, not being based in the US comes with lots of disadvantages, such as terrible payment gateways, unfriendly tax and small business legislation, and smaller networks of entrepreneurs. Here in Ede, the Netherlands, I feel pretty isolated, and I imagine a lot of people in Europe also do unless they live somewhere like London or Amsterdam.

Re: Poll: HN readers, where's your residence?

#320

Post by jlmendezbonini »

alvivar wrote: post #290

What about Central America? I guess we are few in HN, but if it's not part of poll, we never know :( This happen in almost all the demographics polls here... Can you add this option sasvari?

Indeed. We, central, are always "merged" into south america or Mexico depending on who you ask. I don't blame them though since in recent centuries we have not been a major world player.
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