11 ms·

Apropos of this, I was in Paris recently at a startup event, and was pleasantly shocked at the sheer number of startups and people I saw doing things. This is

Apropos of this, I was in Paris recently at a startup event, and was pleasantly shocked at the sheer number of startups and people I saw doing things. This is a good move by the French, and will help attract entrepreneurs away from other countries (particularly like those just across the channel currently inflicting generational economic damage on themselves.)

lawless123 10y ago
The timing can't be too much of a coincidence.
- camus2 10y ago
  The issue is why can't France even attract engineers and investors from WITHIN the Eurozone, these people don't need Visa. The issue is elsewhere, not in the pool of engineers. France can't even retain its own engineers.
  - jlangenauer 10y ago
    Because those of us in say, Berlin, are doing our damnedest to encourage them here, where we need them for our engineering teams?
    - misterhtmlcss 10y ago
      Why would France chase an engineer in Germany? That has to be considerably more expensive then acquiring talent from abroad. Just eyeballing this would indicate going after a German or Fin would likely cost more, because 1. They have similar programs, 2. They don't care about Visas and therefore are less likely to be invested in being or staying in France long-term. If France gives me a visa you can be sure I'm there for more than just my business. 3. Language. 270+ million people speak French, so why not pull from countries and cultures that have some shared history and association. Seems to me this makes way more sense for France than chasing down Germans, Dutch, Fins or anyone else local.
  - pyrale 10y ago
    There's actually quite a lot of competition within EU, and France is not too shameful in that competition. It's hard to compete with London which is undoubtedly the #1 tech hub in Europe, but aside from that, Paris is top notch. Also, you're begging the question.
    - LunaSea 10y ago
      I would still pick Berlin or Amsterdam over France. Maybe even Sweden or Finland because of the average English language level spoken in those countries even though the startup scene there is smaller than Paris.
      - pyrale 10y ago
        Yep, that's a valid point.
      - Chris2048 10y ago
        Plus employee welfare in France is ridiculous, ultimately harmful to their economy..
        pyrale 10y ago
        We've actually had this welfare for 70 years, and the harm was supposed to come any minute now for all this time. Ultimately, its demise is likely going to come from the propaganda against it rather from it actually being a problem.
        Chris2048 10y ago
        Who says you haven't seen harm? You're erecting a straw-man. Also, you have to factor in that when the coffers are empty, France may be more willing to sell weapons abroad... So maybe it's not France that sees that harm. http://www.france24.com/en/20150503-arms-sales-becoming-france-new-el-dorado-but-what-cost-francois-hollande-saudi-arabia-rafale http://www.france24.com/en/20150503-arms-sales-becoming-fran...
  - blibble 10y ago
    because London is sat next door with considerably higher salaries, and everyone there speaks English not to mention setting up a company costs £14, 20% corporation tax (dropping to 17%), tax back for individuals investing in SEIS companies (which is easy for a firm apply for), and R&D tax credits
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      >because London is sat next door with considerably higher salaries, and everyone there speaks English That's a bigger deal than it might seem, even if you're recruiting from countries that aren't nominally Anglophone. If you pick a random engineer in, say, China, there's a lot higher probability that the engineer will speak English than French. English also opens up India, where most educated people have studied English, and English is actually one of the official languages. French is only common in countries where French is an official language, most of which have small populations and/or not much of a tech scene.
  - user5994461 10y ago
    > France can't even retain its own engineers. I confirm! Leaving the country = Best decision in my life :D
    - chrstphrhrt 10y ago
      I've worked with a number of folks from France in Montreal and they all say the same kinds of things. I had chalked it up to some kind of national self-deprecation that is the pride and birthright of true French people :)
      - jfbus 10y ago
        So you spoke only to French people having left the country, who, obviously, do not regret having left, but to no one happy to have stayed...
        user5994461 10y ago
        Does it really matter what we've done? We're both just rationalizing our positions ;)
- pyrale 10y ago
  The french tech stuff actually predates brexit. There's been a lot of nice french initiatives to promote tech, in the last few years. It's still hard to overcome the anglosphere bias and to promote internationally, but from the inside it's still a nice atmosphere.
hacker_9 10y ago
As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language; 5 years in school trying to learn French + German, and can still only put together about two sentences. From what I remember, no one else seemed to really pick up the languages either.
- colordrops 10y ago
  I thought the same of myself until I actually tried. At 30 I started learning chinese full time for two years and eventually became fluent. It's possible, but you've got to take time off and dedicate yourself and immerse without using your mother tongue.
- samf 10y ago
  It might help if you were immersed in it, as opposed to a small amount of time in school. But would you be able to function those first few months, that's the question.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
