A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France • Hacker News Board

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#391

Post by wott » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:42 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #250

bru wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed! But then you get great health insurance, good public infrastructure and services, free top-notch education, etc. Basically if you're without any dependent, you may not see it as worth it, but once you have a family it really starts paying off.

People making the kind of money being discussed here, such that you trigger higher bracket income taxes, have great health insurance in the US as well. Further, decent jobs in the US almost always include health insurance compensation above the salary. I have a brother that works in a pretty normal job earning $42,000 per year (not an outsized salary in the US), he pays $27 per month for his health insurance through…

> he pays $27 per month for his health insurance

That's not even close to cover the same things.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#392

Post by mfo » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:43 PM UTC

hacker_9 wrote: post #79

jlangenauer wrote: post #5

Apropos of this, I was in Paris recently at a startup event, and was pleasantly shocked at the sheer number of startups and people I saw doing things. This is a good move by the French, and will help attract entrepreneurs away from other countries (particularly like those just across the channel currently inflicting generational economic damage on themselves.)

As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language; 5 years in school trying to learn French + German, and can still only put together about two sentences. From what I remember, no one else seemed to really pick up the languages either.

From my experience (as a french guys more interested in tech than literature) I really 'learned' spoken english by dating an UK girl (also joined a polyglot club: http://polyglotclub.com/, but living it was a real step forward, nothing compared to years of learning at school). That's the ultimate card up your sleeve to learn a foreign language.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#393

Post by 467568985476 » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:43 PM UTC

jjawssd wrote: post #193

mavdi wrote: post #13

Great move. This is how US started a golden age. Encouraging outlooking and talented migrants with ZERO public money spent on getting them to that level. Free talent. And btw, outlooking and talented migrants are exactly the kind that will want to blend in and cause no problems.

The first step of a golden age is reduction of red tape.

Exactly - just look at how well the Kansas economy performed after removing much of their regulation.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#394

Post by ptaipale » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:44 PM UTC

kmonsen wrote: post #329

blibble wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you read the first line? > Home Office says in letter that it cannot give unilateral assurances until status of Britons in other EU countries is protected

Then maybe they should not exit the union? The brits have to come with all the answer, and can expect no help being given since they are the ones breaking up the relationship.

I cannot quite understand the thinking behind this comment (even if I'm in a country staying in the union).

It appears that some people in the union want to retaliate to the British for wanting to leave the union and thus insulting the honour of Juncker et al. They are even ready to shoot their own foot in retaliation, instead of just accepting that Britain leaves and life goes on, and new agreements are made, and trade goes on based on new agreements, for mutual benefit.

Most assuredly the relationship of Britain and EU will have to be formed based on proposals and answers from both sides. It would be really, really strange if EU could make general schemes of preferential trade with Cuba and South Sudan but not Britain, out of sheer malice.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#395

Post by biztos » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:44 PM UTC

rubber_duck wrote: post #359

renaudg wrote: post #330

Raw salary comparisons miss the point : you can't really compare pre-tax salaries between countries with such a completely different taxation and benefits structure. The take home pay certainly is much, much lower in France than in the US, but it comes with access to top-notch free healthcare, free university, pension contributions, 5-7 weeks paid leave and generous unemployment insurance amongst other things. It all…

>but it comes with access to top-notch free healthcare Does it cover stuff like cosmetic dermatology, full dental plan (implants) ? I don't live in France, I lived in different EU countries and every time I needed something the "free health care" meant I had to pay participation fee and wait 6 months walking around appointments and ended up going private clinic. I basically got 0 value out it, considering I'm young a…

I don't live in France but I do feel qualified to comment on the general comparison, being a US software guy in Europe.

First, things like health care and free university are a huge deal if you plan to stay past your 30's. Consider being able to take a couple years to try a business without freaking out about health insurance. Consider being able to go get a PhD in some interesting subject without having to get a full scholarship. Consider, obviously, having kids and sending them to world-class universities without incurring any debt.

Then there's the job security aspect. It can be really nice to be employed in a country where people aren't just laid off whenever a company misses its quarterly numbers.

And finally, if you really are an actual Expert in a field where that's worth a lot of money, it's probably worth about as much in France as it is elsewhere. Sure all the "senior" programmers with 3 years' experience get paid a lot less than in the US, but I don't think the VP level does badly at all.

(Maybe I'm being naive here... my point of reference being Germany.)

