Poll: HN readers, where's your residence? • Hacker News Board

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

#471

Post by perfunctory » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 11:16 AM UTC

davedx wrote: post #319

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.

What stops you from moving to Amsterdam?

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

#472

Post by kingsley_20 » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 11:21 AM UTC

bluesmoon wrote: post #463

kingsley_20 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We" don't need a startup visa, "the USA" might. I'd prefer that Indian entrepreneurs capitalized on the excellent opportunities available at home. I support the startup visa in the spirit of supporting choice, but I resent the implication that the whole world should send its talents to the valley.

Hey Kingsley, do you consider yourself from India, from the SF Bay Area or from both? Note, I don't mean ethnically ;)

Definitely from India. The bay area has been a huge influence, as has the US in general, but it didn't change my sense of identity significantly.

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

#473

Post by fosk » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 11:24 AM UTC

brainless wrote: post #470

kingsley_20 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We" don't need a startup visa, "the USA" might. I'd prefer that Indian entrepreneurs capitalized on the excellent opportunities available at home. I support the startup visa in the spirit of supporting choice, but I resent the implication that the whole world should send its talents to the valley.

As an entrepreneur from India, the only issue is a lot of these payment gateways, and licenses of different kinds are easier to get from US. If those become more global I personally would prefer starting and running from India.

This seems to be a good opportunity to create a payment gateway based in India. There's clearly a need here.

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

#474

Post by jwingy » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 11:48 AM UTC

hboon wrote: post #358

jwingy wrote: post #206

In Singapore, though I'm from the U.S. :)

So it sounds like we have enough people to do a HN meetup @ SG? :)

fo sho. I think the local hackerspace would probably be a good place for it (though I'm not a member)....

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

#475

Post by hboon » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 12:25 PM UTC

jwingy wrote: post #474

hboon wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it sounds like we have enough people to do a HN meetup @ SG? :)

fo sho. I think the local hackerspace would probably be a good place for it (though I'm not a member)....

Me neither. Haven't been there actually. I was thinking a drink session might be better since most of us probably have never met each other?

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

#476

Post by elimisteve » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 12:34 PM UTC

Santa Barbara, CA. (Come by SB Hackerspace if you're around!)

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

#477

Post by davedx » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 12:38 PM UTC

perfunctory wrote: post #471

davedx wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What stops you from moving to Amsterdam?

Family commitments.

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

#478

Post by forinti » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 12:46 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #446

swah wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Porto Alegre here.

two of us then.

Three then.

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

#479

Post by apas » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 12:55 PM UTC

I'm from Greece, just moved in Vienna.

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

#480

Post by smackfu » Fri, Dec 02, 2011, 1:11 PM UTC

thurn wrote: post #345

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…

They're still better than basing your opinions on anecdotal data. For example, I previously believed that the majority of HN users were in the Bay Area, mostly because it seems like users mention that they're there a lot. I was probably basing that opinion on less than a dozen data points.

Is it really better? You put a lot of anecdotes together in a non-proper sample, the result is still junk data.