14 ms·
With Station F, Paris will have the world’s biggest startup campus
- kriro 10y agoI hope they play "My Way" when it officially opens :D
- homarp 10y agoif they do, it would be "Comme d'habitude" and not "My Way" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comme_d'habitude#.22My_Way.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comme_d'habitude#.22My_Way.22
- dreistdreist 10y agoRenting a desk in an open office full of random people? Sounds like a horrible work environment.
- SwellJoe 10y agoI've been renting at a co-working space for the past few months, in the city I'm currently parked in (Fertilab in Springfield, OR). It's actually not so bad. Kinda like a coffee shop, only everyone else is also working. I'm historically very much opposed to open offices, but if there aren't phones ringing, and there's not a lot of "hey, can I ask you about X?" cross-talk, it's not so bad. I've turned down jobs in the past because they were in open offices, and I might still do so today. I basically agree with you that it's a bad idea to work full-time in an open office. But, for a three days a week kinda work place, just for a change of pace and an excuse to take a walk out of my house, it's been really nice. I plan to start checking for co-working spaces when I first get to a new city. It gives me some much-needed variety in my work day, gets me communicating with other people in tech in the city I'm in, and provides some other benefits (some of those benefits: there are distractions but they're different than at home and at coffee shops, the internet is faster than my home internet or most coffee shop WiFi though this may not be true for everyone, quieter than coffee shops, not home so I can fixate on work and not whether dishes or laundry needs doing, etc.). I'd like to visit Paris one of these days, maybe once my French is stronger. I could see signing up for this for a while.
- agumonkey 10y agoInteresting, if different groups who don't know themselves are seriously motivated and working it might end up "as" quiet as a library. Unlike one company's open space where everybody tries to talk to everyboyd and compete for spots.
- wslh 10y agoI like the social part of talking to random people but in startupland there are much more wannabes that real entrepreneurs, so at the end the conversations are very naive. And with entrepreneurs I mean people who can build a real business not the next Facebook.
- SwellJoe 10y agoYes, that's one of the negatives, probably. I kinda like where I am now, though, as most of the people working out of this space are not "startup entrepreneurs", they're small business owners. The Eugene location might be different, since there's more of a tech scene there, but the folks in this branch are pretty no-nonsense, just here to get some work done, not try to sell me on their poorly thought out, poorly researched, derivative ideas. That said, I also spent some time at the ATX Hackerspace which did have a bunch of startuppy types, and it was mostly free of bullshit, too, because so much of the focus there was on the hacking and not the "I just need to raise $x million and this thing's gonna explode!" mindset. So, conversation in that space were about laser CNCs, 3D printing, and electric cars, rather than everybody trying to give their (too-long) elevator pitch to as many people as possible.
- beachstartup 10y ago> maybe once my French is stronger just go to paris now. unless you are absolutely fluent, parisians will just respond in english.
- Voodoo463 10y agoRespond in English, yes. Will they simultaneously be annoyed? Yes.
- akerro 10y agoOK LETS DO THIS!
- dazc 10y agoIt is, especially when you get the inevitable few people who think the rule about working quietly doesn't apply to them I have a private office now and, amazingly, it costs no more. But the irony is that I only found out about it through someone I'd met in the previous open office.
- ju-st 10y agoGreat idea, but no free coffee? And do the desks include monitors?
- ungzd 10y ago> startup campus > with companies like Facebook and TechShop opening offices there Is Facebook still a startup?
- conradfr 10y agoYeah I don't really know why, Facebook already have a brand new office in Paris near Bourse (former stock exchange).
- exhilaration 10y agoSo they can poach the best, of course.
- kbart 10y agoI can't imagine myself programming in such huge, open space full of people and distractions. Maybe it might work for sales, marketing or costumer support, but not for a type of work that requires concentration.
- jstoja 10y agoIn 42, the school presented in the article too, is constant open-spaces full of people. It's noisy but students get the habit of working in that kind of environment and get in the flow even with distractions. Some other French IT schools, like Epitech or SupInfo are the same (or close to). Even if I agree that it's not ideal, it can work. Although, I assume that most of people are not used at all to this kind of environment.
- kbart 10y agoWell, you can do programming with one hand tied to your back too, but that doesn't mean it's an optimal or encouraged practice. There are multiple papers proving that noisy environment impairs cognitive abilities, so it seems logical to me to avoid working in such places when concentration is required.
