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Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?
- ForHackernews 6y agoBetteridge's law of headlines applies. I don't think I've heard of a single one of the "Top Tech Companies in Switzerland" on their chart.
- rjsw 6y agoIt isn't on the list but how about Logitech.
- dagw 6y agoI'm sure there are interesting technical problems to solve at Logitech, but from the outside it doesn't strike as the sort of company that ambitious young developers are champing at the bit to join. Hell, as a developer SAP seems like a more fun and interesting European "tech giant" than Logitech from the outside, and that is saying something.
- aphroz 6y agoNot at all. Yes Switzerland is probably the best country if you want to follow the rules, have a good quality of life and good education for your children. Not much for developers who are looking for interesting challenges. This is due to the mentality of the population and the risk aversion of the investors. From a Swiss person.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago>This is due to the mentality of the population and the risk aversion of the investors Can you please expand on those two points?
- fearface 6y agoInvestors have very little risk appetite, enterprise makes big money, but innivation is usually pressured into low-cost as much as possible. It’s hard to find a developer job where you get decent pay and interesting work with a swiss company. Source, I’m a software developer since 20 years in Switzerand
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago>Investors have very little risk appetite Are high profile investors in Swizterland interested only in retail investments?
- bluetomcat 6y agoSwiss culture is all about safety, confidentiality and responsible spending of already earned money. Additionally, the prevailing business model is that of the Mittelstand small-to-medium enterprise. Small factories spread throughout the whole country, highly specialized in one thing (producing mostly bits of industrial equipment), co-dependent on other such companies to form the economic blood system of the country. A fascinatingly-organized society, nevertheless. From a Bulgarian who has been there for 1 year.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoThat makes sense, thanks. So there's no dearth of entrepreneurship in CH, but it's concentrated in SMEs focussed on machinery rather than say Internet startups.
- corty 6y agoIn Germany, the southwest, especially Swabia, is more conservative than the north. More tidy-freaks, stingy pennypinchers, more-concerned-with-the-appearance holier-than-thou, "we have always done it like this" and "you didn't clean your sidewalk properly, I've found a leave". Maybe "Kehrwoche" and "schwäbische Hausfrau" will yield sone entertaining google results. Businesswise, it is the region of small to medium family businesses, where the father of course passes on a highly emphasized tradition to the eldest son. Switzerland is like this, turned to eleven, plus a lot of nationalism and need to be separate from the bigger neighbours. You won't get money from a bank or investor down there unless you are solidly local, doing something they understand and looks like all the other medium family businesses making machines or parts down there. Caveat: Of course this is full of personal impressions, stereotypes and things like that. And it is strictly a collection of more negative aspects, there is of course a positive side.
- jcfrei 6y agoThere are very interesting software companies in Switzerland. And those companies are taking a lot of risks as well. Maybe your impression stems from the fact that it's not a very visible ecosystem and the funding is obviously much smaller than in bigger economies.
- atemerev 6y agoThese companies were not financed by venture capital (except for some cryptocurrency companies, which are popular here indeed). Also, some of the software companies were moved here for tax reasons, but they were founded elsewhere.
- jcfrei 6y agoDon't know why you are talking in absolutes here. There's quite a bit of venture funding outside of the cryptocurrency space. Crunchbase shows $2B total in funding for Zurich alone (https://www.crunchbase.com/hub/zurich-startups https://www.crunchbase.com/hub/zurich-startups) - don't know how that compares internationally but it's definitely something rather than nothing.
- nextos 6y agoYes, and there's also a great biotech startup & VC ecosystem.
- jokethrowaway 6y agoThat's an interesting claim! Is there a tax efficient way to structure a tech company in Switzerland? Taxation doesn't look very good neither on the personal level (income tax / dividend tax / tax on deemed rental value of your property if you own a house!!!) nor the company one (corporate rate tax, high cost of personnel). They do have some good deductions and a lump sum income tax for foreigners relocating to Switzerland but it seems like you won't benefit from it unless your income is 7 times higher than your yearly rent (or deemed property rental value if you own). Is there maybe some possible legal fiscal loophole with foreign entities?
