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Ferrari owner Exor wants to build the Italian Y Combinator

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Re: Ferrari owner Exor wants to build the Italian Y Combinator

#111

Post by J_cst »

epolanski wrote: post #54
wlecometo wrote: post #23

Well the main issue in italy is not lack of funding or lack of talent but rather the amount of taxation companies had to go through and the uncertainty behind a big and complex legal system which makes an average of 8 years for civil processing . these two things alone and the fact there are better places in europe to make a startup (hint: netherlands, germany, france, czech republic, romania, poland) makes me wonder…

Yes, doing business in Italy is hard, but when your company is doing poorly financially or is having issues it's the government that is going to pay your worker's salaries. Do places with low taxes have this? And the education of your worker's is paid by the government, so you don't get employees that are desperate to pay their student loans. And so is healthcare, so you don't have to pay no insurance (you may, but y…

Hi from Italy. What the parent is saying is correct/partially correct. Still Italy is a very difficult place to do business for a number of factors: burocracy, cultural attitude (who you know means too much), strict labour legislation, slow justice system just to mention the first few which come to my mind. If you come from abroad the above factors become 100times harder to manage/understand. We have a lot of talents and the same amount of weaknesses. Not easy at all. Still a great place to visit and to spend holidays in. Sorry I don't mean to be harsh.

Re: Ferrari owner Exor wants to build the Italian Y Combinator

#112

Post by hef19898 »

bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #108
epolanski wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, doing business in Italy is hard, but when your company is doing poorly financially or is having issues it's the government that is going to pay your worker's salaries. Do places with low taxes have this? And the education of your worker's is paid by the government, so you don't get employees that are desperate to pay their student loans. And so is healthcare, so you don't have to pay no insurance (you may, but y…

Wow, what a ridiculous comment. What you are mention is only a good environment for lifestyle businesses, not startups and growth companies who are usually more innovative and have the possibility to create massive net positives in a country's economy.

If a small conpany is creating enough profits to finance one persons life, well, that's just great.

IMHO the real "life style" businesses are those VC backed start-ups never reaching profiatbility. Because in those cases the founders get to play CxO on other people's money, living this "entrepreneur" life style. One start-up after the other.

Re: Ferrari owner Exor wants to build the Italian Y Combinator

#113

Post by skrbjc »

zoobab wrote: post #64
mattrighetti wrote: post #32

> The exodus of tech talent and lack of startup creation in Italy has worried investors From my experience I can tell that most people here don't want to waste time in a startup with its high risk factor, and it's even more worrying if you come from a college environment where you expect that _Let's do this, I don't care_ kind of attitude. The majority of new grads prefer a secure (and most of the time underpaid) pos…

"> The exodus of tech talent and lack of startup creation in Italy has worried investors" Working hard for investors and shareholders!

The relationship between people who build companies and work in those companies can be mutually beneficial with investors.

Re: Ferrari owner Exor wants to build the Italian Y Combinator

#114

Post by squarefoot »

lnxg33k1 wrote: post #19
bonzini wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> still not every salaried person can have a default pre-compiled tax draft that they can just sign on the Internet and get approved. You have to go and compile it one from scratch This has changed several years ago. > you had to pay an annual tax to validate your passport Keyword being had . It's gone for like 10 years.

Yeah like I am not sure, when I was living in London, not being Schengen, at a certain point I got in mind to just go to "Questura" and make my electronic passport so that I could go through the fast automatic gate, I went there, paid the "Bollo", and I explained that I had to depart in a couple of days, and I just got the e-passport the morning I had to depart.. like it was blazing fast, I mean for my experience, ge…

Some things have been sped up a lot (thanks to the EU), however in some cases bureaucracy still slows down even the simplest document request. Personal experience: I want to relocate, so last summer I found a new home and quickly paid a 20K Euros non refundable (in case of withdraw) deposit upfront. Unfortunately I later discovered that my own home can't be sold at market value, or to be more accurate to be purchased at market value with an authorized mortgage, because it was originally intended as (can't translate the proper Italian term) roughly half-owned-by-the-state-property which was a formula intended to help poor families to buy their home for cheap in city developing areas during the 80s. I have no resources to buy the new home without selling the old one first, and no intentions of getting into debt for it.

