Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Estonia is running its country like a tech company

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 203 posts

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#181

Post by redisman »

juskrey wrote: post #103

I had a pretty intense honeymoon with Estonia, even had a relatively popular blog on e-residency, have visited Estonia twice (great experience btw).. And, after four years, I have reopened my company in UK and trying to liquidate my Estonian one (today I have received a denial letter which says that only Estonian citizen can close my company).. In short: Vague frequently changing rules, introduction of strange comple…

> Has TONS AND TONS of proper official information with tutorials.

I'm not too familiar with the e-residence in Estonia but I'm not surprised that a country of 1.3M people that fairly recently escaped from underneath the iron curtain doesn't have the resources of the big EU countries who have had centuries of financial power. I'll say starting a business in the US was 100x easier than the EU countries I've stayed in.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#182

Post by elgenie »

jaclaz wrote: post #47
elgenie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be as surprised if given equivalent technological achievements the mayor of, say, Oklahoma City or Richmond VA, did some horn tooting on qz.com to try to drum up outside investment and interest? Estonia’s population is between that of those two modestly sized metros.

I don't know, by those metrics, the Mayor of - say - Paris or London has much more relevance than - still say - the King and Prime Minister of Sweden or of Norway. Or the Mayor of Rome more or less the same relevance as the President of Ireland. Maybe I am too old fashioned, but I see a president of an independent country, small as it might be, as having a different, higher status than a mayor.

The status you personally ascribe to various positions is obviously up to you.

Estonia is sovereign, but whether it’s “independent” from the Eurozone on which it relies for economic sustenance (they get back 5x what they put into the EU budget) and security guarantees and over whose regulations their influence is commensurate to their population is also in the eye of the beholder.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#183

Post by disordinary »

I'd imagine in most developed countries you can do everything online. In New Zealand over the last year I've renewed my passport, setup a company, renewed my drivers license, re-registered my car, opened a business bank account, renewed my mortgage, handled my taxes, etc. All online. The only thing that you can do online in Estonia which I can't do here that I can think of is vote.

Of course NZ is usually ranked as either 1 or 2 on the "ease of doing business" rankings and has low levels of bureaucracy so that might not be typical but I'm also a UK citizen and I renewed my passport from NZ online with no fuss.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#184

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

kuratkull wrote: post #154
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what we ended up with. So far the experience itself was good, but unfortunately it does not solve all our banking needs: for example, to receive payouts from Google Play you need your bank to be in the same country that a company is incorporated in. Since TransferWise is in Germany, it just doesn't work for Estonian companies. We didn't yet publish our software in Apple App Store, but I've heard that it could…

TransferWise is an Estonian startup btw and works great here.

Probably, but it provides a German IBAN number, and that makes it impossible to use for Google Play payouts

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#186

Post by disordinary »

jkingsbery wrote: post #168

"For some weird and unexplainable reason, people normally expect better services from private companies than from their own governments." Right or wrong, it's not that unexplainable. People leave their cell phone carrier over bad customer service. They buy their things from a different website because of poor service, or go to a different store. It's cheap to change your allegiance to a different brand. It's a lot mo…

Surely democracy is an incentive to improve.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#187

Post by nereye »

rorykoehler wrote: post #93
vonmoltke wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America is very backwards in tech for daily life. About 2 years ago I was blown away when I arrived at the San Francisco airport and had to buy a train card with a Visa card; the customer service guy got flustered and pulled an old carbon paper swiper thing out from under the desk, and asked for my signature. America is very backwards because of one thing that happened to you that has literally never happened to me…

Cheques haven't even existed for 15+ years here in Ireland. America is quite slow on the uptake of tech considering they are arguably the most disruptive innovators in the world as a country.

Cheques exist in Ireland to this day, e.g. see https://personalbanking.bankofireland.com/campaigns/bank-of-....

Or, from https://www.permanenttsb.ie/legal-information/terms-and-cond...:

Taxes and Additional Costs 1. Government Stamp Duty will be charged to your account for each cheque book issued to you (currently €20 per cheque book of 40 cheques). ... etc.

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#188

Post by Scoundreller »

gumby wrote: post #180
Scoundreller wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for NATO, it’s better for the big countries if they can hold Russia back in the Baltics and let them be the collateral damage. Sounds win-win to me. And they get access to lots of cheaper labour directly (migration) and indirectly (outsourcing to people that will still buy your stuff). As I’ve posted, the big banks in the Baltics are primarily not Baltic. That access has its benefits, but also its price. I guess I…

> As for NATO, it’s better for the big countries if they can hold Russia back in the Baltics and let them be the collateral damage. Sounds win-win to me. Indeed. Before the eastern expansion I had noticed years ago how portions of Niedersachsen bordering East Germany had been designed as a huge tank trap (dams could be blown up to flood the plains), and the bridges and some other civilian infrastructure was dual use…

I can't say I was thinking into it as deeply as that :)

Re: Estonia is running its country like a tech company

#189

Post by rorykoehler »

nereye wrote: post #187
rorykoehler wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheques haven't even existed for 15+ years here in Ireland. America is quite slow on the uptake of tech considering they are arguably the most disruptive innovators in the world as a country.

Cheques exist in Ireland to this day, e.g. see https://personalbanking.bankofireland.com/campaigns/bank-of-... . Or, from https://www.permanenttsb.ie/legal-information/terms-and-cond... : Taxes and Additional Costs 1. Government Stamp Duty will be charged to your account for each cheque book issued to you (currently €20 per cheque book of 40 cheques). ... etc.

I stand corrected but the observation is still valid.
Post reply on HN