- somedude895 6y agoI tend to agree. Apparently it's very hard to get funding for novel ideas in Switzerland. And yes, risk aversion is a big part of Swiss culture, an example of which being that Swiss are some of the most over-insured people, and savings rates also regularly top the charts. A fairly egalitarian society with a high standard of living makes for a people that doesn't like or "have to" take risks
- 8ytecoder 6y agoIf you have a lot to lose... My biggest change was the lose of appetite for risk when I moved to a first world country. When you have a comfortable life it’s hard to kick out of it.
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- langitbiru 6y agoAnd there is a quote: "In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." Sometimes I wonder whether one of the factors that makes US the mecca of technology is the lack of safety net there (compared to Europe).
- triceratops 6y ago> Sometimes I wonder whether one of the factors that makes US the mecca of technology is the lack of safety net there Not really. My bet is on the abundance of capital (hello global reserve currency) combined with excellent universities and a cultural willingness to take risks and do bold things. People who need a safety net, such as food stamps or housing assistance, are rarely the people who start big companies. They're usually too caught up in just trying to survive day-to-day.
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- izacus 6y agoExactly. It's an amazing place to live, has good tech scene, but it's not Silicon Valley. Also the economic focus is completely different - they focus on small enterprises and medium sized businesses which form a significantly more resilient economy (there's a reason why Switzerland did rather well in this pandemic). Asking why the Swiss don't invest in same industries like Californians do would be like asking Morrocans why they don't fund an Alpine ski jumping team. It's a fundamentally different focus - is that so hard to understand to people living in the Valley? That not all economies see the value in javascript webpages?
- rjsw 6y ago> like asking Morrocans why they don't fund an Alpine ski jumping team. Ski jumping is a Nordic event not Alpine. There are a fair number of Morrocan Alpine ski racers.
- Rochus 6y ago> they focus on small enterprises and medium sized businesses Some of the largest companies have emerged in Switzerland.
- Rochus 6y agoFor the sceptics: Nestlé, Roche, Novartis, BBC (now ABB), but also Swatch, Syngenta, Schindler, Logitech, Sonova, Ypsomed, etc. just to name a few.
- pjmlp 6y agoIndeed, and working at any of them will teach how it feels like working on a place where software development is a cost center, not the business that they care to sell. Forget about doing Bonsais of quality following the latest trends of every software conference, what matters is the physical product that gets out of the assembly line.
- Rochus 6y ago
- Rochus 6y ago>> Not much for developers who are looking for interesting challenges .. From a Swiss person This is simply not true. I'm Swiss and working as a developer and consultant in Switzerland since the nineties. I - as many others - was able to do several studies at a world-class university right on my doorstep without getting into debt. People are fair, hardworking, innovative and responsible. Switzerland has ideal conditions for companies and people looking for work. And it's a great place to live. Why do you think Google and others have large development departments in Switzerland? And it's also good for start-ups. Have a look at e.g. https://www.organisator.ch/die-100-besten-startups-der-schweiz-2020/ https://www.organisator.ch/die-100-besten-startups-der-schwe... and https://www.top100startups.swiss/index.cfm?page=136340&cfid=407903024&cftoken=c257d6e2e698cba3-6DEF22F5-F482-4E24-240E27A83C801E68& https://www.top100startups.swiss/index.cfm?page=136340&cfid=.... Also see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swiss_companies_by_revenue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Swiss_companies_by_rev....
- Rochus 6y agoJust came accross the 2019 Global Innovation Index report: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_gii_2019.pdf https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_gii_2019.pdf The ranking on page xxxiv says: 1. Switzerland 2. Sweden 3. United States of America 4. Netherlands 5. United Kingdom 6. Finland 7. Denmark 8. Singapore 9. Germany ... so not too bad after all. This "is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation. It is published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, in partnership with other organisations and institutions,[1]:333 and is based on both subjective and objective data derived from several sources, including the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum" (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Innovation_Index).
