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Dear Europe, please wake up

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Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#121

Post by Muromec »

mcluck wrote: post #81

It's a tricky thing: my experience does mirror some of the "propaganda" despite coming to Europe with heavily rose-tinted glasses. I'm not going to pretend that my limited data is enough to extrapolate to the whole of the continent but it's still a data point. The work culture is very different. There's a clear attitude of working until the next holiday and the company never gets one minute more than what they pay me…

I'm pretty sure the attitude to work depends whether you are a startup or not, whom you hire and on what conditions. It makes sense to work 12 hours a day in your 20ies when you have no other things to do and get a piece of what you are building in return. Otherwise, it's just business -- company wants me to work more and pay less, I want the opposite, so I pay my union fees and don't touch work laptop after 6pm ever.

Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#122

Post by ninjagoo »

alephnerd wrote: post #25
marcinzm wrote: post #22

This misses the big one: California bans non-competes, bans anti-moonlighting clauses and lets you quit with no notice. If you’re at an EU company and need to give 3+ months notice to quit that will discourage starting your own company on the side.

> If you’re at an EU company and need to give 3+ months notice to quit that will discourage starting your own company on the side. India has similar non-competes to Western Europe, but is able to maintain an innovation ecosystem.

Post-employment non-competes aren't enforceable in India [1][2][3]

[1] https://m.economictimes.com/jobs/fresher/it-freshers-beware-...

[2] https://www.business-standard.com/amp/industry/news/non-comp...

[3] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/cant-enfo...

Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#123

Post by raverbashing »

danielvaughn wrote: post #2

I have no idea whether Europeans work harder than Americans, but I do want to say that you can't extrapolate the overall work ethic of America by looking at the SF tech world. It's a very, very small (and very privileged) microcosm of the country.

On this point, I suspect something:

(Some) Europeans work more hours, but less efficiently

Go to a supermarket in Germany, see how quick a cashier rings your order. (yes self-checkout does exist)

And this is not only a North/South (or West) divide. Germans have their way of wasting "work energy" in some micro-bureaucracies in one way or another (and still they are more efficient than the average worker)

Some other southern countries will waste more time doing some things while in some other areas they will be the fastest/least-bs players around.

> But Americans definitely love talking about how hard they work; way more than we do.

Can't disagree with this.

Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#124

Post by alephnerd »

greenavocado wrote: post #94
sandworm101 wrote: post #39

>> If every day is 1% harder for you than your competitor who will win? Your competitor. And in global markets where frequently 1-2 companies become the dominant player in a market this means you will not be a bit smaller. You will fight for scraps. Abandon all hope. The race to the bottom is over. Any country not bowing at the feet of ever tech founder will be relegated to third-world status by the end of the decade…

Following this guy's logic, a country which the Western world has historically shunned, aggressively avoided investment in, and generally turned its back to for decades, Russia, should have completely folded and collapsed after being completely choked off from the world by sanctions imposed on it years ago.

> Western world has historically shunned, aggressively avoided investment in, and generally turned its back to for decades

Before 2020-22, Russia was a major tech hub in Europe, and most of that was because Russian founders would incorporate in the UK or Netherlands, but operate with a subsidiary within Russia.

Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#125

Post by jandrewrogers »

danielvaughn wrote: post #2

I have no idea whether Europeans work harder than Americans, but I do want to say that you can't extrapolate the overall work ethic of America by looking at the SF tech world. It's a very, very small (and very privileged) microcosm of the country.

In my experience, American and European software developers work similarly "hard", that is not explanatory. There are noticeable cultural differences in how they spend their working time.

American software developers have a tendency toward more ambitious and therefore risky solutions to problems, which have a higher variance in outcomes. European software development seems to gravitate toward what is seen as the safe conservative solution always. You may find yourself working more hours to deal with the risks that materialize as an American but sometimes that ambition pays off and you make a significant leap forward, and I suspect there is a higher sense of satisfaction with this result when it pans out. Particularly in the west coast tech cities, tolerance for both the risk of ambitious approaches and dealing with the consequences is dialed up anomalously high, that is just the water you swim in.

