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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 do

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.

pawadu 9y ago
> 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.
- sametmax 9y ago
  No it's the same except we embraced IT and it helped a lot.
sametmax 9y ago
+1. We have a culture problem. French companies won't take risks. Banks fund only very classical projects. And it's very hard to get money or when you do get it, it's a small amount. Everybody ask for rock star programmers and put them on boring tasks and don't pay them well. Eventually they quit or never come so they can work for non french companies. And it's not a problem of skills. The french society produce plenty of skilled managers, devs or innovators. We just make just those skills will always be underused. We had barriers everywhere to protect the old, avoid uncertainty and fit.
sametmax 9y ago
+1. We have a culture problem. French companies won't take risks. Banks fund only very classical projects. And it's very hard to get money or when you do get it, it's a small amount. Everybody ask for rock star programmers and put them on boring tasks and don't pay them well. Eventually they quit or never come so they can work for non french companies. And it's not a problem of skills. The french society produce plenty of skilled managers, devs or innovators. We just make just those skills will always be underused. We had barriers everywhere to protect the old, avoid uncertainty and fit.

pawadu 9y ago

> 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.

sametmax 9y ago
No it's the same except we embraced IT and it helped a lot.

sametmax 9y ago

+1. We have a culture problem. French companies won't take risks. Banks fund only very classical projects. And it's very hard to get money or when you do get it, it's a small amount. Everybody ask for rock star programmers and put them on boring tasks and don't pay them well. Eventually they quit or never come so they can work for non french companies. And it's not a problem of skills. The french society produce plenty of skilled managers, devs or innovators. We just make just those skills will always be underused. We had barriers everywhere to protect the old, avoid uncertainty and fit.

sametmax 9y ago