- eps 6y agoThis is not necessarily because Switzerland is high-tech friendly. There is an absolutely massive pharma industry in the country. Lots of innovation comes from there.
- Hermel 6y agoNonsense! I’ve been part of the Swiss startup scene for more than a decade and there are plenty of interesting startups and opportunities. If there is a lack of anything, it is technical co-founders that are willing to take a risk. (Working at Google is just too convenient.) In any case, it you are looking for a nice challenge, feel free to consider my latest venture Aktionariat.
- AnthonySmith01 6y agoIs working in Silicon Valley for some enormous multinational really that intellectually stimulating though? When I visited Google in Silicon Valley (from Australia), I didn’t get the impression that the work was that more exciting or cutting edge. But that said, I did notice how run down Silicon Valley and much of the US cities/suburbs are. It did not strike me as a nice place to live.
- jldugger 6y agoHonestly, working on stuff at scale lets me tinker and analyze in ways I never got the chance to at university IT scale. You just didn't have the time or the capacity, and the ROI wasn't there.
- pjmlp 6y agoI fully agree, love your country, have spent two years of my life there and come every time an opportunity pops up. I speak fluently French, Italian, German and can manage plenty of Swiss German common expressions as well. Yet, the rules, oh boy, not sure how you will take this, but from my point of view Swiss world of rules makes the northern Germany feel as flexible as a South American country. When something must be done like A, it is A, not A- or A+, zero deviations.
- niklasd 6y agoOn the other hand, when speaking to a government employee, you're mostly speaking to someone who can make an actual decision on that matter, and can help you to solve your problem. Yes, there are many rules, but living there I've never had the feeling that this made the country inflexible.
- pjmlp 6y agoAs south European, I think it is a personal matter, it basically boils down to how much one can adapt to living by rules, without the flexibility to bend the rules one is used to in other countries. There are plus and minus to both approaches, the rules approach favours more the society overall as everyone gets the same, while the flexible approach kind of favours the individual.
- Rochus 6y agoWell, drive half an hour by car from southern Switzerland to Italy and you will notice that the road will be lined with garbage heaps on both sides. There are definitely some advantages if people are a bit tidy. And then try to achieve something at an Italian office without losing your mind. You can always negotiate with the Swiss, and there are always compromises.
- pjmlp 6y agoSee, that is a good example of culture shock, I have zero issues negotiating in Italy. And as mentioned in other answers I enjoyed my time in Switzerland, and come back every time I manage to, so trying to make my point of view without attacking anyone.
- lta 6y agoI strongly agree with you. The country doesn't seem attractive at all to me. I'd rather think of Berlin, Paris or (sadly) London.
- dblock 6y agoI’m Swiss, did CS at the University of Geneva and work at AWS in New York. “The lake is not burning” is my favorite way to describe Switzerland when it comes to software and startups. And everything else, in fact.
- johncena33 6y ago> The lake is not burning I am non-native, but fluent English speaker. Can you please explain what does this phrase mean?
- gblaickzou 6y agoWater is wet is my guess
- antoinealb 6y agoSwiss French speaker here. This expression is usually used to mean "There is no rush", or "relax we have time". Switzerland is quite slow to change.
- throwaway744678 6y agoNot OP, but it could be a literal translation of an expression in french: "Il n'y a pas le feu au lac", meaning "No need to hurry / There is no emergency"
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- sschueller 6y agoBut there is "Smoke on the water" in Montreux.
- atemerev 6y agoSadly, no. The bureaucracy of opening and running a business here is staggering (and the minimum starting capital for opening an analog of LLC is more than $20,000, and more than $100,000 for a corporation). Perhaps you have heard that there are few taxes in Switzerland; this is not true (and also a lot of obligatory social security payments for the each employee which are almost impossible to manage without a dedicated company to help running your accounting, which is quite expensive). There are many rich people and investments funds, but barely anyone understands how venture capital works. Switzerland is not a country which attracts risk takers. I tried to build startups here for the last 10 years, and I am exhausted.