To make it short, if I want to sell my home at market value to someone paying with a mortgage (likely 98% of buyers need one) I have to request some documentation which involves a tax, which in my case amounts to 5K Euros, plus a notary lawyer for documents filling and transmission which cost a few hundreds Euros. All fine and dandy, too bad that the mean time between the document request and when it is being released amounts to 7-8 months! Big WTF... 7-8 months for a fucking stamp on a piece of paper, plus hopefully one record in a database! I filled, paid and sent the request last January, let's see how much time will it need. I am extremely lucky that the owner of the home I'm buying will wait until next summer, and I'll have to deposit more money to drag it further, or I would have lost all my deposit only because of bureaucracy.

Re: Ferrari owner Exor wants to build the Italian Y Combinator

#115

Post by rev_d »

J_cst wrote: post #111
epolanski wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, doing business in Italy is hard, but when your company is doing poorly financially or is having issues it's the government that is going to pay your worker's salaries. Do places with low taxes have this? And the education of your worker's is paid by the government, so you don't get employees that are desperate to pay their student loans. And so is healthcare, so you don't have to pay no insurance (you may, but y…

Hi from Italy. What the parent is saying is correct/partially correct. Still Italy is a very difficult place to do business for a number of factors: burocracy, cultural attitude (who you know means too much), strict labour legislation, slow justice system just to mention the first few which come to my mind. If you come from abroad the above factors become 100times harder to manage/understand. We have a lot of talents…

As a recently recognised Italian citizen, I have to agree--it's not the appropriate place to form a startup.

There's a surprising number of things that involve the legal system, and the legal system moves at a glacial pace--in some cases, taking months between when a ruling becomes final and when it becomes enforceable. Encounter any one of those situations, and it's going to be a huge time & resource drain for the company.

Perhaps it'd make sense to headquarter the startup in a more favourable country (Estonia?) and then have a major branch office in Italy (for climate and talent reasons).

Re: Ferrari owner Exor wants to build the Italian Y Combinator

#117

Post by jtwaleson »

I’ve thought of setting up a retreat center in southern Italy for tech teams. Like: take your team and work together remotely for a week. The center will have high end equipment, good furniture, whiteboards etc. Why southern Italy? The climate is great, there are lots of subsidies available, land is cheap and cost of living is low. I’d call it Sicilian Valley.

Re: Ferrari owner Exor wants to build the Italian Y Combinator

#118

Post by b20000 »

epolanski wrote: post #54
wlecometo wrote: post #23

Well the main issue in italy is not lack of funding or lack of talent but rather the amount of taxation companies had to go through and the uncertainty behind a big and complex legal system which makes an average of 8 years for civil processing . these two things alone and the fact there are better places in europe to make a startup (hint: netherlands, germany, france, czech republic, romania, poland) makes me wonder…

Yes, doing business in Italy is hard, but when your company is doing poorly financially or is having issues it's the government that is going to pay your worker's salaries. Do places with low taxes have this? And the education of your worker's is paid by the government, so you don't get employees that are desperate to pay their student loans. And so is healthcare, so you don't have to pay no insurance (you may, but y…

i am from another EU country and getting funding beyond 50k from the government is really hard. vcs and angels are super conservative and take no risks. the government is not paying your employees if you cannot pay them… and you are personally liable for their social security taxes. i doubt that italy can do what you say here as most EU countries handle things similarly. also, if things get harder than you thought they were going to be and can’t pay the government back you will go bankrupt and potentially lose your assets which you might have invested in substantially yourself. i will never take government loans again.

Re: Ferrari owner Exor wants to build the Italian Y Combinator

#120

Post by b20000 »

kungito wrote: post #84
mattrighetti wrote: post #32

> The exodus of tech talent and lack of startup creation in Italy has worried investors From my experience I can tell that most people here don't want to waste time in a startup with its high risk factor, and it's even more worrying if you come from a college environment where you expect that _Let's do this, I don't care_ kind of attitude. The majority of new grads prefer a secure (and most of the time underpaid) pos…

My impression was that in the US you get compensated pretty nicely while in a startup. The whole idea is to get funded so that you can attract talent with crazy salaries. Or did I get something wrong?

yeah, and then you get charged nicely by your landlord, health insurance companies, the tax man, and a million other people for basic shit.
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