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Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

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Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#181

Post by jimmywanger »

untog wrote: post #174
jimmywanger wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DACA recipients were brought to the country as children and literally know nothing else, often including the language of their "home" country. Not the country's problem. If you expose children to the consequences of your wrongdoing and mistakes, they suffer as well as you. Otherwise, that incentivizes wrongdoing. Another example - if you rob a bank, and pay for your kid's private school tuition is it "wrong" to tak…

> Not the country's problem. The country decides what the country's problems are and are not. DACA has widespread public support - 83% of voters support a pathway to citizenship, according a to a poll by Fox News (of all places): http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/09/28/fox-news-poll-83-... So it's safe to say the country considers it a problem, and a solvable one at that. You don't need to use wholly inaccurate an…

> The country decides what the country's problems are and are not.

Odd, the people who are in charge of creating laws, the House and the Senate, are still in office after getting nothing done. Right now this is not the country's problem because laws on the books should be enforced, as they were passed by the legislature.

Why not vote legislators into office who can pass the laws? It would be the legislative branch's problem, most definitely not the executive branch - I applaud Trump for upholding the law as passed.

The executive branch enforces the law, the legislative branch creates laws, and the judicial branch interprets the law.

Using executive orders to selectively enforce or not enforce laws does an end run around the will of the people and laws. If enough people cared enough, vote legislators in who will change the laws to what you want. Just saying that at this current moment a majority of people want this solved but have no concrete solutions on what the exact pathway to citizenship is short-sighted, naive, and dangerous.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#182

Post by reaperducer »

tormeh wrote: post #64
ZenoArrow wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your growth strategy. If you're prepared to start lean and can demonstrate early signs of revenue then I'd imagine you'd find banks willing to cut a business loan.

You can't build a product company like this. Products require lots of development before any revenue arrives. Underdeveloped capital markets (VCs, stock exchanges etc.) is why Europe's software industry is mostly services. The difference between SV and anywhere else is access to risk-tolerant money. SV is not primarily an IT cluster, it's a VC cluster.

> You can't build a product company like this

Except for every company that came before the current dot-com cycle.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#183

Post by lenzm »

yequalsx wrote: post #16
timewarrior wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you build an AirBnb like solution limited to Switzerland market. AirBnb will eventually come and eat your lunch. In today's globalized world - if you are not one of the bigger players and do not have moat (govt contract, some other kind of exclusivity) - other bigger players will come after you.

This seems a bit simplistic. I mean, it's not the case that all markets are dominated by huge mega corps. There are thriving businesses that are not on the scale of Google, AirBnB, Microsoft, etc. If a startup in Switzerland gets traction and it's a space that can scale globally then it seems like it naturally will scale. I doubt anyone would not want to grow if it can.

Tech and software tend to be more dominated by large players though because of economies of scale - launching new companies in every country would be wildly expensive and inefficient compared to AirBnB's trivial costs for adding a new country.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#184

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chrisper wrote: post #137
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is is still hard for US citizens to get bank accounts?

FWIW I am not a US citizen but had to fill out an IRS tax form as well when getting a bank account in Switzerland since I was living in the US for 5 years.

My understanding is that anyone with a green card has trouble opening a Swiss account, even if they are Swiss.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#185

Post by refurb »

chrisper wrote: post #138
refurb wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the public transport, but I live in SV and get 23 days of paid vacation plus 13 stat holidays.

Are sick days part of the 23 days?

No. 3 sick days on top of vacation.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#186

Post by kolinko »

adventured wrote: post #128
nextstep wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh HN, how is this the top comment on this fantastic blog post about the huge lifestyle drawbacks from living in SV? >> 2. Behind Silicon Valley on best technology and product building practices by at least 2 years. This was clearly written in earnest, but works better as a satirical joke about the inward-facing nature of bay area tech. Please explain what "best technology and product building practices" means here,…

How much experience do you personally have with Switzerland based start-ups? Serious question. The parent's comment is valuable because they actually have direct experience with the topic. It's being upvoted accordingly. Very few people on HN are likely to have direct experience with Swiss start-ups, further amplifying the value of the parent's input.