- dblock 6y agoVery true. In 1996 I incorporated as a British Virgin Islands offshore exactly because of the upfront capital requirements. It was easier than doing it in Switzerland.
- ThePhysicist 6y agoStarting a GmbH theoretically requires 25.000 € in Germany, but you only have to pay in half of that in the beginning. I think in Switzerland it's similar? If you don't want to invest 5-10 T€ to start a company you can look into Estland's eResidency programme, which enables you to start a limited liability company there, giving you access to the EEA market as well.
- atemerev 6y agoIt is not about capital, it is about the bureaucracy (and Germany is not the easiest country to open a company, too).
- est31 6y agoSince a few years you can start a GmbH for 1 €, but in the case of hitting Germany's chapter 11 analog (Insolvenzverfahren) you have to pay up to those 25k€ until limited liability kicks in.
- nairboon 6y ago
- faebi 6y agoI wonder how much Google skews these statistics. They moved into an enormous new office spaces right in the center of Zurich. I am always surprised that their presence is so huge for a country and city that small.
- kmonsen 6y agoZurich has a very good cs university and one of the early google vp’s are from Zurich. Also very good tax situation.
- ThePhysicist 6y agoI wonder why they don't mention Doodle, which is probably one of the best-known Swiss-made software solutions. Personally I use Tresorit (end-to-end encrypted Dropbox alternative), which is also made in Switzerland. And then there's Protonmail of course.
- dnet 6y agoTresorit comes from Hungary, they just made a business entity in Switzerland to look better from security/privacy perspective. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tresorit#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tresorit#History
- durnygbur 6y agoMy favourite is Luxoft incorporating in Switzerland so instead of "Russian outsourcing sweatshop" they can claim to be "Swiss fintech".
- sam_lowry_ 6y agoSkype being Swedish money, Estonian (and some Russian) brains does not make it less of an American company.
- durnygbur 6y agoCurrently the only thing leftover from Skype is their logo.
- tormeh 6y agoMost of Doodle's open engineering positions are in Berlin. Tresorit seems to be mostly based in Budapest. Honestly a lot of companies with Swiss HQs have the bare minimum presence required to benefit from the low taxes in Switzerland.
- mkl95 6y agoTrust me, there is no such thing as a European Silicon Valley, and there won't be one any time soon.
- skratlo 6y agoI hope there won't be one, at the end, what good really came out of Silicon Valley anyway? The good parts can be equated to any other place where innovation takes place, be it in Europe or elsewhere. The rest is tons of crap and speculation.
- ehvatum 6y agoMany of the items on this list seem questionable to me, but perhaps the ideas first nucleated there. From https://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/silicon-valley-achievements https://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/silicon-valley-achie... : • Long distance high-voltage transmission • Amplifying vacuum tube • First commercial radio broadcast • Long distance continuous-wave radio transmissions • Mobile radio systems development • Klystron tube and microwave • Radar • Electronic measuring devices • Nuclear induction applications • X-ray microscope • Traveling-wave tube development • Silicon crystal-growing • Programmable hand-held calculators • Videotape and VCRs • Development of the junction transmitter • Linear accelerators for particle physics research and cancer treatment • Swept-back aircraft wings • Nuclear magnetic resonance • Random access computer storage • Disk drives • Integrated circuits • Planar processes • Lasers • Semiconductor large-scale integrated memory • Silicon gate arrays • Microprocessors • Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) • Personal computers • Open-heart surgery • Ink-jet printing • High resolution aerial photography • Spacecraft heat shields • Batch processing of micro-machined devices • Gene-cloning and gene-splicing • Video games • Silicon compilers • Automated semiconductor manufacturing equipment • Field programmable gate arrays • Prodigious advances in artificial limbs and sensory aids • Robotics • Genetic engineering • Satellite technology • 3-D computing
- amelius 6y agoIsn't most of the good stuff from the previous century, before the first tech bubble?
