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I agree completely: as a European, I find these projects pathetic. We need the humility to learn something from the US and create an environment and a framework
by Udik 6y ago
I agree completely: as a European, I find these projects pathetic. We need the humility to learn something from the US and create an environment and a framework in which private companies can thrive, instead of being constantly dragged down by bureaucracy, regulations, and a legal-judiciary system eager not to help but to assert its power.
- pinkfoot 6y agoLearn to pay your programmers properly.
- icelancer 6y agoNo kidding. When I was in France I was appalled at the rates they were paying software developers. For a collection of countries that boasts better living standards for people, the comparative gap in pay for technical positions is absurd.
- enriquto 6y agoA junior developer cannot at all afford renting an appartment in Paris with his basis salary. For other jobs outside of software, it is even worse.
- Nextgrid 6y ago> For other jobs outside of software, it is even worse. My understanding is that it’s the opposite. Software is significantly underpaid but you can do quite well with a typical paper-pushing bullshit job.
- enriquto 6y agoAn entry-level tenured professor or a nurse at a hospital earn less than 2000 EUR per month. This gives them barely enough to rent a small room in a shared apartment.
- namdnay 6y ago> A junior developer cannot at all afford renting an appartment in Paris with his basis salary To be fair, that's the same in London or SF :)
- 121789 6y agoa junior developer in SF can pretty easily afford to rent their own apartment straight out of university. most won't, but they could.
- Nextgrid 6y agoPay is a problem but it’s one of many. The working culture is another big problem. Here’s a thread that summarises it quite well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17169504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17169504
- Udik 6y agoAgreed, more than anything else it's a cultural problem. In France and Italy in particular. And salaries are a consequence of it.
- namdnay 6y agoMeh that's honestly not the number one problem in france. I'd even say it's a competitive advantage. Not everyone is willing to expatriate for salary, you can get really great engineers for half or even a third of what they'd be paid in SV
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoBut then why hasn't France been invaded by US companies to hire these great engineers for half of SV money? I know they have some small offices on campus at top universities where they employ a hand full of PhDs for ML/AI research but that's a drop in the ocean.
- namdnay 6y agoYou could probably ask the same question of Romania, Russia or Poland. I think it's just a question of the general business friendliness of the place. And there are quite a few American companies in Paris and Sophia-Antipolis
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoActually, I bet my horse Romania and Poland are hosting more US tech companies than France since they can get more developers per dollar there. Sophia-Antipolis is mostly semiconductor and hardware and has the weather and property prices of SoCal without the pay.
- dukeyukey 6y agoCan't speak for France but London's tech scene is brimming with overseas offices of American companies. Out of my 5 tech jobs, 3 were with American companies, the other 2 being British.
- ChuckNorris89 6y agoIt make sense for London to be more attractive to US companies than France due to language and cultural similarities.
- pmontra 6y agoI agree but by paying such low rates / salaries they don't get all the developers they need to do all the projects they would like to do (source: my experience in Italy, where there are more companies looking for developers than developers with spare time for them) and still those companies manage to keep going no matter if projects are delayed or cancelled. If they couldn't either they would close or find more money to spend. Of course that's great for those countries that can move faster, their advantage increases.
- 9q9 6y agoIn terms of innovation in semiconductors, should also learn from the success of China, South Korea, Taiwan!
- Udik 6y agoDefinitely, I didn't mention them only because I'm more familiar with the culture of the US (although indirectly). One thing we should certainly learn from China (and I guess other Asian cultures) is to copy first, and only when good at it start innovating. It takes a lot of humbleness and pragmatism over pride. And it works.
- jialutu 6y agoThat is literally how you innovate! What a lot of people are unaware of is that Europeans had been copying and stealing Chinese secrets for over a millenia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_silkworm_eggs_into_the_Byzantine_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuggling_of_silkworm_eggs_int... https://www.chinese-antique-porcelain.com/european-porcelain-copies.html https://www.chinese-antique-porcelain.com/european-porcelain... The US have a history of stealing tech secrets from the British: https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-18/us-complains-other-nations-are-stealing-us-technology-america-has-history https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-02-18/us-complains-other-na... Hell, even the name America for which we give to the United States today was stolen since America was originally given to "Latin America" named after Amerigo who had only set foot in Latin America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerigo_Vespucci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerigo_Vespucci I was also astounded when I found out how much US brands actually copy each other. So really, there is no shame in copying from others first before innovating, because that's what essentially learning is all about right? I mean we are constantly standing on the shoulder of giants, but for some reason, for certain sectors, we tend to lock out that process.
- joelbluminator 6y agowell ASML is plenty successful