  Learning a language in school is different from learning it by yourself. School is force-feeding you everything, at a pace possibly not suited for yourself. You might even start disliking something you liked before because grading and tests sucks the joy out of things. If you, on the other hand, start to learn a language now you can get quite far in a reasonable amount of time (months). Its the difference between external and internal motivation.
  - saiya-jin 10y ago
    This is so true - I hated with passion all that was force-fed to us, for some reason particularly stuff in high school. The only exception for whatever reason for me were foreign languages, physics and history (probably because they were easier for me to learn compared to rest). It took years to find surprising interest (even passion) in things like biology, geography, or literature for that matter (chemistry is still a big mystery to me, although basic principles seem trivial). Grammar in any language is is still a big no-no. It might seem ridiculous but if you pick an expensive language course, that adds some proper motivation (with added value of good teachers/materials).
nkkollaw 10y ago
What's "currently inflicting generational economic damage on themselves"? Would you do an ELI5?
- kybernetyk 10y ago
  My guess: Unreflected "Brexit" bashing. I don't think that's a proper topic for HN though.
- schneidmaster 10y ago
  They're referring to the UK/Brexit. There's a lot of opinions and some decently complex economics involved, but for a short summary, Brexit created economic uncertainty which acts as a general damper on business investment/growth, and if/when it's actually completed it will complicate foreign investment from elsewhere in Europe.
- pjc50 10y ago
  Brexit! When the Prime Minister was asked what this means, she replied with "Brexit means Brexit." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36782922 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36782922 When people have asked specific questions like "am I going to be able to continue to live here?" or "am I going to continue to receive scientific funding that is distributed by the EU?" or "how is this going to affect my business?", they haven't recieved answers. In the words of Douglas Adams, "This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
  - blibble 10y ago
    > When people have asked specific questions like "am I going to be able to continue to live here?" ... they haven't recieved answers. the UK Government is has stated it will guarantee the right for EU citizens to remain, if the same right is given to Britons in rEU, however the European Union refuses to engage on the issue ("no negotiation without notification")
    - jlangenauer 10y ago
syntheticnature 10y ago
At CES's startup area Eureka Park, I was stunned by the French turnout -- with, of course, the usual wide variation in seeming quality or likelihood of finding a market you might expect, still it wasn't another row of VR headsets for my phone.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
erispoe 10y ago
I feel the general consensus is that France is good at startup creation, but lacks the infrastructure, particularly capital, to support their growth. Many of the promising ones end up getting bought by an established player, often a semi-public company stemming from an administration, like Orange (former national telecom). In other words, good entrepreneurship, but no chance of disrupting anything. edit: typos
vmarsy 10y ago
People mention the lack of VC, infrastructure, tax or other issues, but to me the biggest problem is the lack of talent. I would say that in terms of business skills, there's a surplus of "salesmen" type of founders, but technical founders are missing. France engineers are very smart and engineering school are among the best, but unfortunately I find their curriculum still oriented towards hard engineering (civil, aerospace, nuclear, etc.). On the other hand you can go to a classic university instead of the engineering school and get a computer science degree, but then you don't get as much of the engineer mindset training. Instead you get something leaning towards the pure science training, and due to the lower prestige of the universities, the computer science teaching is lagging behind a US computer science school. Either the universities could invest more in a better computer science degree, but finding good fundings is probably difficult for public universities whose budget is decided by the government. Or the engineering schools could join the 21st century. French billionaire Xavier niel recognizes the problem and tries to address it with his "42" school[1], I wonder how much impactful this has been [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(school) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(school)
- user5994461 10y ago
  The French engineering talent is top notch... but you'll never see it. Go to a graduation ceremony at a top school (note: it's delayed 1-2 years after graduation) and you'll learn that the top 10% have ALL left the country, no exception. (I'm talking about the top in terms of technical abilities, entrepreneurship and/or skills that are valuable to execute , not necessarily school grades).
  - cdavid 10y ago
    I will ask citation on that one, as that's not my experience at all.
    - di4na 10y ago
      I can not find a quote because the numbers are hidden. But i am in an engineering school, i am in the top 10%, and it is true. There was even a note from the ministry this year asking engineering school to stop the mandatory semester in a foreign university for all engineering student, to try to reduce the drain.
on_and_off 10y ago
Interesting. I live there and frequently joke about the 'frenchtech' with colleagues. Sadly, in our experience, french companies are very slow to adopt new technologies. There are of course some exceptions, but right now I plan to try to move to the USA.

