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The most important quote: "Sweden’s impressive start-up record can also be attributed to some broader aspects of how the country is set up. Its social safety n
by Loic 9y ago
The most important quote:
"Sweden’s impressive start-up record can also be attributed to some broader aspects of how the country is set up. Its social safety net, for instance, helps entrepreneurs feel safe to take risks. In Sweden, university is free, and students can get loans for living expenses, which allows anyone to pursue higher education. Health care is free too, and childcare is heavily subsidized. None of these benefits are contingent on having a job, which means people know that they can take entrepreneurial risks and still know many of their necessities will be covered.
“I think if you want to be an innovative country, you have to give people security so they dare to take risks,” Mikael Damberg, Sweden’s minister for enterprise and innovation, told me."
The second case, which is not present in the article is that in Sweden, working in a small company is considered a risky proposition and a such small companies are offering higher salary than big companies. It means that they tend to attract the best people too. In most of the rest of Europe (DK, DE, FR from my own experience), if you want the engineer path with good money, you need to get hired by a big company.
- flexie 9y agoOther Scandinavian countries are also doing quite well, way beyond what their size would suggest. But also well beyond other countries with developed welfare systems, such as France. I think these discussions always miss one key factor: Language. If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. If you don't get into software development at an early age, you are much less likely to do a software based startup when you are in your twenties. There is a thousand times as much documentation, conferences, tutorials, courses, online fora etc in English as in other languages and this is how new ideas in IT spread. Only months or years afterwards, it's translated to Spanish or Chinese, and only if it has caught on. Just about everything new in IT spreads through English, whether it's AI or web development or anything else. The Scandinavian languages are not that different from English, the countries are small and consume a lot of music, movies, TV etc from the US/UK. Movies and TV have never been dubbed, except for toddlers. So for the last 50-60 years or more, Scandinavians have been quite good at English. Your average 70 year old Scandinavian speaks English better than your average 20 year old Italian. A drunkard on a bench in Scandinavia is likely to speak better English than most academics I've met in Southern or Eastern Europe. We live in an era of software driven startups. It's easy to forget that it was not always like that. There were times when successful businesses were driven by mechanics (GM), electronics (Sony), chemistry (Kodak), trade or other factors. Now it's software, and whether your language, framework, or library of choice is C, C++, Python, Lisp, Java, PHP, JS, HTML, CSS, Tensorflow, React, or almost any other tech that the unicorns are built with, the new developments in that tech will initially have spread from English speakers to English speakers. The fact that the largest software companies in the last two decades have all been American then reinforces that trend.
- johankmagnusson 9y agoI think you are right in this being one of the important factors as well. I'm Swedish and my toddlers never watched any YouTube content in Swedish. Pretty much all they ever watch is in English. I wasn't too surprised this summer when visiting some friends in England and I heard my 4 year old girl say complete sentences like: "yeah, I'm coming down Toby" to her English playmate. Thanks YouTube and Apple!
- tnzn 9y agoFrance's safety net is shit for auto entrepreneurs so this could explain that.
- Iv 9y agoHealthcare is still free. Let's stay a bit smug in front of our mainly US audience.
- flexie 9y agoStill doesn't explain why I can't name a hugely popular programming language, library or framework created by a French programmer but several by Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Dutch, all small countries but where English is a very strong second language. I'm sure there are great French programmers and programming languages, but doesn't is strike you as remarkable that there are not more? From a country of 5 million (Denmark) you got the creators or cocreators of C++, C#, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Turbo Pascal etc. From a country of 60 million you got ...? France is a a power house in so many other engineering fields like nuclear power, auto industry, aviation etc so they clearly have engineering talent. But in software, not so much.
- victor106 9y agoWhat are some successful startups that are based out of Sweden?
- ajpkco 9y agoI'd say Spotify, Skype and King (Candy Crush) are good examples. I'd count Mojang (Minecraft) too.
- henrikschroder 9y agoYubico, Klarna, iZettle...
- zurn 9y agoLots more game companies too, from AAA companies like DICE and Paradox to indie games.
- johankmagnusson 9y agoAnd Tictail and Truecaller. I would also count Skype as Swedish and also Soundcloud even though I think they moved to Berlin pretty early on.
- amigoingtodie 9y agoI thought Skype was initially based in Estonia?
- taysic 9y agoAccording to the Wikipedia article: "Skype was founded in 2003 by Niklas Zennström, from Sweden, and Janus Friis, from Denmark.[30] The Skype software was created by Estonians Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu, and Jaan Tallinn. "
- peralmq 9y agoFor instance all the companies mentioned in the article ;)
- thcsa 9y agoAustria also has a very good social safety net, free universities and subsidized childcare - and we have very few startups, because people just don't like to take risks here.
- Jommi 9y agoThe article's point is not very strong, from personal experience (Finland, experience in Nordic startup "ecosystem"). Like you said, working at a Startup in the Nordics is considered risky, which doesn't make sense at all. Like the article underlines, Nordics countries have a insane social safety net, that even if your company fails, you're no where near as fucked as if the same thing happened in the US for example. Yet, comparatively a very small amount of startups come out from the Nordics. Yes, Sweden has some, but if welfare = more startups were true, Denmark, Norway, Finland should all be top startup countries. What I actually believe happens, and this is backed by personal experience, is that this safety net actual promotes doing nothing. Nearly all the gains/positives outsiders see of the system are wasted on the actual habitants. Nobody here thinks for a second longer about healthcare being free. It's taken for granted. So no, I don't think this is the reason for Sweden's success. (Sorry for going on a tangent! Just wanted to write some of my thoughts)
- danek 9y agoCounterpoint: I wouldn’t think of starting a startup in the US but I would seriously consider it in Sweden. Healthcare is one of the issues for me. Maybe it’s not right to say it’s the reason for Sweden’s success but it could be an enabling factor.
- jk2323 9y ago"In most of the rest of Europe (DK, DE, FR from my own experience), if you want the engineer path with good money, you need to get hired by a big company." This is true. Unfortunately this has likely very little to do with your skills. To get hired by a big company there are three options: 1. You have family connections 2. Your professor in the university has connections 3. You work for a start up that get's acquired by a big company. Exceptions confirm the rule. Also this may not be the case for companies like McKinsey or BCG. I once applied for a job Germany at BASF. Job location would be Asia. Based on my resume I was very well suited for the job. I filled out the shitty SAP application interface. They really got back to me. "We received your application. Please also upload your 'letters of recommendation' (something that is provided to you in writing for every job you had in Germany)". I emailed them that I got my PhD in the US and worked in the US and that I don't have this but that I am happy to provide references. They emailed: " If you don't have letters of recommendation then we don't need you. We deleted you application!" This was a multinational company.