- fnord123 10y agoIt depends on the type of work you're doing. If you're bit fiddling, then sure maybe you need an office or some noise cancelling headphones. If you're an application developer in a team, the communication benefits of sitting in an open plan group can overcome the cognitive issues (which aren't so bad since you're just gluing components together).
- gbersac 10y agoFormer 42 student and I confirm it is ok to work in such environment.
- fermigier 10y agoIt used to be called an "incubator" (see: http://www.wilmotte.com/fr/projet/411/Station-F-Halle-Freyssinet-Incubateur-de-start-ups http://www.wilmotte.com/fr/projet/411/Station-F-Halle-Freyss...) now it's a "startup campus". This is probably more reasonable.
- pzh 10y agoI guess when you say 'incubator' nowadays, most people would imagine something like Erlich Bachman's house from 'Silicon Valley'.
- yoz-y 10y agoI have been working in incubators for half of my professional life (in France) and I have never seen anything like Erlich's couch surfing sweatshop.
- smagch 10y agoGoogle is also using the term "campus" for spaces run by Google for Entrepreneurs. https://www.googleforentrepreneurs.com/campuses/ https://www.googleforentrepreneurs.com/campuses/ I agree "campus" is a good easy-to-understand term. It's comprehensive for all. Maybe, the term "incubator" could be deprecated in the near future.
- pi-err 10y agoKudos to the team who made it happen. I'm French and happy this comes to life. I still have the feeling this is more of a stunt to bring attention on Station F than on the startups themselves. Beyond the buzz, there is very little vision. It's a giant intensive farm in a denser, currently-under-redevelopment neighborhood. In this super dense setting, they're piling up various talent for sort-of-low-cost rents, hoping to raise unicorns thanks to nearby campuses, increased VC flow in Paris and general attention towards startups. This strikes me as a formula thought out by people who have never actually been in a successful startup (Roxanne Varza has been successful at _talking about_ startups, never at actually building things). One outcome is that all those points successfully connect together. Another, more probable outcome is that it will turn out impossible to keep focus, talent and purpose in a giant, open space (also probably soon to be under-maintained judging by French standards).
- nkg 10y ago(Also French) I have been an intern at a startup that was hosted at a similar incubator in Paris in the late 00's. The legislation around work was more of a problem than neither the rent (which was indeed cheap) or the proximity to other companies -Paris is not that big. In 2016, hiring is still an issue, and investing is always seen as a risk instead of an opportunity.
- karambahh 10y agoIf I may add a bit of context: while Station F is indeed a project of Xavier Niel (Free/Illiad/Kima/42...), it is also a project with considerable public support. Several french regions have their (semi-)publicly funded equivalent of Station F (Lille with Plaine Images & Euratechnologies, Nantes with La Cantine, ...) and while there is a considerable quantity of startups in Paris, there is no local de facto hub. I'd argue that Le Sentier area plays that role, but it's a neighborhood where lots of startup happen to be located. In the early 00s it was dubbed "Silicon Sentier". Plaine Images & Euratechnologies have been built in former industrial complexes with the aim of redynamizing local ecosystem as a whole. Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor, hopes to do the same to the XIII arrondissement.
- 10y ago
- jstoja 10y agoEven though it just seems like a big open-space with less services included (people mentioning no free coffee), I would presume that more "startup oriented" services will be available. Paris has a super vibrant startup community and some small incubators are already in the city center, providing awesome followup.
- staticelf 10y agoWhy would a startup with 1-5 people (as an example) even rent a place at all? I understand if you do any kind of hardware stuff, but for software companies it makes zero sense to me. They could just as well be at home, saving that money and putting it in the startup instead?
- louhike 10y agoI have friends who are in this case. They worked in their flat first to save money, it is true. But they grew tired of working in their apartment and started to rent a place as soon as they had sufficient funds (after 2 years). Their problems were: * Lack of separation between worklife and the rest. * Living and working with the same persons. They are really good friends but it was still hard apparently. * Having to dedicate a big part of your apartment to the work (desks but also hardware, documents, etc.).
- MiddleEndian 10y agoThey don't need to all work in the same apartment though, they can work in their own.
- louhike 10y agoIn their case, they lived in the same apartment.
- conradfr 10y agoDo you know the average size of a Parisian apartment?
- Voodoo463 10y agoThe one's I have been in have all been about 400 square feet.
