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France bids to reverse tech brain drain
- seren 11y agoI don't have hard data, but only a feeling that it should be easier to bootstrap in France than in US. Assuming you have worked previously, you can get unemployment benefits, around 60% of your previous salary for a year, and are covered by universal healthcare. So even if you need to have open heart surgery, you won't bankrupt your family for the next 7 generations. Actually someone (very brilliant) in my team is leaving next month to found a start up. That being said, I also have the feeling that if you have some initial traction, it will be harder compared to US to get some early funding. PS: I know that trying to compare to SV is a pretty futile exercise, since globally this is a big outlier.
- p0nce 11y ago> around 60% of your previous salary for a year Two years actually, provided you have the right contract termination.
- david_p 11y agoit's more than 70% actually.
- mackwic 11y agoIt's not exclusive. I know many startups who have one foot in the states, one foot in China (when some hardware is needed), and the head in France.
- Mimu 11y agoIf you are a founder without a salary then you get none of that. You are considered unemployed during the whole time you manage your company.
- david_p 11y agoOur startup was created in France 2,5 years ago. Here is our experience: Some of us started working on the project while getting unemployment benefits (huge boost). We get (very) affordable office spaces from the city and various incubators (we are located in Paris). We are able to live on first customers + 0% loans from the state + hundreds of thousands of euros in various grants for innovation (http://www.bpifrance.fr/ http://www.bpifrance.fr/), so we don't need to dilute our shares by raising funds too early. We get no income taxes for the first years. Employees have social security. Healthcare is cheap and very good. Why would we want to start run company anywhere else?
- vixen99 11y agoSo one wonders why there's a problem because evidently there is.
- david_p 11y agoCould you elaborate? Because I see this: http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/01/blablacar-raises-a-massive-100-million-round-to-create-a-global-ride-sharing-network/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/01/blablacar-raises-a-massive-... And this: http://1000startups.fr/?lang=en http://1000startups.fr/?lang=en And I see Paris being startup-heaven in a couple of years. And things are already pretty nice!
- fche 11y agoThat degree of risk-eliminating subsidy should indeed light a fire under entrepreneurship (while the gravy train can keep moving). Do you suppose the benefits are commesurate with the costs? IOW, are there enough new companies thusly incubated that become self-supporting or better?
- david_p 11y agoWhat would you say are the costs to compare to the benefits? In my opinion, it would have be extremely difficult to bootstrap our company anywhere else. As everyone knows, getting out of cash is what kills early stage companies. We go access to "free cash" (0% loans and more than 100k€ in grants) and some of our employees got paid on unemployment benefits .. I mean, how much further could you go? We survived thank to this benefits.
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- ZeroGravitas 11y agoThey could adopt a consistent EU response to economic migrants, and simply not let them leave.
- patrickaljord 11y agoYeah, like the USSR.
- omegaham 11y agoHow would you stop them? I'm imagining all sorts of possibilities, and all of the effective ones require totalitarianism. You'll need a large surveillance network to watch the "at-risk" folks, secret police to infiltrate / interrogate / kill the smuggling networks that will arise, internal passports to track movement, and a nice political structure that will be able to maintain this without pesky things like folks trying to vote for "freedom" and other nonsense like that. Maybe some reeducation camps to correct the misguided ones who try to escape.
- onli 11y agoMaybe France really changed a lot. But be not mistaken: It is still the most bureaucratic country on earth. Anecdote: I'm doing a PhD in France. Each year, one has to do a re-inscription. In Germany, that means sending money to the university. In France, that means sending in – let me count, I have them on my desk – 17 documents, and to pay as well of course (preferred way: with a check. Like it is 50 years ago). The documents ask for tons of information they have already, like where I'm born. Included are things like "this document and do two copies" - it is still all analog. Absolutely disrespectful of my time. And this is not a single occurrence, I got told that at school they are asking for documents for the kids as well each year, the same thing with information they already have. On the other hand, doing the taxes was not at all complicated and I got proper help. This probably changed in the last years. It might be that this is a sign of a changing system, but there is still a lot of crust.
- seren 11y agoThere is a big incentive for any state to have a well run tax administration. It is the profit center for the state.
- yaps8 11y agoTo be fair cheques are still popular in France and regularly used by administration, landlords and individuals.
- negrit 11y agoTo be fair cheques are also popular in the US. Until recently I had to pay my rent with Cheque. I live in an apartment complex in San Francisco.
- rorykoehler 11y agoMy German bank doesn't even offer cheque books anymore.
- thachmai 11y ago
- zamalek 11y agoSomething that I've noticed about South African brain drain is that it's mostly motivated by people simply wanting a system that works for them - at least in tech. If I'm working my ass off on a product that I believe in; I don't want to be, frankly, babysitting the government. From what I've read France is also in the business of destroying productivity - if they want people back they need to start reconsidering overuse of red tape.
- Fiahil 11y agoThis "Reviens Léon" initiative is a masquerade and based on the grotesque idea that expats are not french because they crossed a border. Countries are not bound to frontiers anymore, if I'm growing a network out of my country, I'm becoming an ambassador of the whole french culture. How is that less beneficial to its international standing? French companies and administrations deplore the lack of tech engineers, but at the same time, they don't bother to reduce the overwhelming amount of bureaucratie needed for foreigners (out of the EU) to come work in France. Sounds like the definition of hypocrisy to me.