I hear it can be very hard to get a proper, "permanent" job in France, but I also hear the quality of life is pretty amazing if you do.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#396

Post by user5994461 » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:44 PM UTC

jeandejean wrote: post #372

EduardoBautista wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the salaries so much lower? Is it lack of funding or do employers just don't want to pay more?

It is mostly because of the social welfare that is funded massively over salaries extortion. Take a random 60k€ salary for a senior software engineer in Paris, the employer is paying at least the same amount of taxes on top of that, making the cost for the company up to 120k€. It is not that far away from some foreign salaries for the same position, except in other countries highly skilled workers are not that massiv…

Honestly. The taxes are only half the story.

The other half is that there are simply no company with massive revenues competing for engineers. Nothing to drive price up.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#397

Post by School-Cotton » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:45 PM UTC

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #373

School-Cotton wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only three years of experience as a software engineer. I made over $200,000 in 2016. This is more than the Prime Minister and President make in France. I also have health insurance provided by my employer. Granted, I only get four weeks of paid leave, which is less than would be typical for a French person, but not by a dramatic amount. I would understand your point if the raw salaries were closer with France'…

> I made over $200,000 in 2016. This is more than the Prime Minister and President make in France. This kind of braggadocio statement is why the hate for tech workers is growing. It shows a serious lack of perspective and an incredible amount of arrogance and condescension. It's also very untypical, even for a skilled tech worker in America.

We are literally in a forum discussing tech worker salaries.

Yes, I make an amount of money that puts me in an extremely high percentile relative to the world population. But pointing that out in a context where it's completely relevant is just conversation, not bragging.

Do you think I go around showing my W2 to random financially struggling strangers, or something? I don't.

By the way it's not as atypical as you might think, for top tech/finance jobs in the Bay Area or NYC. I know lots of people making these salaries, at companies other than mine.

As an aside: I didn't make any claims at all about whether I thought my pay was high or low, fair or unfair, whether I deserved more, how it compared to anyone else's in any other industry, etc. etc., so why exactly are you claiming I "lack perspective"? I don't think I displayed either perspective or lack thereof with my totally neutral statements.

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#398

Post by vmarsy » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:46 PM UTC

jlangenauer wrote: post #5

Apropos of this, I was in Paris recently at a startup event, and was pleasantly shocked at the sheer number of startups and people I saw doing things. This is a good move by the French, and will help attract entrepreneurs away from other countries (particularly like those just across the channel currently inflicting generational economic damage on themselves.)

People mention the lack of VC, infrastructure, tax or other issues, but to me the biggest problem is the lack of talent. I would say that in terms of business skills, there's a surplus of "salesmen" type of founders, but technical founders are missing. France engineers are very smart and engineering school are among the best, but unfortunately I find their curriculum still oriented towards hard engineering (civil, aerospace, nuclear, etc.). On the other hand you can go to a classic university instead of the engineering school and get a computer science degree, but then you don't get as much of the engineer mindset training. Instead you get something leaning towards the pure science training, and due to the lower prestige of the universities, the computer science teaching is lagging behind a US computer science school.

Either the universities could invest more in a better computer science degree, but finding good fundings is probably difficult for public universities whose budget is decided by the government. Or the engineering schools could join the 21st century.

French billionaire Xavier niel recognizes the problem and tries to address it with his "42" school[1], I wonder how much impactful this has been

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(school)

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#399

Post by School-Cotton » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:46 PM UTC

sulam wrote: post #375

rublev wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have only three years of experience as a software engineer. I made over $200,000 in 2016. What do you do?

If s/he works for a public company, this is totally in line with total compensation at that experience level after you factor in stock. There are many places where you can get this level of comp. Of course, your stock package has to be worth something -- this person is almost certainly not getting over $200K in base salary alone, and if they are I would echo your question -- "what do you do?" -- and add another -- "w…

Yes, this includes stock, which is effectively the same as cash to me since I always sell it immediately when it vests. (Not because I don't believe in my company, but just because I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket)

Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France

#400

Post by user5994461 » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 7:48 PM UTC

taway_1212 wrote: post #360

jchampem wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can expect something from 50k to 70k€ (gross salary) dependending on the company and your experience. Remove 25% of that to have an idea of your net salary. (Those 25% are mostly for your retirement plan, social security and unemployment insurance. All of those are mandatory) Expect to pay between 1 and 2 months net salary in yearly incomes taxes.

Christ, the top end of those numbers (both for gross salary and income taxes) is 3600 euros net per month, which is only 20-40% more than you get in Warsaw. Meanwhile, Paris real estate is (from what I'm hearing) extremely expensive.

FYI: Paris has the same estate than London, considering £1 = €1