Europe's Software Problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#401

Post by throwaway894345 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

amilios wrote: post #389

handoflixue wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has worker protections and social mobility, so you're flat-out wrong on two of your points. And actually the US has free access to health care via a variety of programs, it's just not universal, but I'll concede that's being pedantic. Every country is going to have inequality, corruption, antiquated infrastructure, and persecution of journalists, so those are meaningless unless you provide some sort of compari…

Comparing all of these points against Western Europe, the US is objectively behind. There's your point of comparison. Western Europe has far more expansive worker protections (just look at "right-to-work" states, you can get fired for any reason whatsoever), far more encompassing free healthcare (not just for the poor and older individuals, Medicare and Medicaid is what you're referring to I presume right? There are…

Being behind first world countries in a few cherry picked regards doesn’t make one a third world country.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#402

Post by tored » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 10:58 PM UTC

Gravityloss wrote: post #163

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…

It could well be the opposite. For example free education improves a software company's hiring prospects as there are lots of employee candidates available with good education. In some countries social mobility is a real thing. As a practical counter example, Sweden has massive taxation and something like most billionaires per capita and a very vibrant software and startup scene. One could actually do some kind of su…

Sweden has failed to build almost any new big company since the last 100 years. Just look at OMX30 (30 most traded companies at Stockholm stock exchange). Almost all of them are companies older than 100 years.

Simplified, many great old successes (old money, i.e the billionaires) and many new promising, but few in-between.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#403

Post by b20000 » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

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…

I moved roughly 10 years ago to the US from europe. In my experience, raising small amounts of money is possible in Europe and not too hard. Once you need more money, it becomes extremely difficult or nearly impossible, unless you can spend all your time networking, which is not going to happen if you are busy building a product.

I would say that banking in Europe is much better developed than in the US. In the US, we still have checks and you need to pay for wire transfers (what???). Doing taxes in the US is 10 times more complicated than it is in Europe, and CPAs are only interested to doing them for you if you are a cookie cutter case and easy to make money off. Otherwise, good luck getting a call back. That doesn't happen in Europe. You hire an accountant, he does his job.

Entrepreneurship in the US is not easier than it is in Europe, IMHO. Raising money or scaling might be easier.

In my experience, I've been dealing with constant discrimination in the US. It is claimed that where you are from or what your social status is, doesn't matter, in silicon valley (or California in general). People are nice, they smile, but it's mostly fake. You remain a foreigner, who should still work for less pay than those who grew up locally and went to an ivy league school, even though you have the same credentials and graduated at a top school in Europe (in my case, I have an ivy league degree on top of that).

Raising money in the US? No different than in Europe, at least in my experience. Again, no network = no raise. And you will need to overcome the above discrimination or at least the idea that you might "go back" any time, even if you are a permanent resident.

All this sounds brutal, and maybe hard to take, but I just say it like it is, and I prefer to be honest and straightforward and share my first hand experience.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#404

Post by yurishimo » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 11:05 PM UTC

jltsiren wrote: post #364

wyager wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1% The median American is much richer than the median European.

Statements like this are ambiguous, because "European" can mean many different things. Over 40% of Europeans live in former communist states, so the median European in the literal sense does not tell much about the standard of living in the traditional first-world European countries. I did a comparison between Finland and the US some time ago. My conclusion was that the median households were about as wealthy in both…

As an American with over 10k in their emergency fund, it would be really nice if it didn't have to be that high! That's 3 months for both my wife and I to not work at all if needed, or one trip to the ER for a "major" accident.

I would love to only need to keep a few thousand bucks in the case that my car breaks, and even then, that's likely overkill for the actual repair costs relative to the value of the car.

I don't own a house, I don't have any debt. I'm 8 years into my career and I've just now getting to building a positive net worth. I've put off so much medical/dental maintenance because of the cost and now it'll take half of my savings to fix all of it.

