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Particular how fates of post-Communist countries like Poland/Czechia/Slovakia/Lithuania vs Estonia dispersed. The former chose a way of low-cost, outsourcing an
by expertentipp 8y ago
Particular how fates of post-Communist countries like Poland/Czechia/Slovakia/Lithuania vs Estonia dispersed. The former chose a way of low-cost, outsourcing and offshoring for global hegemons, many emigrated to developed countries like UK or Germany - cutting off their chance of success. One from post-Communist country will always be an underdog there trying to navigate the complex realities, business connections, regulations.
Meanwhile Estonia - extraordinary luck, lots of talent. Perhaps because it's a small country, cosy environment, one is less likely to emigrate? Proximity to and cultural similarities with Finland? Sad that both - Kazaa and Skype had become its own blown egg with only the brands surviving, Americans killed both.
- jhbadger 8y agoAlso Estonia was home to the Institute of Cybernetics in Tallinn, which was one of the premier Soviet computer science institutes.
- TomMarius 8y agoCzechia and Slovakia are still too corrupt and it used to be way worse.
- expertentipp 8y agoI don't think Estonia had it any better in terms of corruption and organized crime - former Soviet republic, large Russian minority, Russian intelligence was surely giving them hard times.
- TomMarius 8y agoI'm not saying they had it better, I'm saying they got forward because they battled corruption better than Czechia and Slovakia did, while Czechia and Slovakia remain too corrupt to this day.
- rasz 8y agoHow did Estonia handle transition period? Polish transformation was dominated by giving away national property, and mostly involved bribes. Deals like 1991 30 year _free_ lease for two huge factory buildings gifted to Levi Strauss in exchange for couple hundred $100/month jobs (1/2 average pay in Poland, 1/20 average US), buildings the city had to first borrow $700K to buy and renovate. Or PepsiCo paying $25 mil for privatized chocolate manufacturer(no debt), just to turn around and resell _one_ of their factories for $75mil. Etc etc, almost anything of value was sold for nothing.
- expertentipp 8y agoThe whole country on a backyard sale while population was chocked down ("shock therapy" - thanks, Balcerowicz and Jeffrey Sachs!). The largest innovation these reforms farted out in the IT domain was a PHP clone of Classmates. > Or PepsiCo paying $25 mil for privatized chocolate manufacturer(no debt), just to turn around and resell _one_ of their factories for $75mil The story of Wedel is a classic example of predatory business sucking out all the money from formely legit business while offering deteriorating quality ("ptasie mleczko" tastes like and has a quality of a turd, sorry).