- acveilleux 10y agoMost Parisian apartments are tiny. You can forget about owning a free standing house. If you can afford that, you don't need investors in your start up... Or you're not in Paris at all. Think Manhattan. Paris' overall population density is comparable to Manhattan and much higher than overall NYC density.
- readhn 10y agoIs 195 euros/desk their solution? Really? Its going to bring in 1000 startups somehow? And why do they keep bringing up facebook? Its not a start up and could care less about other start ups succeeding (rightfully so). Weren't a bunch of high profile French actually leaving France because of HUGE taxes in france? Any French here can answer this question?: for a start up making 5000 euros a month - how much would you pay in taxes?
- pikzen 10y agoTaxes are actually lower than in most US states, when it comes to profits. Obviously we have a lot of added taxes when it comes to salaries (by paying an employee 2000€/month, as a company you can expect to pay ~4000€ when you add up everything). But as a startup, you have so many ways of diminishing your taxes. You can deduce your investment into R&D when it is a least 20% of your costs, up to 80.000€/year, "young innovative enterprises" (JEI) get a 50% tax break for 7 years, the CIR is quite literally 30% of your R&D paid by the state, I can't even list them all because there are so many. As a startup, you are most likely going to choose to pay impôts sur la société, which is taxed at 15% for the first 38.120€ of benefits, then 33.3%. In your example, 5000€/month adds up to 60000/year, so the first tax bracket takes 5.718€ out, and the second one 7.220€, for a total of 12.938€ in taxes per year. Once again, that is before any tax rebate, which can very easily get your down to maybe 6.000€/year[1] The high profile french leaving were leaving for tax havens, so I'm not sure that's really a good example. [1] http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portal/dgi/public/professionnels.impot?pageId=prof_impot_societes&typePage=cpr02&sfid=501&espId=2&communaute=2&impot=IS http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portal/dgi/public/professionnels.i...
- readhn 10y agoOk. What happens when you cross that "not a start up anymore" line, lets say in a successful fast growing business in a year or two. Sounds like a lot of rebates and freebies disappear and taxes and other liabilities increase, as of course expected. Im all for the idea, but 195euro/desks are not a solution IMO. If you want to create thriving business scene (in any country) - drop small business tax rates (and other liabilities) to 0-5% and lock them there for first 5 years. Then if business makes it successfully to the commercial stage in 5 years - increase taxes to the current "market rate". Ka-ching! Then You really have a new start up mecca!
- agumonkey 10y agoFunny how quickly things change https://duckduckgo.com/?q=halle+freyssinet&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=halle+freyssinet&ia=web
- wrren 10y agoWhile I think that supporting startups is a good idea, creating a campus without a nearby network of rich investors is like sowing seeds in sand. I've been part of more than one startup in Europe and it is far more difficult to secure early-stage investment than in SF. Until Europe has an equivalent VC presence, SF will always have the edge. I hope that this campus will attract that sort of attention from investors but we have a long way to go.
- trendia 10y agoThe lack of VC funding might change the incentives for startups for the better. Rather than build a startup to raise funding, they might build a startup to sell products.
- degif 10y agoThis and also if that campus is active promoting itself (meetups, hackatons, events, accelerators…), the VC's will come over themselves – they need the talent. Europe is small and geographically that's really not a problem.
- wrren 10y agoThere are plenty of SF startups (and full-sized companies like Twitter etc.) that never make a profit. But startups in SF that can make a profit will still win out over European equivalents since they're granted such huge runways to perfect their product before they're under pressure to go to market. I agree that the incentive system for startups right now is broken, as so many are simply aiming for an IPO before they're exposed as jokes but there's an inherent advantage to being in SF for any type of fledgling tech business.
- pj_mukh 10y ago"perfect their product before they're under pressure to go to market." This maybe the wrong way to think about it. Outside of hard-tech I see very few companies that are benefitted by building in a void. Though your larger point still stands, once you have product market fit, the funding regime in SF gives an unfair advantage to companies that know how to use it for their particular domains.
