31–40 of 97 posts
At least the government is using this huge building for small businesses and not another museum or mall.
So, how long does it take to learn enough French to be dangerous :-) if you don't speak any Romance language?
now the great advantage with IT is that most people speak english, and most technical words are english.
Are they still legally obliged to call computers ordinateurs and use Megaoctet over there?
I know it's stupid, but that's the way it is, and it sort-of works. And before going all French-bashing about this, go and check the anti-sodomy laws that still exist in some bible-belt US states...
While I applaud any efforts toward entrepreneurship, I can't help but think that these "megaproject" efforts kind of miss the point. By their very nature, startups tend to originate from grungy, grassroots hackerspaces, undergrad dorms, shared apartments, graduate common rooms, and so forth. Places where weird and innovative ideas get cross pollinated. I mean, yeah, "let a thousand flowers bloom", and all. But if Fra…
Can you put forward a link to some study that argues that 75% taxes, or huge taxations hampers innovation?
While I applaud any efforts toward entrepreneurship, I can't help but think that these "megaproject" efforts kind of miss the point. By their very nature, startups tend to originate from grungy, grassroots hackerspaces, undergrad dorms, shared apartments, graduate common rooms, and so forth. Places where weird and innovative ideas get cross pollinated. I mean, yeah, "let a thousand flowers bloom", and all. But if Fra…
There are many things to fix in France to encourage start-ups, indeed. And containing bureaucracy will be harder than tax issues IMO. However, what's very important in this endeavor this that it's 90% financed by Xavier Niel, a single private entrepreneur who's specialized in blowing up bureaucratic / oligopolistic businesses. He's pioneered minitel services (including sexual content, which got him some flak), then c…
i also saw an interview of fleur pellerin the other day and she seems like a "hands in the dirt" person. that's a real change from previous ministers in her position.
that's really the first time i'm optimistic about a state sponsored big project.
I want to share my experience. France is doomed. Taxes and red tape are harder and harder every month. Just today, they have announced they want to raise a new tax on video games (wtf) and distribute the money to french video game large editor. (wtf) You can't do violent games or game that don't picture well the french culture. (wtf!) If you are an indie game developer in France, you are done.
Example of red tapes (someone asked):
- You can't fire anyone. - To hire someone, you have to face a handful of fake applications. (People who don't want to get the job but are afraid of losing their allocations) - You have to publish your statement of income every year. Even if you are full private LLC! - You can't do online banking. - You have to declare every websites you own to the gov. - Some crazy BS about keeping access logs of your websites for an insane amount of time.
Example of taxes:
- To pay an employee 1,000 Euros, you are paying 2,000. - They have a commission to monitor the evolution of work time and you have to pay them directly. Not even a scam. - You have to huge pay a tax on your server SSDs for P2P piracy even if you have a business that nothing to do with that. - VAT taxes are a painful process. - You have to pay 30% of your total assets if you want to live abroad, even if it's only for a few years.
Sure, this project seems great but it's again gov. money (Caisse des Dépots) wasted and it will only profit to some BS/political companies, so scr0w them.
Are they still legally obliged to call computers ordinateurs and use Megaoctet over there?
Really interesting, but a building != an incubator. Access to capital/investors is key and its unclear from the article if this is something they've got a plan to address.
Ycombinator grew organically, as an experiment. This sounds to me like yet another bureaucratic effort to replicate Silicon Valley.
Politicians always think big, they don't want to fix holes in the roads, they want to make new super highways so everybody could see how great they are.
As European and entrepreneur I avoid France for any of my business work. Every French person enjoys life, wants to work the less they could and they feel entitled for everything. More than half the people there work for the government and are more worried about their rights than what they could do.
They could care less about competing with the world, they are living by increasing their debt, and believe that this is going to last forever, that probably Germany will support their lifestyle.
Don't get me wrong, I love France, speak French fluently, have lots of friends there.
So there is 30.000m² of space, but it seems that most of it can't be used for actual work. It'd have been more beneficial if they used the money to build a building and have subsided apartments for start-ups. I think at a starting stage, I'm more in need for work space than an auditorium or another restaurant. But this doesn't solve the problem for France. I'm (geographically) quite close to France but will incorpora…