- Joky 11y ago"Countries are not bound to frontiers anymore", well from a fiscal point of view it is, you got a free education while you were in France, and now you work and pay taxes in another country, which couldn't scale because it breaks the French system
- touristtam 11y agoI think he meant Nation rather than Country
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- Mimu 11y agoI'm french, while it's true a lot of startup / opportunities in tech appeared in the last few years, most of them don't pay anything. They all advertise "good work ethic", "good environment", "good whatever" like it justifies for you to be paid like a graduate for an experienced position. You want talent? Pay the price.
- renaudg 11y agoWith a few exceptions, French employers are not the problem, they do pay the same price for you as in other European countries, more or less ! The difference is that your average engineer in France costs them around 1.5-2.5 times the total take home pay, because of high, compulsory labor taxes. In exchange, employees get as standard : * a top notch, virtually free healthcare system with no concept of exclusions or "pre-conditions" * Usually no student loans to repay because their higher education was free, unless they went for a private business/engineering school but that's still an order of magnitude cheaper than a US university. * a comfortable (unsustainable ?) state pension later on. * unemployment insurance that covers around 70% pay for months. * 5 weeks holiday + public holidays If you're US-based, think about your monthly budget and what goes towards healthcare/co-pay, student loans, kids college fund, 401k, and building an emergency fund in case you get laid off / severely ill. None of that is strictly required in France (although some of it is available as extra private coverage, and a good idea) This is why cross-border salary comparisons are pointless, it's really apples & oranges. I'm French and living in London, and I'd personally rather have the freedom to have a higher take-home pay and contribute towards the above items myself as I see fit. But I'm not fooling myself thinking that because my take-home pay is twice as high each month, the math is as simple as that. I know that I'm so much more on my own here than at home...
- UK-AL 11y agoI think his comparing startup vs established.
- jseliger 11y agoInteresting post. That being said, point one isn't that important for most young healthy people. Point three is in the distant future: I'd rather have a dollar today than one forty years from now. Point four is not very important for highly paid engineers. Point two may be the most interesting one: for a given individual, it may make the most sense to get high-quality French education and then go out and earn high-end American wages that are keyed to U.S. education costs. In short, France may be facing an arbitrage problem. People who are sick, old, or receiving educations have high incentives to stay. People who are young, healthy, and have already received educations have incentives to go where they can earn more today.
- you_eeeeeediot 11y agoThe problem is work ethic. I've been to France on business on 2-week stints about a dozen times, and I can tell you from my experience they do not want to work hard -- at anything. 6hr workdays, and at LEAST 1hr for lunch and worst of all they look at you like you are the crazy one for wanting to get more done each day.
- david_p 11y agoI guess it depends on where you work, like all countries. I have the exacts same experience as you working at a NYC insurance company (9 to 5 then go home). I also know at lot of companies here (in France) where people work their asses off everyday.
- you_eeeeeediot 11y agoFair point, my HQ is in NYC I can attest to the 9 to 5 as well. I think it has more to do with transit scheduling than anything. Then again Paris is extremely expensive to live in the Metro area as well so that may have something to do with my experience as well.
- bryanlarsen 11y agoMy current startup has a 9-5 culture, and we get a lot more done than any other startup I've worked for. No ping-pong, no long lunch breaks, no watercooler discussions, much less surfing on company time. I get more done in 8 hours than I used to get done in 12, and I get an extra 4 hours with my family.
- SnacksOnAPlane 11y agoI find that ping-pong and watercooler discussions are necessary as breaks. Otherwise you burn out and you only get, say, 4 hours of real work done in an 8-hour day.
- bryanlarsen 11y agoBreaks are still necessary, but they're a lot less frequent and a lot shorter.
- yodsanklai 11y agoMany people move abroad because the world is a big place and it's a lot of fun to work and live in a remote country. For instance, I worked a few years in the UK, in the US, and I would gladly go to Asia if I had the opportunity. However I couldn't care less about tax, money or bureaucracy (although I"m attached to my short commute time and long vacations). Besides, I noticed that many (most?) French students from the top engineering schools go to work in the financial industry (abroad but also in France). I often wonder if this should be qualified as brain drain too.
- ThomPete 11y agoInteresting So yesterday I posted this one https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10220487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10220487 which spawned more than 300 comments and apparently seems to be something people care about. My primary claim was that it wasn't as such the typical things like culture, language etc that created the issues but also the way the EU is harmonizing the markets and forcing change through the political system rather than the civil society which is unfriendly to entrepreneurs unless they do very predictable businesses. But today i have seen several posts all related to Europes issues with startups that is talking about things in this vein.
