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Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

independent.co.uk

61–70 of 81 posts

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"I intended to visit China in the near future -- but I've booked a trip to Taiwan instead, almost entirely because Taiwan doesn't​ require me to get a visa." You still get a visa to enter Taiwan. It's just a "visa on arrival" as opposed to needing to obtain a visa prior to travel. Visa policies are reciprocal between countries. China and the US both charge citizens from each other's countries to visit for tourist pu…

>You still get a visa to enter Taiwan. It's just a "visa on arrival" as opposed to needing to obtain a visa prior to travel. Sure -- 'doesn't require me to get a visa' as in I don't have to make a trip to an embassy or pay a fee. I'm sure I'll visit China eventually, but for the sort of low-budget travelling I'm doing, an entry visa represents a not-insignificant amount of the total cost. It also makes things less fl…

>" It also makes things less flexible: as I understand, authorities must be notified of exact travel plans before you depart."

This isn't true. You are free to travel wherever and whenever you want in China provided you have a visa. Tibet might require a special approval but nowhere else. The visa is also good for 10 years. Also if you are a Westerner, hotels and taxis are a really good value in China. Lastly there are much better flight options into Beijing than there are into Taipei and so would more than offset the cost of the visa.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#62
post #14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on most parts. However I come from a private "engineering" school focused on computer sciences (named Supinfo) and there's some others (Epitech / Epita ) that though they don't deliver a engineer diploma (as per the law-regulated definition of engineer) but rather a master diploma (but that you can name "engineer in computer science" or somekind of trick like that and the schools play on that to attr…

Imho , schools like those don't do enough "hard" science, like math, to prepare you for the future. Have you done enough linear algebra to work on image processing, or with neural networks , and understand the various parameters to tweak the libraries ? Done enough logic (the math branch) to understand the deep nature , or at least feel the taste of the type systems to come ( scala, haskell and now more and more swif…

There are CS Engineering schools in France that have a large part of their teaching in "hard" science.

For example, in my school (ENSIIE). I've studied Operational Research, Graph Theory, Logic, Probability, Statistic, Formal Program Proof, and other subjects I don't remember (oups...).

No Quantum Computing in my school however.

But it might be present in better schools like ENSIMAG or Supelec.

The side effect is that these schools tend to be old school in their purely technical teachings. No learning of or how to configure or , only basic programming skills in C, Java or CPP, SQL, a little assembly, OCaml and some Unix administration skills. By themselves, these schools will not produce code monkeys.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#63
post #29
post #2

Paradoxically, while Trump has accomplished very little but make speeches, the damage his presidency has done to our image, and perception of how welcoming America is, will be felt for years. It's bringing back memories of our dismal global perception around 2006-2008. (Although this wasn't for "America is unwelcoming" reasons)

I hope no one thinks that Trump is emblematic of a country that elected Obama 4 and 8 years prior. I can only imagine Trump is a passing fad; then again, I said that at every stage of his campaign...

[deleted]

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#64
post #57
post #15

A law passed in 2015 in France [0] that makes it mandatory, starting 1/1/2018, for any business (including "auto entrepreneur", what you have to register as to be a freelancer or such in France) to used "certified" software for accounting. Is a tool like Excel, which the vast majority of small companies are currently using, certified? Of course not! You have to pay for special software like Ciel Devis (9 euros/month)…

FYI they are planning to remove this requirement, so it should not be a bother much longer

I came here to say that.

Source: http://bfmbusiness.bfmtv.com/france/bercy-renonce-au-logicie...

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#65
As an American living and working in France, this sounds like a scenario where France would love to have the results and benefits of a startup boom, but they don't want to take the necessary steps to enable it. Having a bunch of free money or easy visas are actually not what will cause a boom. France is notorious for never-ending paperwork and administration, and it's true. It's like trying to swim in molasses. You can do it. No one is "stopping" you. But eventually you just get too tired and give up, and go to the cafe and enjoy life. But hey, yeah let's make France attractive to startups and catch some of those taxes and world attention. But we don't want to change anything about our culture or regulations, so we can give give out a bunch of money, right? That will get people to flock here, make billion euro companies, and we'll reap the benefits. That's what it seems like to me.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#66
post #14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on most parts. However I come from a private "engineering" school focused on computer sciences (named Supinfo) and there's some others (Epitech / Epita ) that though they don't deliver a engineer diploma (as per the law-regulated definition of engineer) but rather a master diploma (but that you can name "engineer in computer science" or somekind of trick like that and the schools play on that to attr…

Imho , schools like those don't do enough "hard" science, like math, to prepare you for the future. Have you done enough linear algebra to work on image processing, or with neural networks , and understand the various parameters to tweak the libraries ? Done enough logic (the math branch) to understand the deep nature , or at least feel the taste of the type systems to come ( scala, haskell and now more and more swif…

Generally I think you're right, but tbh you don't need to be a MIT class A mathematician physician master to become a great systems engineer. Scala, Rust, Kotlin etc has (to me) the same learning curve as Java and I think most system devs will be able to adopt the languages if they wish to do so.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#67
post #57
post #15

A law passed in 2015 in France [0] that makes it mandatory, starting 1/1/2018, for any business (including "auto entrepreneur", what you have to register as to be a freelancer or such in France) to used "certified" software for accounting. Is a tool like Excel, which the vast majority of small companies are currently using, certified? Of course not! You have to pay for special software like Ciel Devis (9 euros/month)…

FYI they are planning to remove this requirement, so it should not be a bother much longer

See also this article on NXi about it https://www.nextinpact.com/news/104552-auto-entrepreneurs-ob...

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#68
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those gains were most likely based on the anticipation of tax cuts (increasing consumer spending and the supply of investable capital), deregulation (allowing higher profits, most notably by banks), and repatriation (allowing share buy backs). So far, none of those has happened and it remains to be seen if they will. If they don't, I don't expect a market decline, but just a smaller total cumulative growth since Nove…

Tax cuts on the rich don't increase consumer spending, since rich people don't spend all their money (proof: they're rich). Although this is a popular theory, mostly promoted by the people who don't want to pay taxes.

Tax cuts to the rich increase investable capital, as I said. Trump also proposed tax cuts for everyone else, too, which would increase consumer spending.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#69

As an American living and working in France, this sounds like a scenario where France would love to have the results and benefits of a startup boom, but they don't want to take the necessary steps to enable it. Having a bunch of free money or easy visas are actually not what will cause a boom. France is notorious for never-ending paperwork and administration, and it's true. It's like trying to swim in molasses. You c…

> France is notorious for never-ending paperwork and administration

Having visited the Paris startup scene recently, I got the feeling that the bureaucracy is much less taxing these days.

Re: Emmanuel Macron presidency prompts French startup boom

#70
post #69

As an American living and working in France, this sounds like a scenario where France would love to have the results and benefits of a startup boom, but they don't want to take the necessary steps to enable it. Having a bunch of free money or easy visas are actually not what will cause a boom. France is notorious for never-ending paperwork and administration, and it's true. It's like trying to swim in molasses. You c…

> France is notorious for never-ending paperwork and administration Having visited the Paris startup scene recently, I got the feeling that the bureaucracy is much less taxing these days.

No it's the same except we embraced IT and it helped a lot.
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