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Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

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Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#51

Post by ttrt »

Peer wrote: post #8
symmetricsaurus wrote: post #4

1.4 million in the urban area and 2.1 million in the metropolitan area is not exactly tiny. Tel Aviv is for example smaller, but I guess that the comparison is to the bay area/silicon valley or something like that.

Tel Aviv is probarbly larger than Stockholm though. The Swedish definition of "metropolitan" area is skewed, it consists of several cities and according to wikipedia its 6,519 km2 that is compared to Tel Avivs metropolian area of 1,516 km2. Still Tel Avivs has a metropolitan population of 3.4 million people compared to Stockholm's 2.1 million.

6.5k km2 is actually more than 1/4 of Israel's land area (20,770/22,072 km)

Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#52

Post by samuellb »

beagle3 wrote: post #45
luuse wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They differ all over sweden depending on how old you are, how long you've been working for and how much you earn. In Stockholm you pay about 30% in income tax (add 20% if you earn more than 401 100 SEK annually, you earn about 360 000 SEK annually as a newly graduated MS CS student). However you also have another tax, the employment tax, which isn't displayed on your salary specification and is paid by your employer…

Your math doesn't make any sense - the 81% (assuming that all is right, and bjourne says it isn't) is out of 131%, not out of 100% - so the actual tax is 61%. Still high, but on par with Tel-Aviv and NYC (assuming fiscal cliff) - and you get back infinitely more than NYC and just "a lot more" than Tel-Aviv. I'd say it's great.

For many people there are also substantial tax deductions you can make. E.g. you can subtract 30% of interest expenses on private loans (ränteavdrag) and 50% of renovation costs of owned houses/apartments (ROT). Now unfortunately these deductions lead to higher property and apartments prices, so it might not reduce your total expenses after all.

Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#53

Post by zalew »

flexie wrote: post #22

I think the article forgets one reason why Scandinavian countries do well in IT start ups: Allmost all Scandinavians speak English quite well. Given that most new technology and research is communicated in English, a decent level of English is necessary to adapt new technology. This gives Scandinavians and Dutch entrepreneurs an edge compared to most other European entrepreneurs, except obviously the Irish and Britis…

> This gives Scandinavians and Dutch entrepreneurs an edge compared to most other European entrepreneurs

how? the world's ranking of english proficiency is dominated by Europeans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index#2... I am pretty sure among the IT branch the scores are much higher although you don't need perfect language skills to understand technical concepts.

Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#54

Post by luuse »

beagle3 wrote: post #45
luuse wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They differ all over sweden depending on how old you are, how long you've been working for and how much you earn. In Stockholm you pay about 30% in income tax (add 20% if you earn more than 401 100 SEK annually, you earn about 360 000 SEK annually as a newly graduated MS CS student). However you also have another tax, the employment tax, which isn't displayed on your salary specification and is paid by your employer…

Your math doesn't make any sense - the 81% (assuming that all is right, and bjourne says it isn't) is out of 131%, not out of 100% - so the actual tax is 61%. Still high, but on par with Tel-Aviv and NYC (assuming fiscal cliff) - and you get back infinitely more than NYC and just "a lot more" than Tel-Aviv. I'd say it's great.

Well the state tax isn't as i said it, bjourne is correct about that part.

I see that extra tax as money that if not for the tax would be part of my salary (at least some of it) because it's based on how much I earn, not how much I work or when I work. Thus making it of 100% of my salary, not 131%.

I never said it's bad. It's OK. I'd just rather pay for something great/world class than having someone else take some of my money throughout my whole life and pay for average things for me (whether i want them or not). It's a lot harder as a consumer to demand things when you're not paying for it and you loose options when there's a single entity that pays for everything and wants everything done a certain way.

Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#55

Post by SeanLuke »

symmetricsaurus wrote: post #4

1.4 million in the urban area and 2.1 million in the metropolitan area is not exactly tiny. Tel Aviv is for example smaller, but I guess that the comparison is to the bay area/silicon valley or something like that.

Stockholm has the same metro area size as teeny tiny Baltimore. :-)

Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#56

Post by lambda »

zalew wrote: post #53
flexie wrote: post #22

I think the article forgets one reason why Scandinavian countries do well in IT start ups: Allmost all Scandinavians speak English quite well. Given that most new technology and research is communicated in English, a decent level of English is necessary to adapt new technology. This gives Scandinavians and Dutch entrepreneurs an edge compared to most other European entrepreneurs, except obviously the Irish and Britis…

> This gives Scandinavians and Dutch entrepreneurs an edge compared to most other European entrepreneurs how? the world's ranking of english proficiency is dominated by Europeans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index#2... I am pretty sure among the IT branch the scores are much higher although you don't need perfect language skills to understand technical concepts.

You do notice that all of the countries listed as "Very High Proficiency" are Scandinavian or Dutch, just like he said, right? And many of the continental European countries, like France, Italy, and Spain are listed at only "Moderate Proficiency."