This is ad hominem. You claim that nobody who didn't live in Switzerland can argue about subjects related to the startup scene over there.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#187

Post by ptorrone »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #104
tormeh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because you're making a service company. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. The org chart you need for product and the one you need for services are different. The necessary mindset of the employees are different. Not only that, but the buyers of product and services are often different as well. Sure, building up a huge services company lets you squirrel off some funds for product development, but how often do…

To counter your hypothetical "can't be done", here's a real example of a product company that's grown a single person selling electronics kits from their college dorm room to a product company making $33 million in revenue less than 10 years later: https://www.adafruit.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adafruit_Industries#History A similar example being this product company, which started out in 2012 with two people…

thanks @ZenoArrow ... additionally, it's over $42m and we have a free and paid for service, http://www.adafruit.io and a subscription service, ADABOX, with thousands of customers, http://www.adabox.com ... no loans, no VC, 114+ people, USA manufacturer of open-source hardware in NYC, USA.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#188

Post by kolinko »

soperj wrote: post #42
timewarrior wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you build an AirBnb like solution limited to Switzerland market. AirBnb will eventually come and eat your lunch. In today's globalized world - if you are not one of the bigger players and do not have moat (govt contract, some other kind of exclusivity) - other bigger players will come after you.

You say that, but there are cases even in small countries where this didn't happen. Like trademe in New Zealand which was just like ebay. Ebay still hasn't become the major place to do auctions in new zealand.

These are exceptions to the rule.

Living in Poland, I see so many good ideas and good teams, that go absolutely nowhere because they begin with the local market, and struggle to achieve ramen profitability, while their global counterparts achieve scale and funding to ultimately take over the market.

There is a small niche of successful copycats that grabbed the local niche, and maintained the lead over the years due to strong network effects - like a local reddit clone (wykop.pl), or a local ebay clone (allegro.pl), but that's almost it.

All the other projects either failed to get off the ground, or got killed when globally oriented startups entered our country.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#189

Post by ZenoArrow »

ptorrone wrote: post #187
ZenoArrow wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To counter your hypothetical "can't be done", here's a real example of a product company that's grown a single person selling electronics kits from their college dorm room to a product company making $33 million in revenue less than 10 years later: https://www.adafruit.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adafruit_Industries#History A similar example being this product company, which started out in 2012 with two people…

thanks @ZenoArrow ... additionally, it's over $42m and we have a free and paid for service, http://www.adafruit.io and a subscription service, ADABOX, with thousands of customers, http://www.adabox.com ... no loans, no VC, 114+ people, USA manufacturer of open-source hardware in NYC, USA.

You're welcome ptorrone, it's a great success story.

As a side note, thank you for founding Hackaday also, it's one of my favourite websites.

Re: Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV

#190

Post by untog »

jimmywanger wrote: post #181
untog wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not the country's problem. The country decides what the country's problems are and are not. DACA has widespread public support - 83% of voters support a pathway to citizenship, according a to a poll by Fox News (of all places): http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/09/28/fox-news-poll-83-... So it's safe to say the country considers it a problem, and a solvable one at that. You don't need to use wholly inaccurate an…

> The country decides what the country's problems are and are not. Odd, the people who are in charge of creating laws, the House and the Senate, are still in office after getting nothing done. Right now this is not the country's problem because laws on the books should be enforced, as they were passed by the legislature. Why not vote legislators into office who can pass the laws? It would be the legislative branch's…

> Odd, the people who are in charge of creating laws, the House and the Senate, are still in office after getting nothing done.

For one, there hasn't been an election since this latest change to DACA status happened. Secondly, very few people decide their vote on a single decision like this, and especially one that doesn't directly affect them. That doesn't mean they don't support it, though.

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