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Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

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Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#81

Post by ivan_gammel »

eternalban wrote: post #71
ivan_gammel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absence of oligarchs has nothing to do with this. Belarus and Russia have very different political situation but IT industry is strong in both countries, even stronger in Russia. There are several reasons for it: strong educational system and engineering culture, piracy and almost no law enforcement of copyright, favorable taxation, government policies. It’s hard to underestimate the effects of investment in digitali…

You forgot to mention that Russia happens to have a lot of brainiacs. It's rare event to meet a dumb Russian in IT. I've never met one. I have worked with and managed outsourced engineers from Russia, India, and South America. The Russians were consistently the best: effective combo of smart + hard working. The only negatives were a reluctance to disclose bad news before SHTF, which was quite annoying, but I've alway…

Look at the first item in my list.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#82

Post by eternalban »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #81
eternalban wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot to mention that Russia happens to have a lot of brainiacs. It's rare event to meet a dumb Russian in IT. I've never met one. I have worked with and managed outsourced engineers from Russia, India, and South America. The Russians were consistently the best: effective combo of smart + hard working. The only negatives were a reluctance to disclose bad news before SHTF, which was quite annoying, but I've alway…

Look at the first item in my list.

You can’t educate dummies.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#83

Post by andyroid »

jakozaur wrote: post #60

Emigrating from Belarus to Poland is easy. Even if one of your grandparents has Polish origins you can get easily equivalent of USA green card. Polish governament is working on new law to make it even easier and available more broadly. Given Poland borders before World War II were covering huge part of today Belarus a lot of people can take of the advantage. Regular work permit for IT proffesional is also rubber stam…

From my friends in Poland I hear many of them are considering moving after the latest election and the direction the country seems to be heading. Good to know there are tech workers from Belarus to step into their positions.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#84

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #65
evv555 wrote: post #46

>Despite the authoritarian rule of Alexander Lukashenko, Belarus’s tech companies have prospered. The common argument I hear is they prospered because of authoritarian rule. Belarus never had to deal with oligarchs created by a power vacuum like in Ukraine or other EE countries. As a result a large portion of outsourcing labor for other EE countries is technically done through Belarussian companies(EPAM).

If you go to Belarus, you would rather hear that IT prospered because Lukashenka could not figure out how to extract money from it easily. There were a few attempts at hostile takeovers of IT companies by state actors, but the state could seize only used equipment. Staff moved on, clients fled. So, at some point, the state just decided to let IT free at the effective tax rate of 9% (against 52% for the rest of the co…

Living in Central Asia, I'd say, although Lukashenko was/is a corrupt leader, amount of corruption in educational system was relatively low compared to those in -stans of the former USSR, or even Russia. This a necessary prerequisite for high tech companies to appear and grow.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#85

Post by varjag »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #8
ashtonkem wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. It also seems like Belarus is killing the goose that laid the golden egg here, not that that’s surprising behavior from an authoritarian regime fighting for its life.

> It also seems like Belarus is killing the goose that laid the golden egg here If some kind of deeper integration with Russia is on the horizon, as many have expected for years, then this might hardly matter. The overall Russian economy is so based on the export of natural resources, that the ruling stratum is hardly worried about other industries like the IT sector. All those Russians except for the ~10 million nee…

Russia is an IT midget, comparatively. And with ever increasing sanctions regime it's going to remain backwaters for the near future.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#86

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

fabatka wrote: post #70
Chris2048 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump isn't rated in a vacuum - There is too much hypocrisy in the opposition, starting with sticking with Biden after the allegation of sexual assault.

Not sure why the downvotes, I think this is almost a tautology. My perception is that Biden is just as "mainstream" as the previous opponent of Trump was - hence the slower decline of Trump's approval despite the president's performance.

Well at least he doesn't not call the working clas "deplorables". Michael Moore has a very good comment on why Trump won in 2016, and why he still has a chance in 2020. Overall, Trump's performance up till COVID was okay, but he mishandled the pandemics terribly. Biden will win only because of this. Other than that Biden is boring bland candidate.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#87

Post by rsynnott »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #15

I have a theory that when news orgs nurture soft authoritarians (Bush/Patriot Act, Obama/espionage charges for whistleblowers) their weakened journalistic instincts leave a vacuum that's easy for harder line authoritarians to fill. That's what I believed happened in the US. I wonder if a similar process happened in Belarus.

Belarus was never _not_ authoritarian. This isn’t really new.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#88

Post by rsynnott »

mhh__ wrote: post #30
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #15

I have a theory that when news orgs nurture soft authoritarians (Bush/Patriot Act, Obama/espionage charges for whistleblowers) their weakened journalistic instincts leave a vacuum that's easy for harder line authoritarians to fill. That's what I believed happened in the US. I wonder if a similar process happened in Belarus.

Maybe, but at least some journalists have been spot on about the way trump is going from Day 1 and that hasn't made any difference. He is still insulting war dead, threatening the validity of election, not even interested in solving COVID, and much more that I'm sure that you're already aware of. His approval ratings are at about 40%, that's not good but 40% is almost saint-like by (say) french standards. That's desp…

> that's not good but 40% is almost saint-like by (say) french standards.

I think a lot of that is just party loyalty at the moment, and party loyalty is a MUCH bigger deal in the US than in most European countries.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#89

Post by rsynnott »

dragonwriter wrote: post #18
vikramkr wrote: post #10

It was already authorization- its the "last dictatorship in europe" - what did they think it was before?

> its the "last dictatorship in europe" Well, I mean, if you ignore the country that takes up 39% (maybe a little more de facto after recent unilateral border alterations) of Europe, sure.

The ‘last dictatorship in Europe’ moniker dates back to a time when the general impression was that Russia was democratising. It’s definitely more dubious now.

Re: Tech workers flee Belarus as IT haven takes authoritarian turn

#90

Post by evv555 »

SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #84
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go to Belarus, you would rather hear that IT prospered because Lukashenka could not figure out how to extract money from it easily. There were a few attempts at hostile takeovers of IT companies by state actors, but the state could seize only used equipment. Staff moved on, clients fled. So, at some point, the state just decided to let IT free at the effective tax rate of 9% (against 52% for the rest of the co…

Living in Central Asia, I'd say, although Lukashenko was/is a corrupt leader, amount of corruption in educational system was relatively low compared to those in -stans of the former USSR, or even Russia. This a necessary prerequisite for high tech companies to appear and grow.

I think it's a qualitative difference. Belarus has corruption but it's consolidated to the top even if there's more of it. Compare with Ukraine where IT business will be killed off before it gets off the ground because every small time bureaucrat wants their pound of flesh. As a result a significant portion of Ukrainian talent goes through companies that are/were Belarussian even though Ukraine has the center of gravity in terms of talent concentration.
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