lawless123 10y ago

The timing can't be too much of a coincidence.

camus2 10y ago
The issue is why can't France even attract engineers and investors from WITHIN the Eurozone, these people don't need Visa. The issue is elsewhere, not in the pool of engineers. France can't even retain its own engineers.
- jlangenauer 10y ago
  Because those of us in say, Berlin, are doing our damnedest to encourage them here, where we need them for our engineering teams?
  - misterhtmlcss 10y ago
    Why would France chase an engineer in Germany? That has to be considerably more expensive then acquiring talent from abroad. Just eyeballing this would indicate going after a German or Fin would likely cost more, because 1. They have similar programs, 2. They don't care about Visas and therefore are less likely to be invested in being or staying in France long-term. If France gives me a visa you can be sure I'm there for more than just my business. 3. Language. 270+ million people speak French, so why not pull from countries and cultures that have some shared history and association. Seems to me this makes way more sense for France than chasing down Germans, Dutch, Fins or anyone else local.
- pyrale 10y ago
  There's actually quite a lot of competition within EU, and France is not too shameful in that competition. It's hard to compete with London which is undoubtedly the #1 tech hub in Europe, but aside from that, Paris is top notch. Also, you're begging the question.
  - LunaSea 10y ago
    I would still pick Berlin or Amsterdam over France. Maybe even Sweden or Finland because of the average English language level spoken in those countries even though the startup scene there is smaller than Paris.
    - pyrale 10y ago
      Yep, that's a valid point.
    - Chris2048 10y ago
      Plus employee welfare in France is ridiculous, ultimately harmful to their economy..
      - pyrale 10y ago
        We've actually had this welfare for 70 years, and the harm was supposed to come any minute now for all this time. Ultimately, its demise is likely going to come from the propaganda against it rather from it actually being a problem.
        Chris2048 10y ago
        Who says you haven't seen harm? You're erecting a straw-man. Also, you have to factor in that when the coffers are empty, France may be more willing to sell weapons abroad... So maybe it's not France that sees that harm. http://www.france24.com/en/20150503-arms-sales-becoming-france-new-el-dorado-but-what-cost-francois-hollande-saudi-arabia-rafale http://www.france24.com/en/20150503-arms-sales-becoming-fran...
- blibble 10y ago
  because London is sat next door with considerably higher salaries, and everyone there speaks English not to mention setting up a company costs £14, 20% corporation tax (dropping to 17%), tax back for individuals investing in SEIS companies (which is easy for a firm apply for), and R&D tax credits
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    >because London is sat next door with considerably higher salaries, and everyone there speaks English That's a bigger deal than it might seem, even if you're recruiting from countries that aren't nominally Anglophone. If you pick a random engineer in, say, China, there's a lot higher probability that the engineer will speak English than French. English also opens up India, where most educated people have studied English, and English is actually one of the official languages. French is only common in countries where French is an official language, most of which have small populations and/or not much of a tech scene.
- user5994461 10y ago
  > France can't even retain its own engineers. I confirm! Leaving the country = Best decision in my life :D
  - chrstphrhrt 10y ago
    I've worked with a number of folks from France in Montreal and they all say the same kinds of things. I had chalked it up to some kind of national self-deprecation that is the pride and birthright of true French people :)
    - jfbus 10y ago
      So you spoke only to French people having left the country, who, obviously, do not regret having left, but to no one happy to have stayed...
      - user5994461 10y ago
        Does it really matter what we've done? We're both just rationalizing our positions ;)
pyrale 10y ago
The french tech stuff actually predates brexit. There's been a lot of nice french initiatives to promote tech, in the last few years. It's still hard to overcome the anglosphere bias and to promote internationally, but from the inside it's still a nice atmosphere.

hacker_9 10y ago

As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language; 5 years in school trying to learn French + German, and can still only put together about two sentences. From what I remember, no one else seemed to really pick up the languages either.

