Is there a list of the top French start-ups? I'm assuming the Withings would be one near the top.
A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
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Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
#472I'm a tech founder who is in Paris through a very similar program with Paris & Co, French Tech. If you have questions I'll loop back around to answer them based on my experience.
Note: I didn't come with the French Tech Ticket (which was a different program that was more structured). I have an existing software company which I am expanding to France & Europe.
Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
#473Earlier quoted context omitted.
The number of times I've heard, "We can't find developers" from people in my city is uncountable. Sometimes it's for companies where the word has gotten out about bad dev culture, others it's for boring me-too projects. Sometimes the two are hand-in-glove (bad culture -> 'safe' projects). Someone once told me that if a company has to hire from out of town, there may be a reason, and you should investigate. They may h…
We are lucky enough to have a quite a few of interesting tech. companies here in Montreal so you can easily find new work when you get tired or laid off! Retail business are starting to understand that having an e-commerce presence is important so everyone is hiring.
Sure, I was talking more about the situation in France.
Seems like, if what you saw is common, that they are trying to solve a brain drain with another brain drain, which suggests they don't have a complete grasp of the situation.
Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
#474Is there a list of the top French start-ups? I'm assuming the Withings would be one near the top.
1) criteo (which is big nowadays, that's an ad company somewhat competing with Google)
Everything else is second tiers.
Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
You don't measure insurance like that, just like you don't measure whether a wager is a good idea based on how well you happen to do in a single bet, but rather, on the expected value of the average of all possible outcomes weighted by their respective probabilities. I'm in my early 30s, and up until last year never needed any sort of real medical treatment my entire life. Then I got I to a bike accident, fractured m…
One should mention their country of residence. In my case (Greece, 2005, during the golden days), if I had no money saved, my only option would be amputation instead of a titanium rod implant where my femur used to be.
Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 basically got 0 value out it, considering I'm young and healthy I would not have to pay much for insurance, you're mostly footing the bill for the pensioners. And when you are a pensioner, who will foot your bill?
Hard to say TBH. The least likely option is current income based transfers, much more likely some UBI scheme. Just going on the trend of increasing long term unemployment rates and automation. Honestly I have no idea what society is gonna look like in 40 years but I'm willing to bet your pension contributions will be irrelevant.
Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
#477Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's. Not. Free. "Free at the point of delivery". Do you pay to use the highway, or do you drive on the highway for free? If you can use a service without handing over money for the use of that service, it's reasonable to call it "free".
> Do you pay to use the highway Yes, because part of my paycheck goes towards that. And every time I fill up. You seem to fall into the trap of "if I don't hand over money at the same time as I make use of something, it's free." Politicians love to exploit this phenomenon for maximum effect.
You seem to fall into the trap of "if I don't hand over
money at the same time as I make use of something, it's free."
This is important, because it means that the service is independent of income. I don't need income to drive on the highway. I don't need income to have secure healthcare. Some services are important enough to be socialised, so that the service is open to everyone, irrespective of their income, wealth, or lack of.
Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
#478Wait a minute... if this is a Schengen visa, what's stopping people from just getting it and then going to Germany to work on a startup? Not that it's a bad thing (well, it is for France I guess)...
It doesn't allow people to work anywhere else than in France. The "Schengen" part of it (which basically any national residence permit contains) just allows holders to freely travel to the rest of Schengen for up to 90 days in each 180 day period but not perform any paid work in other countries (something which citizens of some countries – including the US – already enjoy without any visa).
Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do you pay to use the highway Yes, because part of my paycheck goes towards that. And every time I fill up. You seem to fall into the trap of "if I don't hand over money at the same time as I make use of something, it's free." Politicians love to exploit this phenomenon for maximum effect.
You seem to fall into the trap of "if I don't hand over money at the same time as I make use of something, it's free." The distinction is that it doesn't matter how much or little I use it, I pay no more. If I drive on the highway, I don't pay anything extra. If I choose not to drive on the highway, I don't get cash in my pocket. Use of the service doesn't cost anything - this is "free at the point of delivery". This…
> I don't need income to drive on the highway.
Don't need gas?
> Some services are important enough to be socialised, so that the service is open to everyone, irrespective of their income, wealth, or lack of.
And they continue to operate so long as there are enough people who _actually pay for these services_. Maybe you don't fall into that category, fine. But there are a lot of people who do, and it all comes straight out their paycheck. It is not free for them by any stretch of the imagination.
Re: A Visa for founders, engineers and investors willing to join France
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, like a temp agency, but we are full employees, which means we are still paid between contracts. The problem is knowing the market rate.
Yep, same as the company I worked for. Market rate is hard to discover, but harder still if you have an entity working against you - the company I worked for had a binding contract with any client preventing them from revealing how much they paid for temps. Do you have a period of time you are contracted to work? If you can make friends in the Paris dev community, you might be able to find out how good/bad your pay i…
From what my former classmates told me, for profiles that are roughly equivalent, it looks like to be closer to 40k. But then they are not in consulting companies.
And I'm too much of a lazy ass to look for another job. Also I have few reason right now to seek a higher salary.