Please God yes.
Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
141–150 of 162 posts
Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a seed round if you're making $600,000 a year. You could stop all development, fire every expensive person apart from some basic cheap support staff, and be wildly rich in a couple of years just from that.
> $600,000 a year > be wildly rich in a couple of years pick one
What don't you get?
In a couple of years you'd be a millionaire and richer than virtually anyone in the world. And in a few more you'd be a multi-millionaire and richer than virtually any American.
If you want to carry on working for 10 years to try and become a billionaire, which will almost certainly not happen, go for it.
Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, you judge/don't go to a whole country because of what its politicians say? The USA's president has been saying a lot of questionable things, but I don't see anyone fleeing SF..?
You don't see the mayor of San Francisco being stabbed to death in public for being pro-gay.
You're right, you just see terrorist attacks, school shootings, and in SF in particular rampant crime with homeless people taking shits in the streets everywhere.
I'm just amazed at how much misinformation and exaggeration one can decide to spread.
Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
#144I wonder why entrepreneurs don't come to Poland to build their product. Warsaw or Wroclaw in particular are vibrant, tech-oriented cities where life is about 1/4 of SF. If I had to bet my future on being able to building something with 1M, I would want to get 4 months instead of 1 for the money. Of course, SF might have better investing ecosystem, but once you got the money development should be done in a more approp…
I know the reason I'd be scared to go is Poland's relatively high levels of politicized homophobia. There was this, as recently as checks notes earlier today. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-lgbt/polands-rulin...
Why are you obsessed with that? There are gays everywhere that live normal lives, here, just like in any other European country.
As for your link: what are LGBT rights? It's unconstitutional to treat any citizen differently than the next in any western country, so there is nothing to whine about. LGBT rights are LGBT privileges, and Poland has rightfully decided to not let PC trump common sense. Sorry!
Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
#145I wonder why entrepreneurs don't come to Poland to build their product. Warsaw or Wroclaw in particular are vibrant, tech-oriented cities where life is about 1/4 of SF. If I had to bet my future on being able to building something with 1M, I would want to get 4 months instead of 1 for the money. Of course, SF might have better investing ecosystem, but once you got the money development should be done in a more approp…
What are the long term prospects for freedom of expression there? [1] As a first generation immigrant I just don't think the opportunities for socio-economic mobility would be present for my (future) kids anywhere but in a liberal democracy. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/poland-...
The Atlantic seems to be reputable, but extremely biased towards left-wing causes.
Left-wing causes include smearing Poland because of its supposedly right-wing government (some Poles don't agree it's right-wing, actually).
Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
#146I wonder why entrepreneurs don't come to Poland to build their product. Warsaw or Wroclaw in particular are vibrant, tech-oriented cities where life is about 1/4 of SF. If I had to bet my future on being able to building something with 1M, I would want to get 4 months instead of 1 for the money. Of course, SF might have better investing ecosystem, but once you got the money development should be done in a more approp…
> I wonder why entrepreneurs don't come to Poland to build their product. The answer is that immigration is very difficult. I couldn't find any freelancer or entrepreneur visas for Poland, so it looks like it would be impossible for me to relocate there and work on my own startup. I'm making it even more difficult for myself, because I would prefer to build a small sustainable business where I don't take any traditio…
You don't need to have a visa to start a company.
I started one and it takes 5 minutes from a government website.
After that you can stay anywhere in Europe for 6mo./year without a visa, which includes Poland.
Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nomadcapitalist sells residency services. His info is good, but he has an angle and shouldn't be used as a single source of truth. I like Wroclaw (which gives you access to Ukrainian programmers also) and Lisbon myself. Since Portuguese is easier to learn, and I already have people there, it will probably be Lisbon. There was a decent overview of entrepreneur passport options on here the other week. https://docs.goog…
Yeah, I'm aware he's a consultant of some kind but from what I can tell it shouldn't be too hard to navigate the process on your own. A lot of what he focuses on are capital gains/taxes which I don't really care about too much. Thanks for those links, super helpful, didn't know so many countries offered startup-specific visas. In that google doc spreadsheet it's missing some important investor visas (the startup visa…
That's right: Poland and Ukraine have a special visa regime (strong historical ties). I dunno what it is called, but you can google it up: http://www.vfsglobal.com/poland/Ukraine/English/how-to-apply...
There's a host more investor visas of various kinds and "if you feel like it" visas. If you're a US national, you can basically stay in most EU countries if you want to. Each one will be a little different, but ultimately you have to work pretty hard to get tossed out of the EU. Some of these visa regimes are informal, like "OK, you seem like a nice guy and you're not going to go on the dole here." This is the kind of info that you WON'T get from concierge residency guys like NomadDude -he's trying to steer people towards things which he actually provides.
Lisbon: I like the food, climate and architecture better than Poland, and I have more friends who live there. Pretty simple, really: people on the ground trumps any information you're going to get on the internets. The projects on my horizons are all fairly high skill (ph.d. in math), low head count projects, and it's a lot easier to convince high skill people to move to Lisbon than Wroclaw or Lviv. There's also a decent nomadconsultant scene which has interesting social aspects. If I needed head count for a Bay Area type startup, I'd probably go straight to Ukraine, as I got people with top connections there. It's a beautiful country, and lots of the talent wants to stay there.
Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
#148For anyone else looking to move away from the Bay Area, I'm hiring in Jakarta, Indonesia :)
Email me at crystal@go-jek.com
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aWeK0dReWeufZUN11f2QMoEP...
Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
#149Ah, If I had a dollar for every time a post like this shows up on HN, I'd be a millionaire. It's either this, or some personal anecdote of how some founder took his startup to Austin, Detroit, Nashville, Seattle .. and they are kicking butt. Last I checked, San Francisco alone accounted for 25% of the V.C Money and San Francisco + Silicon Valley accounts for over 45% of V.C. Money. Source: https://www.citylab.com/lif…
There was an article voted up in HN on how we are in Peak California and Bay Area. And someone pointed out that this narrative has been going on for decades.
Meme: beleaguered Apple / SV
Re: Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
the exodus is only among the poor/middle-class and that the immigration of the rich and high-earners is actually accelerating. Is that supposed to make the groupthink better or worse? I suspect worse, as it's reducing the viewpoint diversity, as viewpoint is affected by socioeconomic status and livelihood.
I think the point is that tax isn't driving an exodus of businesses/entrepreneurs as OP suggested. The opposite is true and it's driving out lower income people. Oakland, for example, is growing like SF with 10+ tall buildings going up this year downtown to accommodate tech companies and their employees.
The opposite is true and it's driving out lower income people.
Which would reduce viewpoint diversity. Please check your reading comprehension. You seem to have gotten it 180 degrees in the wrong direction.