- gumby 6y ago> In 2019 Switzerland attracted $ 445 million of investments. With twice the population of Silicon Valley this alone points to "no". If you add SF and the rest of the Bay Area, the populations become much closer, but the investment ratio is far worse. Of course the economy here has become rather lopsided over the past 20 years while Switzerland's economy is more diverse. (e.g. I don't think I've drunk local milk since the dairy in downtown Palo Alto closed.)
- sologoub 6y agoOff topic, but Strauss brand is fairly local and quality is amazing: https://www.strausfamilycreamery.com/ https://www.strausfamilycreamery.com/
- gumby 6y agoThere is local produce even closer (e.g. half moon bay and San Jose) but they days of watching wheat harvesting next to Intel HQ, or cherry production next door to Cadence HQ are gone. Where Google is now was bean fields I used to cut through after saving my emacs buffer at work.
- sologoub 6y agoNot sure which of the many of their offices you are talking about, but the main Googleplex looks to be on a superfund site from previous semiconductor manufacturers - not an ideal agricultural site. Edit: Link to map: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/toxic-plumes-the-dark-side-of-silicon-valley/1971023/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/toxic-plumes-the-dark-... Used to live in HMB, but don’t recall a creamery. Definitely some cool small producers in Pescadero still.
- gumby 6y ago"produce" -- I used it in the conventional US sense of non-grain vegetables and fruit, which HMB is full of. I also don't know of any dairies there specifically; I'm sure there were some once but that would have been before my time! I moved my company into the Landings complex (just off Rengstorff) in the early 90s (SETI was also there!). SGI and then Alza built their HQs on what was a bean field a few years later. Building 42 is where the old SGI complex was; the only remaining SGI building that still looks something like its original form is the Computer History Museum. Yep, a lot of the valley land is contaminated thanks to semiconductor production and military use. (in the case of the wheat field next to Intel -- I remember thinking "I hope I never eat something made with that wheat!" That particular map won't display in my browser but I wouldn't be surprised if Ames/Moffet leachate perfused the area, including where the googolplex is now. I worked at Ames for a while when it was a military base and the disposition of chemicals in those days was pretty scary. Where the OSH is now (previously, and briefly Sun Headquarters) was the FMC plant making the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and their chem waste could have leaked across 101 and contaminated that area as well. When I worked in (the city of) Santa Clara about 10 years ago I worried about the water supply because of all the former semiconductor plants. Luckily the city had a map showing the water system. The residential areas were on Hetch Hetchy water but the industrial areas were on well water. Scary! That was the only time I was willing to pay for bottled water.
- Nimitz14 6y agoMoved here recently, find it great so far. I didn't realize how many foreigners there are in Switzerland. Speaking three languages is normal!
- dirtnugget 6y agoSwitzerland is inherently multi-lingual. They have four official languages and there are regions in Switzerland where each of them are predominantly spoken (except for Romansh I guess). The German-speaking part just happens to be the largest and also where the capital is located.
- Nimitz14 6y agoDon't know why you felt the need to tell me that? Swiss people are in reality not that multilingual, the foreigners are (because they know native+french/german+english language).
- lukeqsee 6y agoAs an American immigrant to Switzerland, don’t move here to be on the cutting technical edge. You will be sorely disappointed. It’s a function of societal mentality (slow to change as a way of ensuring enduring stability) and size (fewer people, fairly spread out, only two or three cities big enough to be tech hubs). I moved here for a lot of other reasons, and I’m very happy with my decision and its benefits, but a startup cutting edge country, it is not. If you want that, try Estonia!
- LeanderK 6y agoI've heard there's a lot of cutting technical edge in zurich due to the ETH, would you disagree?