- saiya-jin 11y agoFrance is lucrative mostly to french native speakers, who have quite a massive phobia when they have to speak any other language rather than their own. It looks ridiculous and shameful, especially when noone cares about speaking it outside french bubble. The language had it's prime time long time ago and now it's a mere curiosity. Not the prettiest nor easiest one to learn either. Then there is amazing countryside, but that's hardly big enough motivation alone to move in or stay. Some french work really hard, I think their effectiveness at work is above EU average. But they are socialists at their core - meaning all nice social benefits on one side, but massive inefficiency on the other, on all levels of government. In theory, there is no good reason why French should earn much less compared to say Germans. In reality, the difference is HUGE and there are good reasons for it. Market says it all :)
- maelito 11y agoYou should read the introduction of this article about this "mere curiosity". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_language
- colinplamondon 11y ago290,000,000 speakers (including secondary speakers.) out of 7,000,000 people on the planet. 4% of the planet. If 4% of America spoke a language, most of us wouldn't be in much of a rush to localize. Fortunately for French, the core native speakers in France are rich, and most of the planet is still poor. As the rest of the planet catches up, "curiosity" becomes more accurate over time.
- maelito 11y agoYou may want to read the rest of the introduction !
- grp 11y agoAnd it is a dramatic error. If 4% of people only speak a functional programming language, does it mean that you never need to learn one? Just because the vast majority historically speak imperative doesn't mean it's the best for your business. Same for OSes. Diversity is source of wealth.
- xacaxulu 11y agoAs soon as French salaries come ANYWHERE CLOSE to similar salaries in London or the US or even Berlin, then maybe I'd consider it. France just isn't competitive on the salary front, hence the brain drain.
- renaudg 11y agoI'm a French expat in London so I know what you're saying, but look at my post above and consider what comes with the salary in France... you're not comparing apples to apples here.
- Jacqued 11y agoI'm not the GP but I hear your argument. It's a very compelling one when you have a family or are getting older. To a twenty-something however, pension & healthcare don't seem like very compelling arguments compared with just being paid 80% more for the same job. The only thing that has kept me in Paris until now is that all my friends live here, but the London salaries attraction is getting stronger every month.
- troebr 11y agoI think we should compare quality of life instead of salary. You'll make 3 times the salary in the US, but: - no pension for your retirement (you have to save) - prohibitive health care costs even with insurance - prohibitive higher education costs, and even for younger kids if you don't go the public school route - vacation policies up to the employer (can be ok as a software engineer though, but definitely not up to what you'd get in France) - maternity leaves up to the employer All in all, sure I have more money than when I was in France, but my quality of life is not significantly better. I can afford more stuff, but that's about it, and I'm not sure it's still true once you have a family. And in general no safety nets, you have to build your own. You can be fired at will in a lot of states. My biggest gripes with France are: - most of the interesting tech jobs are in Paris. I don't like Paris (it's personal, I just hated living in Paris). - absurd tech consulting companies (ssii, 90% of them exist solely to make up for how hard it is to [hf]ire in France) - management vs engineering: engineers are under compensated compared to managers, a brilliant engineer has to become a manager at some point to evolve in their careers. Companies like to pretend that they have a management and a tech track, but you're almost always better off taking the management track. This can be somewhat true in some industries in the US, but it's not as prevalent as it is in France.
- pythondz 11y agoI grew up in France; gradutated from University (so not from French Ivy League known as "Les Grandes Ecoles"). I'm currently in a consulting position and tried to launch several startups-ideas at the end of my MS degree with the "Auto-Entrepreneur" status and it was very difficult to find investors because french people are very pessimistic by nature and the atmosphere created by the state and the media is really oppresive. It means that if you fail (and I failed), people around you will break your mood down (very hard to handle that). You need to find your team of talented people who will be ready to use their own money to reduce costs. It's almost impossible to recruit someone you don't personnaly know without a large amount of cash. Splitting equity seems to be not attractive enough with french tech engineers... The one and only advantage in France is that you can restart your life because you can easily avoid indebtedness in case of failure.
- renaudg 11y agoI've been a French expat in London for 5 years and I used to think like you. Having recently reconnected with Paris' tech scene though, things have changed a lot wrt to failure and things like that. And the difficulty of finding an engineer willing to be paid in equity only, in a market where they can get both equity AND a good salary, is nothing special to France believe me.
- Nothorized 11y agoIl y a plus de 200 écoles qui sont des grandes écoles, donc ça n'a plus vraiment de signification. Si tu devrais le refaire une nouvelle fois, qu'est ce que tu conseillerais, et dans quel pays te serais tu installé?
- vonnik 11y agoIt will take one hundred years or another world war to clear out all the crap that France makes businesses and individuals go through to live there and make a living. Hollande's Socialists, while well meaning, are fairly incompetent compared to past governments, and they are the last group on earth capable of shrinking the French state and making the laws simpler. I lived in France for 14 years, through Chirac, Sarkozy and part of Hollande. They all say the same thing, but France is in a vicious circle: unable to drive private sector growth, they have to employ large numbers of people in the public sector, which continuously adds to the burden of laws and regulations and complexity that the private sector faces, slowing growth more. I'm sure that Macron is busy coming up with a new, improved law that adds to the size and complexity of the legal code in order to bring back tech talent. Good luck.
- LBarret 11y agoBetween the natural grumpiness of french complaining about their country and the casual french bashing, it is hard to get some quality comments here.