- cherryblakes 10y agoHello guys and how are you doing today, Do you need require the services of an accomplished and professional hacker we offer professional Hacking services in all forms of hacking jobs which include: - Hack and access DATA FROM ANY COMPANY Web Sites - BANK HACKING AND FUND TRANSFER - Get a bank ATM Card to withdraw money from any ATM machine worldwide. - E MAIL HACKING AND PASSWORD GENERATOR UPGRADE UNIVERSITY GRADES - HACK INTO YOUR PARTNER’s FACEBOOK , TWITTER, SKYPE, IG, ACCOUNT without their knowledge/Notification - Hack into any GOVERNMENT AGENCY WEBSITE DATABASE - HACK USERNAME & PASSWORD TO ACCESS ANY SITE - HACK AND OBTAIN CASH ADVANCES - HACK AND OBTAIN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER DATA BASE AND RETRIEVE HIDDEN DOCUMENTS - Hack CREDIT CARD, PAYPAL ACCOUNT, MASTER CARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS etc.MANIPULATE STOCK TRADEs - HACK MOBILE PHONES, TRACE CALLER's IDENTITY, MONITOR CALLS. - WE ARE EXPERTS IN DATA AND FILES RECOVERY… - HACK BANK ATM CARD, PIN and PASSWORD DEVELOPMENT..... etc. Contact us:danwellingtonhacks@gmail.com danielwellingtonhacks@gmail.com
- throwaway1892 10y agoNowhere on the Station F website was indicated the adress of the actual building, which is a glaring omission, for someone working near Paris and wondering where it is.
- tener 10y agoJust Google for it? https://goo.gl/maps/UBXAndEsCUP2 https://goo.gl/maps/UBXAndEsCUP2
- throwaway1892 10y agoThank you, I could not have done it on my own. /s It's what I did in the end. It was a critic against the website missing an important piece of information. And also a bit of a complaint since I spent five min looking for the address on the site before resigning myself to Google it, thinking that such piece of information could not have been omitted.
- megablast 10y agoI tried that, with no success. Near the library, an awesome spot in Paris.
- Voodoo463 10y agoI am very happy this is happening, but I remain pessimistic about this. I have been in Paris many times and even lived there for a bit. As far as cities go with job infrastructure, Paris is non functioning. The city itself is inherently flawed in job growth and management. There is a lack of variety in jobs. There ARE a variety of jobs, but the disparity between amount and desire is huge. When I was in Paris the only people I met were those majoring in Finance, the amount of computer programmers or engineers at the universities were extremely low. Why? Because the jobs just aren't there. Paris is and has always been a hub for Money. People then majored and specialized in Money. It is where the Money is; Money is where the jobs would be. Don't let the media blitz carry you away at the announcement of Station F, it is a media wave designed to tell people, 'look... we are diversifying our economy' as Berlin and London have also been attempting (rather... ineffectively for Germany). The media blitz is a way of telling individuals in France (and all of Europe actually) that this is where tech jobs can be found... so make the decision to major in tech. What I imagine will happen is: many people from Eastern Europe (strong scattering of micro tech scenes without sufficient exposure) will flock to Station F to take advantage of it's proximity to all of the local funding that can be found in Paris. Paris is a place like London and New York where people park their money for expansion. Station F is just another place for these people to park their funds. We could be seeing the beginning of a rocking station F, or, we could be seeing the beginning of a very large media hype designed to encourage diversifying the economy that will be the beginning of a very slow 'meh' Station F.
- VeejayRampay 10y agoRead that whole barrage and all I could think about is: "Man it must suck to be a pessimistic person, you only get to think about the failure of a school that hasn't yet opened instead of seeing the potential".
- tajen 10y ago> pessimistic person France makes people sad. One in 3 adult takes psychotropic drugs[1]. I lived in Australia and I was happy every day, in France there's just no good news. A brilliant example is, GP mentionned buildings are under-maintained, that's an excellent summary. It's the no-politics week so I won't dive into the past-and-future causes of this chronic stress, but it exists. [1] http://www.france24.com/en/20140520-france-drug-addiction-1-3-psychotropic-medication http://www.france24.com/en/20140520-france-drug-addiction-1-...
- LeicaLatte 10y ago'Startup campus' is a new marketing low.
- gadders 10y agoI always thought the things that prevented Startups in France would be more to do with employment laws - rules about weekend working, very hard to fire people, etc etc.
- pyrale 10y agoThe real killer is late investment rounds ; employment laws are not really a problem in a tech startup afaik.
- Heraclite 10y agoFor French entrepreneurs reading this: make it extremely easy and painless to start/run/shutdown a company in France. I dream of being able to start a company by completing a form and sending a copy of my French ID. And all the rest (accountants/HR/law) would be handled by online third party services smoothly. Same should go for banking services associated with the company. I think France has great potential but it needs simplification of processes. I'm not expecting the government to do it, hence my desparate call to other French entrepreneurs.