- Rochus 6y agoSure, ETH is at the top on university world ranking and there is a long history of innovations and nobel price laureats.
- LeanderK 6y agoyeah, but I was wondering whether they managed to built a high-tech ecosystem around the ETH. I know that at least google has offices there, but I don't know what it's like in zurich and how much cutting edge high-tech is actually done at these offices.
- Rochus 6y agoSee e.g. https://ethz.ch/en/industry/entrepreneurs/spinoff.html https://ethz.ch/en/industry/entrepreneurs/spinoff.html, https://ethz.ch/en/industry/entrepreneurs/spinoff/uebersicht-eth-spin-offs.html https://ethz.ch/en/industry/entrepreneurs/spinoff/uebersicht..., or https://www.technopark.ch/ https://www.technopark.ch/ Why do you think Google and other big companies have large development departments in Switzerland? There are a lot of very well educated and hardworking people, and job satisfaction is high.
- Bayart 6y agoSilicon Valley fetishism has to go away at some point.
- leifg 6y agoOther places that have been described to me as the "Silicon Valley of Europe": - London - Berlin - Munich - Barcelona - Lisbon - Karlsruhe And these are only the places I have lived (+ I also lived in SF). Trust me it's pretty much true for none of them.
- jokethrowaway 6y agoSilicon Valley probably just means highly paid engineering jobs for those journalists
- leifg 6y agoEven that is only somewhat true for London and Munich
- Proven 6y agoEurope's last non-statist outpost.
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- varispeed 6y agoMy personal theory is that determination whether a place can become a "Silicon Valley" is the population's attitude to drugs. If a developer can smoke a joint after a tough day or explore his or hers consciousness in other ways, without fear of going to jail and having their life ruined, then that attracts creative people. If you have creative people in one place, it all starts to come together.
- react_burger38 6y agoUtah would be a counterpoint to this. More and more VC funding every year, yet doesn't have legal recreational marijuana.
- varispeed 6y agoExceptions tend to prove the rule...
- swissdev 6y agoI think Switzerland is a nice place to live, but the technology choices are not too exciting. Mainly older tech, not much that is cutting edge. Dependable, reliable, professional, but not interesting like San Francisco!
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- proxyrax 6y agoI wish. I hold a citizenship in an EU country (Lithuania) and would love to spend some time working in Europe closer to family. Swiss/EU bilateral agreements would allow me to work there easily, but every time I do some research it seems the (lack of) bureaucracy, compensation, and culture of innovation just pales in comparison to US tech hubs. Here in the US, I can spin up an LLC by clicking a few buttons on one of the dozen or so online incorporation services for under $100. Cheaper if I wanted to do it myself. I can spin up little side-projects left and right. My day job is pretty run-of-the-mill for US tech standards, but pays more than I could ever dream of in anywhere in Europe (even if I take into account the value of better social services). At this rate, I don't see any sufficiently impactful changes happening in Europe to make it meaningfully competitive, but I really hope it does.
- chrisandchris 6y agoAt least in Switzerland you can somewhere go around with ~20‘000/year in earnings without much bureaucracy at all (not much insurance, easy taxes, ...) and even after that, there‘s no need to register a company. You can work as single-person company longer than you say it‘s a side business. For sure you have to care about insurabce and taxes, but I don‘t see anything wrong with that. It might be that it‘s different in other countries but from my experience, Switzerland makes it quite easy „for the little man“.
- phillc73 6y agoThe ease of starting a Limited company in Lithuania is really interesting. I used to start UK Ltd companies really easily, but with them exiting the EU, the best alternative I've found so far is Ireland or Estonia, but both are somewhat expensive. Although not compared to starting a GmbH in Austria or Germany. I learned through bitter experience that Malta has some yearly auditing requirements, which make everything more expensive than they first appear. Can you provide some links or info about going the Lithuanian route?