I know I'm doing a lot better than many folks my age. Top 10% for my age, but it sucks knowing that elsewhere in the world, they're doing some things so much better. It's one "benefit" of the internet connected world; we can see what everyone else is doing and how others solve hard social problems. Fixing those social problems in the US though, is continuing to be extremely difficult and we're still likely decades away from catching up to parts of Europe, and by then, we'll still be decades behind what they'd be doing then.

Sometimes I wonder if my life would feel better if I didn't know the term egalitarianism.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#405

Post by jamnik » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 11:09 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #384

lesto wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As EUropean living in a different country for work, is not that easy at all. Try to do your taxes in Swedish or German or French.. Or try to have a social life with people that while could speak English will probably switch to their own language when in more than 2-3 person. Yes of course you can learn the language, but dont think you can be proficient in a couple of year, especially if working 40h/week, and still yo…

> will probably switch to their own language when in more than 2-3 person. That's just rude and why would you want to socialise with such people. I had some great experiences and even when I was the only person not speaking the local language, everyone spoke English in my presence. There is plenty of people that have standards and if you cannot find them at a given time, just focus on something else.

People dont just move to another country with their spouses and kids on a whim. Never happens

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#406

Post by tored » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 11:20 PM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #150

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…

While it may seem connected, it isn’t. Just look at history. America has been infamous as a country of get-rich-fast people almost since it was founded. Long before progressive taxes and social welfare. It is a cultural difference. This was at a time when the US was actually more egalitarian than Europe.

Some parts are probably cultural. The type of economy that the article is describing, rent-seeking, doesn't feel like it culturally could work in Europe when trying to build something large like Google or Facebook, that is at least my subjective feeling.

That is why I'm somewhat skeptical against the article's proposition, offer it for free and then later come up with a scheme to extort users. I think there are other steps that can be taken first.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#407

Post by SiberianDweller » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

At first, a bus driver should not have bigger salary than software developer, period. But in EU, a truck driver or bus driver having better status and credit karma that scientist or just a programmer.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#408

Post by mnouquet » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 11:23 PM UTC

kazen44 wrote: post #366

mnouquet wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A plumber needs formal education, at least in Germany. Three years of it, to be exact. And then some more to run his own shop. Here's Europe's problem. The same way you don't need 5+ years university education to put together whatever piece of hardware / software together, the same way I don't need studying hydraulic to put together hydraulic implements.

mind you the german education system is very different from the US/English one. Germany (and many other european countries) has the idea of a trade school, in which one learns a trade. Usually these are combined with working experience in the form of apprenticeships. In my experience, continental europe has far more emphasis on early work experience compared to ango-saxon countries. An internship usually lasts a coup…

> A plumber would be a prime example of the vocation which is using this kind of system. > people finish secondary education at an earlier age then in the US (16 or even 15 in some cases), then they transfer into tertiary education in a fachschule.

Who the fuck know what they want to do for the rest of their lives at 15 or 16, most likely without having the possibility to re-invest 3+ years to change branch ?

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#409

Post by LAC-Tech » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #99

Hot take: the problems here are cultural. Consider these data points: 1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering"…

Speaking of work-ethic - I've noticed how much less Australians work than everyone else. Knocking off at lunchtime on a Friday, leaving at 3 or 4pm, etc. The only people I've seen working a full 40 hours in Australian companies are the people who own the company, and foreigners.

I know Australians have are able to easily get a work visa to go to America. The cultural shock must be pretty big once they're actually expected to work a full day, though I guess the salary increase makes up for it.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#410

Post by npteljes » Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 11:35 PM UTC

Absolutely agreed. I'm bewildered about how entrenched Windows and Office is, for one - in government and in schools. How the hell can they put so much control into an other entity like this? Especially if there are fine alternatives, although I agree that large migrations are really, really painful. France, for some reason, has a higher frequency in news regarding adoption of free software, for example the adoption of Matrix [0], LibreOffice [1] or Framasoft's activity in the education [2]. This gives me some hope.

[0] https://matrix.org/blog/2018/04/26/matrix-and-riot-confirmed...

[1] https://itsfoss.com/french-city-toulouse-saved-1-million-eur...

[2] https://framasoft.org/en/