colordrops 10y ago
I thought the same of myself until I actually tried. At 30 I started learning chinese full time for two years and eventually became fluent. It's possible, but you've got to take time off and dedicate yourself and immerse without using your mother tongue.
samf 10y ago
It might help if you were immersed in it, as opposed to a small amount of time in school. But would you be able to function those first few months, that's the question.
tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
Learning a language in school is different from learning it by yourself. School is force-feeding you everything, at a pace possibly not suited for yourself. You might even start disliking something you liked before because grading and tests sucks the joy out of things. If you, on the other hand, start to learn a language now you can get quite far in a reasonable amount of time (months). Its the difference between external and internal motivation.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  This is so true - I hated with passion all that was force-fed to us, for some reason particularly stuff in high school. The only exception for whatever reason for me were foreign languages, physics and history (probably because they were easier for me to learn compared to rest). It took years to find surprising interest (even passion) in things like biology, geography, or literature for that matter (chemistry is still a big mystery to me, although basic principles seem trivial). Grammar in any language is is still a big no-no. It might seem ridiculous but if you pick an expensive language course, that adds some proper motivation (with added value of good teachers/materials).

nkkollaw 10y ago

What's "currently inflicting generational economic damage on themselves"? Would you do an ELI5?

kybernetyk 10y ago
My guess: Unreflected "Brexit" bashing. I don't think that's a proper topic for HN though.
schneidmaster 10y ago
They're referring to the UK/Brexit. There's a lot of opinions and some decently complex economics involved, but for a short summary, Brexit created economic uncertainty which acts as a general damper on business investment/growth, and if/when it's actually completed it will complicate foreign investment from elsewhere in Europe.
pjc50 10y ago
Brexit! When the Prime Minister was asked what this means, she replied with "Brexit means Brexit." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36782922 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36782922 When people have asked specific questions like "am I going to be able to continue to live here?" or "am I going to continue to receive scientific funding that is distributed by the EU?" or "how is this going to affect my business?", they haven't recieved answers. In the words of Douglas Adams, "This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
- blibble 10y ago
  > When people have asked specific questions like "am I going to be able to continue to live here?" ... they haven't recieved answers. the UK Government is has stated it will guarantee the right for EU citizens to remain, if the same right is given to Britons in rEU, however the European Union refuses to engage on the issue ("no negotiation without notification")
  - jlangenauer 10y ago

syntheticnature 10y ago

At CES's startup area Eureka Park, I was stunned by the French turnout -- with, of course, the usual wide variation in seeming quality or likelihood of finding a market you might expect, still it wasn't another row of VR headsets for my phone.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

erispoe 10y ago

I feel the general consensus is that France is good at startup creation, but lacks the infrastructure, particularly capital, to support their growth. Many of the promising ones end up getting bought by an established player, often a semi-public company stemming from an administration, like Orange (former national telecom). In other words, good entrepreneurship, but no chance of disrupting anything. edit: typos

vmarsy 10y ago

People mention the lack of VC, infrastructure, tax or other issues, but to me the biggest problem is the lack of talent. I would say that in terms of business skills, there's a surplus of "salesmen" type of founders, but technical founders are missing. France engineers are very smart and engineering school are among the best, but unfortunately I find their curriculum still oriented towards hard engineering (civil, aerospace, nuclear, etc.). On the other hand you can go to a classic university instead of the engineering school and get a computer science degree, but then you don't get as much of the engineer mindset training. Instead you get something leaning towards the pure science training, and due to the lower prestige of the universities, the computer science teaching is lagging behind a US computer science school. Either the universities could invest more in a better computer science degree, but finding good fundings is probably difficult for public universities whose budget is decided by the government. Or the engineering schools could join the 21st century. French billionaire Xavier niel recognizes the problem and tries to address it with his "42" school[1], I wonder how much impactful this has been [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(school) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/42_(school)

user5994461 10y ago
The French engineering talent is top notch... but you'll never see it. Go to a graduation ceremony at a top school (note: it's delayed 1-2 years after graduation) and you'll learn that the top 10% have ALL left the country, no exception. (I'm talking about the top in terms of technical abilities, entrepreneurship and/or skills that are valuable to execute , not necessarily school grades).
- cdavid 10y ago
  I will ask citation on that one, as that's not my experience at all.
  - di4na 10y ago
    I can not find a quote because the numbers are hidden. But i am in an engineering school, i am in the top 10%, and it is true. There was even a note from the ministry this year asking engineering school to stop the mandatory semester in a foreign university for all engineering student, to try to reduce the drain.

on_and_off 10y ago

Interesting. I live there and frequently joke about the 'frenchtech' with colleagues. Sadly, in our experience, french companies are very slow to adopt new technologies. There are of course some exceptions, but right now I plan to try to move to the USA.