I hear this argument all the time whenever people talk about the lack of a startups scene in Switzerland and I think it's way off the mark. People who want to

I hear this argument all the time whenever people talk about the lack of a startups scene in Switzerland and I think it's way off the mark. People who want to found companies will always found companies - and in Switzerland we are really lucky to have a solid (personal) financial base to build on and the knowledge that, if the startup doesn't work out, there will be a great job to go back to. I'd almost go as far as to say that a lot of people start companies in Switzerland who otherwise wouldn't be in a situation to start a startup anywhere else in the world. The real problem we have in Switzerland is the 'investor-incest' which dictates where the significant amount of available capital is invested. It is a horrible old-boys club of epic proportions, focussed on back-slapping and box-ticking instead of innovation and potential (and I say this as someone who benefits from the fact). Aside from this problem, investors in Switzerland are generally less sophisticated than SV investors (especially at the angel/institutional levels) and tend to focus on the solution not the problem when making investment decisions. This leads to most of the Swiss capital in Switzerland being invested into technologically advanced university spin-offs with no market or use case, while teams with a real product-market fit have to go abroad to find investors with the right mindset.