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

Europe's Software Problem

berthub.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 585 posts

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#331

Post by kaba0 »

mmarq wrote: post #205
bandris wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US and California in particular lost it's appeal. 20 years ago it was the dream destination for many. Now, even some Indians steer away. I don't know a single European who would want to live in the US. Not even from Eastern Europe. The go-to place is London, Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam, etc. FAANGS were started 1-2 decades ago. In past 5 years the trend changed. Ask PG. He will never move back to the US. And no,…

Instead I would argue that if the Americans opened their borders, a huge fraction of European tech workers/professionals will relocate there. I'd say that, as middle-class persons, they wouldn't subject themselves to the torture of getting a visa, which may also partially explain the rise of Berlin as a tech hub after Brexit.

Nonsense. You do realize that people don’t just relocate to another country let alone to another continent, especially when the benefits are questionable at best. Somewhat more pay, but for more expenses due to a ridiculous health-care, depending on location, it may very well be less safe, etc.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#332

Post by hackerNoose »

coryrc wrote: post #130
jpttsn wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What it lacks is freely flowing funding such that risky enterprises can be funded even if 1 out of ten or 1 out of hundred actually are successful Might this be a flip side of regulations that combat economic inequality? If so, the two should not be addressed as separate issues. But frontpage HN posts tend to be "Applauding Europes' long vacations and progressive taxes" and "Bemoaning Europe's lack of VCs with fuck…

Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the USA. Similar to the US, they also pay less in taxes than the middle class. I wonder if Sweden has higher funding than the rest of the continent?

Sweden is unusual in that way. You often hear about that it's one of the countries with the most equal income distribution but at the same time it has one of the highest wealth inequalities. Basically it's hard to make any money by working you have to own things.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#333

Post by sschueller »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #168
selfhoster11 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order to be innovative and compete, we need very flexible working laws, people with a big growth mindset, a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people. The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1% and the indispensable knowledge worker class that can't be automated away or juiced dry for all the productivity they are capa…

> The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt" I get the distinct impression that people who liken the US to a third world country are from one particular spot on the political spectrum. This seems like political rhetoric, not a summary of some level-headed analysis. Inequality, crime, etc in the US are certainly problems, but that seems like a low bar for the "third world c…

Generally I define a 3rd world country as a place that has a lot of inequality, corruption across the board, poor to no worker protection, failing and antiquated infrastructure, no free access to health care, high incarceration rate, persecution of journalists, a large working poor population with no ability to move up the social ladder, etc.

Which one of those does the US not have?

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#334

Post by Nursie »

grishka wrote: post #313
Nursie wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mandate that every API version that introduces breaking changes remains available for X years. Then you've just crippled the ability to deliver new functionality at a rapid pace without huge associated support costs. no?

No. You didn't read my comment fully. Companies already support app versions that are years old, for various reasons — the most obvious one being that many people use older devices that run an OS that's no longer supported by the app in question, and others just don't ever update anything. So since they're already doing this right now, and have been doing this since forever, there's literally zero additional work inv…

> Companies already support app versions that are years old

Some do, agile startups tend not to.

> Besides, no one is asking them to "deliver new functionality at a rapid pace"

And your proposed legislation would ensure that they cannot.

> It's fine for a product to be done. It's fine to stop. It's fine to go into maintenance mode.

It's not fine for this to be the law.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#335

Post by emj »

unknownOrigin wrote: post #256
fvdessen wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes far beyond that. If you are in Italy and want to expand to Germany you need to hire german speaking people and that means opening a Sales Office in Germany, and dealing with different labour regulations etc.

And just to add to this, from a certain level (revenue) that's not that high (and depends on idividual states) you need a presence (VAT registration) and a business bank account in the country you're selling your services/goods in, even if you're not actually located there. E.g. a medium sized online shop based in the Czech Republic that is shipping to Hungary. Now imagine this if you're shipping to many EU states...…

Might have been true at some point, but nowdays even smaller payments are easy to send between EU banks. VAT payment is done in your home country, and you can deduct the VAT. The social aspect is harder; the amount of work to get a consistent revenue stream from another EU country can be enormous compared to doing buisness in another city in your own country.