While you don't need perfect language skills to understand technical concepts, not being at full proficiency can be a barrier. I know that when I help people out on StackOverflow, one of the main barriers to answering some people's questions is that they can't formulate it in English in a way that I can understand. Proficiency is a two-way thing; besides being able to read English, you need to be able to speak and write it well to fully interact with the technical community.

Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#57

Post by _delirium »

flexie wrote: post #22

I think the article forgets one reason why Scandinavian countries do well in IT start ups: Allmost all Scandinavians speak English quite well. Given that most new technology and research is communicated in English, a decent level of English is necessary to adapt new technology. This gives Scandinavians and Dutch entrepreneurs an edge compared to most other European entrepreneurs, except obviously the Irish and Britis…

A related factor is that it's very common for even the first iteration of a product to be in English, which means it can start to get international appeal. This is possible partly because even the domestic market is fairly open to English-language products/services, so you don't need to make something in Swedish in order to sell it to Swedish people.

Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#58

Post by beagle3 »

king_jester wrote: post #46
beagle3 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it's not 60% yet, it's 50-55% Second, I know quite a few who are at almost-the-maximum. Most people, when they talk about their taxes think only federal. AMT at 28% is a bitch, and NYC at 13% is too, so if you're less than 40%, you might be an audit away from serious action (despite what your highly paid CPA tells you). Ask high-worth individuals in NYC with >$500,000/year income and a few millions to lose wha…

> Ask high-worth individuals in NYC with >$500,000/year income and a few millions to lose what their overall tax rate is. Wouldn't we expect the tax rate for such individuals to be high? It's not like someone with that high of a pay will suffer from a 50-60% tax rate.

Context: mbesto said (essentially) "well, yes, that's the theory, but in practice no one pays it because you can engineer your taxes around it". My reply was "people who have a lot to lose if they are found guilty of evasion do not actually try to engineer around it".

Or, I'll say it another way: The reason most people believe it is easy to engineer around it, is because they have not yet been audited. It's actually not at all easy to engineer around it.

Case in point: Mitt Romeny "only paid" 18% in taxes, so you might assume that's his tax rate - but it isn't; he paid 10% more to his church. Had he not done that, his tax rate would have been 28%. Also, for the privilege of being shielded from lawsuits (through corporate structures), his corporate paid some nontrivial corporate tax - 20-30%. So he actually paid ~50% for his work. I'm not defending him - I would be glad if he paid more - I'm just explaining that people are completely irrational in their discussions of tax rates. The ONLY number should be (what I take home)/(employer's out-of-pocket expense to employ me), for salaried employees.

Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#59

Post by beagle3 »

lrem wrote: post #47
beagle3 wrote: post #28

Every single experience I've had with a swede, (technical, entrepreneur, or otherwise) has been extremely pleasant. It might be selection bias - most of those that I've met were outside sweden at the time I met them - but from spending some time in Lund, I got the impression that it's a national trait, to the point that I have considered moving to sweden for a few years if the stars align properly. Perhaps we can hav…

Beware of possible problems when relocating. I know an experienced graphic designer who moved there, due to personal reasons, to see her career go to a sudden stop. At some point she forced a HR person from one of the companies ignoring her CV to answer why. It went more or less like that: - Oh, that's simple, you completely lack experience. - Have you missed the entries in my CV? - No, but none of them was in Sweden…

Thanks. This is very interesting; "Stars aligned" means, among other things, that I won't move before I know I have a job.

Re: Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosystem since Tel Aviv

#60

Post by beagle3 »

luuse wrote: post #54
beagle3 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your math doesn't make any sense - the 81% (assuming that all is right, and bjourne says it isn't) is out of 131%, not out of 100% - so the actual tax is 61%. Still high, but on par with Tel-Aviv and NYC (assuming fiscal cliff) - and you get back infinitely more than NYC and just "a lot more" than Tel-Aviv. I'd say it's great.

Well the state tax isn't as i said it, bjourne is correct about that part. I see that extra tax as money that if not for the tax would be part of my salary (at least some of it) because it's based on how much I earn, not how much I work or when I work. Thus making it of 100% of my salary, not 131%. I never said it's bad. It's OK. I'd just rather pay for something great/world class than having someone else take some o…

Were you ever an employer?

If your salary is 10,000SEK/month (to make numbers simple), then you cost your employer 13,100SEK/month. You pay 3,000 SEK in taxes, so your take home is 7,000/13,1000 = ~55%, and the tax rate is 45%.

If the employer didn't have to pay those 31% to the government, he would have paid them to you, and you would have been taxed on them.

It doesn't matter how the line items are listed from the employer's perspective, and it shouldn't matter to you. Just assume that this appears as another line item, and also a grand total "employer expense". This is what you negotiate when you negotiate your salary - not the 10,000 SEK.

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