- proxyrax 6y agoI realized after posting, I should've specified that for me, "here" is the US. My US-centrism is showing, sorry! Lithuania is trying hard to make it easier, but they're still leaps and bounds behind the US IMO.
- raverbashing 6y agoThere won't be another "Silicon Valley" because the unique conditions of SV didn't happen anywhere else (at least so far). Which it doesn't mean you can't have competitive or innovative companies in other places. What their differences are w.r.t. SV might be disadvantages but they also might be advantages. (Though the easy financing is one darn good competitive advantage) But the world (and innovation) is not only startups working on a new web/app thing.
- TomVDB 6y agoOne of my friends moved back from the Bay Area to Switzerland with his family. While he's happy that he's close to his family again, there's no question that he went from a place where engineers are at the top of the food chain to one where it's all about bankers and finance. And the salary reflects that.
- abcet 6y agoSpeaking of tech companies, Chatroulette (3m monthly users) is located in Zug, Switzerland and we are hiring. I am the founder. Sorry for spam.
- pjc50 6y agoThe main thing I would have thought it has in common is being an incredibly expensive place to live. > In 2019 Switzerland attracted $ 445 million of investments That's, what, half a startup by SV standards?
- jason0597 6y agoHow many of the startups in SV are juicero type projects?
- libertine 6y agoWell they outsource a lot of development work to other cheaper EU countries, so no.
- amelius 6y agoAnd physicists ...
- throwaway123409 6y agoTo me, Hanoi is the future of the startup world: - surprisingly libertarian pro-buisness environment - super low cost of living - supportive of expats working for american incorperated companies - easy visas - wonderful culture - great dating life - safe if you don’t go looking for trouble - instead of having to qualify for goverment benefits, the goverment controls prices for nessecities for everyone. - rapidly improving political environment/infrastructure - very little online censorship compared to China - China adjacent but resists Chinese influence
- FooBarBizBazz 6y agoPeople are downvoting you, but this is basically what Obama thought too -- it was half the point of his "pivot". He thought SE Asia was the future. And, he'd know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_career_of_Barack_Obama#Indonesia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_and_career_of_Barac... Unlike 99% of Americans, the man had some perspective.
- jakearmitage 6y agoHow does one emigrate to Switzerland?
- wespiser_2018 6y agoFrom what I've gathered when I looked into moving to CH (I could be wrong, and for personal/pandemic reasons didn't pursue this avenue), it's very hard to build a long term life in Switzerland and virtually impossible to gain citizenship through anything but marriage or extraordinary circumstances, but YMMV. If you want to move to Switzerland from the U.S. the easiest thing is to just go there on a 90-day visa, and constantly re-up it by crossing the boarder and coming back. This will work temporarily, and if you want to stay on a permanent basis, the only way I found was to get a non-EU eligible work visa, which requires you to leave the country, apply and get approved, find an employer, and only then re-enter. You cannot just find a job while on a 90-day. Most emigrants I met in Zurich where employees of multinationals who managed the visa process for them. If you don't work for an international bank, you're second best bet is to go there on vacation and fall in love :P
- eps 6y agoYou can't extend your stay allowance by shuttling across the border every 90 days. There is a 180 day/year cap, exactly to suppress this sort of shenanigans.
- wespiser_2018 6y agoThanks! This makes sense!
- solarkings 6y agoI'm sick of seeing titles like this one. Why can't Switzerland simply be Switerland instead of a clone of the Silicon Valley? We all have our own cultures and different types of innovation can spring from each one of them.
- jason0597 6y agoI agree. I never understood the fetishisation of Silicon Valley... it's not the be-all and end-all for everything tech related.
- maest 6y agoIt's a very Silicon Valley-like thing to desire to be different.
- Darmody 6y agoCame here to say this. While I like Silicon Valley, it has its downsides as well. And not everything good for Americans is good for Europeans. I want to see our own "tech cities" across Europe, every one of them with their own culture, their own lifestyle, their own philosophy, etc. To be successful you don't have to imitate SV on everything.