- renaudg 10y agoAs someone who created a small business in France then did the same in the UK, I wholeheartedly agree. Unfortunately, there's not a lot entrepreneurs can do, it's up to the authorities to be brave and reform the infamous "Greffe du Tribunal de Commerce". Simply changing your registered address required, last I checked : filling out a 10 page or so form, amended company formation documents, mandatory publishing of an expensive ad informing of the change in one of the government-sanctioned newspapers, and writing out a cheque (!) for 47.52€ or something. This is insane. Emmanuel Macron, as an economy minister tried to dismantle this whole craziness but faced strong lobbying. Here's hoping he's more successful as a presidential candidate.
- Heraclite 10y agoI'd be curious to know the difference between the 2, especially for a french citizen.
- tajen 10y ago> Emmanuel Macron, as an economy minister tried to (...) Besides that Emmanuel Macron absolutely made things worse for companies, it's the Politics Detox week on HN, so please refrain from talking politics: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404
- renaudg 10y agoSorry, I didn't catch that. However, you also just failed to follow your own advice :)
- vonnik 10y agoStation F is a well-meaning project that may succeed. The French government plays a large, interventionist role in the nation's economy, and infrastructure projects like this are one way it can express itself. I lived in Paris for over a decade, and I happen to disagree with both the hype and some of the criticisms in this thread. While Paris is the economic center of France, it is not where the money is. That would be London, NYC or Shanghai. Maybe Brexit will drive finance back to France, but France started driving them away with the early 80s nationalizations of Mitterand. I think Station F could present a great, regional hub for EMEA. France and other European countries turn out amazingly talented technologists. But those same countries don't always provide an environment for them and their businesses to thrive. That is partially due to how people invest in Europe, partially due to how governments regulate, and finally to a discomfort with marketing in France itself. There are holes in the European funding ladder moving from pre-seed to IPO that drive European entrepreneurs to Silicon Valley. Those holes are due to a lack of investors who are willing and able to identify opportunities at every stage and take a risk. Most European money is old, and it prefers real estate. If that money allots a percentage for VC, a lot of it will end up with Silicon Valley firms, because the top ones have unrivaled track records and the money does require a plane ticket to travel. And the SV VCs see all the best European entrepreneurs come through to pitch anyway. The second problem is regulation, and something close to that which I don't quite have a word for. The best analogy would be to compare the Napoleonic code, which attempts to legislate for all contingencies from the beginning, with common-law systems, in which a body of precedent rulings and thought develop in response to the world. My impression of France is that it creates analytically rigorous and often misguided policies, and seeks to apply them to quickly evolving situations. I believe that thinking also infects many decision-makers who affect tech, who aren't responding and creating as quickly as they might in another cultural context. Finally, tech needs hustlers and hype. New things must be sold. France has a history of inventing amazing technology before other countries, and not marketing it well (Minitel). With luck, Niel's Station F will address and mitigate those risks.
- ldom22 10y agois it actually a train station? that would be awesome for the commutes of people that will work there
- Animats 10y ago3000 people in one room in an old train shed. With occasional shipping containers. This is is their idea of a startup campus? Someone else mentioned [1] Nantes' La Cantine. That looks more usable; it's a big collection of little shops under one big roof. Looks like a repurposed mall. Repurposing an unused mall for this sort of thing might make sense. Rentable spaces of different sizes, good HVAC, power, and sprinklers, plenty of parking, not much heavy construction required. [1] http://jonathanwinandy.tumblr.com/post/3198051103/ouverture-de-la-cantine-num%C3%A9rique-de-nantes http://jonathanwinandy.tumblr.com/post/3198051103/ouverture-...
- xutopia 10y agoBut that is in Nantes. Paris is (sadly) where business happens in France.
- Animats 10y agoWell, just outside Paris. Many big companies moved to La Defense, which is just outside the city limits and allows skyscrapers. The result looks like this.[1] [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/la-defense-office-district-rebounds-in-paris-1471348803 http://www.wsj.com/articles/la-defense-office-district-rebou... (Alternate link to picture only: https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-PK039_LADEFE_J_20160814185149.jpg https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-PK039_LADEFE_J...)
- amazon_not 10y agoPaywalled...
- contingencies 10y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%20D%C3%A9fense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%20D%C3%A9fense I've stayed there... it's not so bad, and not far from the center of Paris either.
- vmorgulis 10y agoFor those who are near Paris, there is a new HN meetup in january: https://hn.silexlabs.org https://hn.silexlabs.org