With the higher risk tolerance, both cultural and what the business allows, comes a requirement to be willing to work extra hours when needed for when it blows up in your face. This is sporadic, most days they don't work any harder than Europeans. Many Americans value the freedom to take ambitious risks more than they hate the downsides of that risk-taking.

Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#126

Post by Muromec »

voiceblue wrote: post #23

Does the data presented here distinguish between full-time and part-time employment? Or hourly and salaried employment? I wasn’t able to find any information other than “hours worked per person employed”, which seems a rather vague statistic to be used to support any claim.

A lot of people totally work 4 days a week here and it's considered full time contract. Standard language in a contract at the company I'm working for is 32 hours per week, so everybody doing full 5 days a week is having a coefficient applied already.

Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#127

Post by braiamp »

darth_avocado wrote: post #71
tadfisher wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couched in the article: > US folks love talking about how hard they work. And honestly with service workers and blue collars I believe it. But not in tech.

> In SF you frequently hear big tech people talking how hard they work, while they queue 30mins for a coffee at Blue Bottle and chitchatting there for another 20mins. Might be true for an established rest and vest company or position like sales or marketing, but the article seems to be wanting EU to be easier for startups. Not a single startup has that culture, especially when you’re building it from the ground up. Y…

Also couched in the article:

> Americans love their hero-arcs so much that people manage to spin anything into a “coming from nothing story” – even if they got their first investments from their uncle and worked for free in the “garage” of their parents multi-million-dollar house in Palo Alto.

Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#128

Post by flumpcakes »

photochemsyn wrote: post #103

Curiously China's very successful economic model - in which capital is more under state control than in private hands, but there's still a competetive market as industrial monopolies are discouraged - isn't brought up here - even though certain major European industrial sectors seem to be finding China more attractive these days, e.g. BASF; https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/basf-agrees-15-year-ga... Apparently th…

I think China is the workhouse and that's the source of it's power. Ultimately it's a dictatorship with imperial ambitions. It's blatantly using this power already to weaken democracies through IP theft and "overcapacity". It seems like some countries are becoming wary of China and are now moving production to other asian countries. I've seen a few interviews lately of Chinese workers complaining they are no longer employed because the 'west' has moved production abroad and how that's a very bad thing for the world. It seems like people are realising that China has weaponised capitalism. I guess people assumed they would be as benign as Japan in their industrialisation in the 60s-90s.

Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#129

Post by braiamp »

jorvi wrote: post #107
jandrese wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit I raised an eyebrow at Greece being near the top of the list. That's going against stereotype hard.

It is hours worked, not productivity. If a shopkeeper takes a three hour lunch and sits in the sun in front of his shop half the time but stays open from 08:00-20:00 according to the stats he’s working 12h days.

Which is correct, in any case. If he isn't doing anything else but "tending the business" even when there's no business because there are no clients, then he is "working".

Re: Dear Europe, please wake up

#130

Post by rdm_blackhole »

The problem with the EU wide Inc, is who gets the tax revenue?

Is it the country you live in or the country where most of your customers are based in? What if your customers all live outside the EU?

France is never going to accept that you live in France but your business pays it's taxes in Germany or vice versa.

Also I don't agree with the author's take that Europe is not risk averse. It is risk averse.

I tried to open a bank account in USD at my local bank because I wanted my accountant to have access to all the deposits/invoices for my business. I had to answer a form with 50 questions as to why I needed this bank account.

I was told the process would take months potentially. the result is that 6 months later I never received a response and now I am using Revolut as my bank.

It's the small things really.

About the lack of English, that is absolutely true but not because EU kids don't spend enough time learning English, it's because of the teaching style and the culture.

In France all the movies/tv shows are dubbed in French. In Sweden it's not. Guess who speaks better English?

In Sweden I hear kids as young as 11 or 12 talk in English with their friends because it's cool. In France, there is no way in hell that this would happen. Finally the way languages are taught in France is absolutely terrible. There is a lot of emphasis on reading and grammar rules but barely any talking.

The result is that a high school graduate who has spent almost 8 years leaning English 2 hours per week at school can't hold a normal conversation in English for more than a few minutes.

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