- aerosmile 6y ago> Is Switzerland better than Silicon Valley for software developers? The entire article compares data between Switzerland and other EU countries (the accuracy of which is a whole another topic), and then this is used to compare Switzerland against Silicon Valley?
- dang 6y agoAt least the submitter did a nice job of correcting that in the HN title.
- mekoka 6y agoThis article seems to want to define "Silicon Valley" in terms of companies starting up and the prospect of employment. But in my opinion, these numbers considered over a short period aren't necessarily a relevant base for comparison. The majority of startups fails. So for an individual considering the risk of that adventure, it's not only important to prepare for take off, it's also important to make sure the landing will not be too rough. Especially the emergency landing. In the US, entrepreneurship is so ingrained in the culture that the costs and stigmas associated with failure are lower than in many (most?) other places in the world. They're therefore not as big a deterrent. In order for me to consider Switzerland as a possible alternative to Silicon Valley, I'd have to ask some questions like, how well is the risk of entrepreneurship understood? What happens when the majority of these startups fails in the next 5 years? How willing will entrepreneurs be to try a second time? How many current "second-chance" entrepreneurs (those who've already tried and failed at least once before) are there?
- est31 6y agoIndeed, thanks to at-will employment, failing as a founder is not a financial ruin.
- crx07 6y agoAmsterdam, Copenhagen, and Stockholm would probably be the leading candidates vying for Europe's Silicon Valley, at least as an American looking from the outside. Next to those are the obvious economic hubs where talent exists en masse: London, Berlin, and Paris. Switzerland? Maybe, there's a lot of tech that crops up there for sure, but much of that is FinTech and certain other specialized areas where there is an advantage to be had under Swiss law or as a result of the country's reputation.
- unnouinceput 6y agoIs this some sort of platform, like Upwork, but for German speaking developers? Because it feels that way after I've read all of it, including the jobs listing at the end. Didn't sign up though.
- thomasdullien 6y agoFWIW: I am a 2nd-time entrepreneur. I bootstrapped a company in Germany from 2004-2011, and sold it to Google then. As part of that I moved to Switzerland. I started another company in early 2018 in Zurich, believing the hype about it being a good place to do business. I won't go into details publicly, but: If your market and your potential acquirers are primarily in the US, and you think your startup will have a long-term focus in the US, avoid incorporating in Zurich. Go to London, Berlin, Paris, pretty much anywhere but Zurich. If you absolutely have to incorporate in Switzerland, move yourself to a startup-friendly Canton such as Zug. Do not incorporate in Zurich, and do not open an office in Zurich. My experiences have been resoundingly negative, and I am not the only one - founders just avoid talking about the negative experiences for fear of causing more problems. If your market will be primarily Switzerland and the immediate neighbors, starting here is likely fine (albeit you will get better price/performance on engineering in neighboring countries). Feel free to reach out in private.
- maest 6y agofyi, there's no private messaging option on HN - people usually post contact details in their profile.
- thomasdullien 6y agoCool, updated the profile.
- nix23 6y agoWell it's for sure the "We make encryption with backdoors valley"
- microtherion 6y ago> The city of Zurich is the largest technology hub with an impressive number of 100,000 registered software developers That would be impressive indeed, given that it only has a population of 430,000. Given that the article also mentions a "city of Vaud", I have my doubts... Having spent several years in Silicon Valley, and moved back to my native Zürich, I find much to like in either place, I have reasons to prefer the latter, but I would NOT recommend coming to Zürich if you're looking to replicate a Silicon Valley experience.
- brunojppb 6y agoIf I could add one alternative place would be Vienna, Austria. The tech scene here is growing in a fast pace, even during covid most of the tech companies are still hiring quite a lot and the prospects for 2021 isn't looking bad. The city is full of life, bike and child friendly with a very large international community. I have been living here for the past 4 years and I can already feel the fast pace the tech scene here is following.