There are people who specialize in sales between EU states, but for a small team without capital it was hard. That said most of the 100+ tech companies I know of have offices around EU to get talent from other countries.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#336

Post by gryn »

game_the0ry wrote: post #144
sdevonoes wrote: post #89

> For one, we lack the imagination and vision to launch something without knowing how it might eventually make money I don't think there is lack of imagination. The biggest barrier for any person who wants to launch something is: paperwork around establishing a company. In some countries you have to pay every month some amount of money if you want to be a freelancer, in others you need to setup a sole proprietorship,…

> Also: being a software engineer/computer programmer in Europe is not as sexy as it is in USA. It's getting better, yes, but here the "engineer" is the last monkey. Managers and sales are the ones who get the credit. So, European mentality also plays a role here. Eventually those manager and sales people will learn that they need developers to build stuff, or else they can't manage anyone because nothing has been bu…

they found a better alternative called: 'you do the work, I get the pay in your place. win win'.

and it's structured in the form of useless middlemen `consulting` companies going by the names of (Atos, Alten, Accenture, ...)

finding a job in tech related industries means most probably going through them, and in practice they value business school people and management types way more than the lowly engineer.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#337

Post by cryptica »

ramboldio wrote: post #162

The EU should just pay anybody who makes Open Source contributions. Problem solved. Europeans get their own tech stack. Can compete again with US companies, as the all the cost for building infrastructure is externalized.

That would be a great strategy and probably wouldn't cost much. Pay open source project authors to maintain popular projects. Right now, technologists in Europe are starved of capital. We have 0 surplus capital to take any risks or to innovate; we're too busy chasing the next paycheck to think about building infrastructure.

Even when we do build infrastructure, there is 0 government support; governments or tech companies don't make any effort to bring any attention to EU open source projects.

All other countries have protectionist structures but EU imports all its tech, even though there is more than enough in-house talent to build it - They'd rather give out contracts to US and Chinese companies and have their EU citizens working for these companies as employees instead of giving their citizens a chance to actually run the companies.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#338

Post by mnouquet »

WYepQ4dNnG wrote: post #272
jillesvangurp wrote: post #179

I'm a European, living in Europe, developing software. Lack of imagination is not our problem. It's so good that we supply our best talent to the US where it does extremely well revolutionizing AI, designing hardware for Apple, developing games, stream online music, etc. E.g. Amazon's CTO is Dutch. Basically the person that has been running AWS. The people and the education system are fine. Europe does have a few iss…

> raising similar amounts of money in Europe is super hard This. I am European but live and work in US. Simply put, US wins hands down because they: - have resources, read $$$$ - take risk - have the right entrepreneurial mindset Europe? let's just say they are not even close.

In Europe, everybody wants to be a manager because mere developers is not high enough status. In the US, a 45yo DB engineer is akin to highly skilled wizard.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#339

Post by grishka »

Nursie wrote: post #334
grishka wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You didn't read my comment fully. Companies already support app versions that are years old, for various reasons — the most obvious one being that many people use older devices that run an OS that's no longer supported by the app in question, and others just don't ever update anything. So since they're already doing this right now, and have been doing this since forever, there's literally zero additional work inv…

> Companies already support app versions that are years old Some do, agile startups tend not to. > Besides, no one is asking them to "deliver new functionality at a rapid pace" And your proposed legislation would ensure that they cannot. > It's fine for a product to be done. It's fine to stop. It's fine to go into maintenance mode. It's not fine for this to be the law.

Maybe there should be some sort of condition, like minimum MAU or something. Only regulate those that grow to be huge enough for many people to depend on them. This would exclude startups but would still apply to Facebook and Twitter.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#340

Post by [deleted] »

sschueller wrote: post #333
throwaway894345 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt" I get the distinct impression that people who liken the US to a third world country are from one particular spot on the political spectrum. This seems like political rhetoric, not a summary of some level-headed analysis. Inequality, crime, etc in the US are certainly problems, but that seems like a low bar for the "third world c…

Generally I define a 3rd world country as a place that has a lot of inequality, corruption across the board, poor to no worker protection, failing and antiquated infrastructure, no free access to health care, high incarceration rate, persecution of journalists, a large working poor population with no ability to move up the social ladder, etc. Which one of those does the US not have?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN