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My personal list of causes for why Sweden indeed is doing incredibly good when it comes to tech these days: - Early broadband investments and subsidized PCs (a

My personal list of causes for why Sweden indeed is doing incredibly good when it comes to tech these days: - Early broadband investments and subsidized PCs (as stated in the article). - Good e-government and digital infrastructure, which means little bureaucracy for starting and running a company, but also availability of out of the box tools to build complex products. Example is bankID, an ubiquitous digital ID solution which startups can us for instant customer identification that lives up to all legal requirements. - Early success in building global tech brands (Skype, Spotify, even Pirate Bay), which laid the foundation for a self-reinforcing ecosystem (self image, newly minted angel investors, media attention etc.) - Generally a positive attitude towards tech among the population. Unlike in large parts of continental Europe, being a pessimists/naysayer about new things doesn't give you a lot of status in large parts of Swedish society. Being an early-adopter does. - Hands off regulation. Not necessarily by virtue, but rather as an accidental side effect of Swedish (political) and administrative culture. Sweden is culturally and politically pretty bad at preparing for negative outcomes. "We have been naive" and "we didn't see it coming" are frequently heard statements from politicians about negative societal developments. For the tech sector, this is great, since startups can try new things without too much early interference by the state or bureaucrats (example: Unlike in many/if not most other European countries, rental e-scooters have been introduced with almost no regulation. Regulation is only now happening, after issues became apparent).

jeofken 5y ago
> "We have been naive" and "we didn't see it coming" For context it should be noted that these two famous quotes by the prime minister and staff were not in the context of software or business, but regarding violent crime and the demographic shift away from natives ethnic homogeneity
- imartin2k 5y ago
  It was also used during the pandemic.
- zibzab 5y ago
  That was said during the pandemic. I feel you are pushing a narrative here.
  - jeofken 5y ago
    That I had missed - but that is also not the topic of IT or business, so the point stands > I feel you are pushing a narrative here. Your feelings are beyond my control
    - guerrilla 5y ago
      > Your feelings are beyond my control Clever, yet generally false. How we behave and what we say impacts other people's feelings in general.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - ynfnehf 5y ago
    Those specific quotes (or rather direct translations of quotes) were said in regards to bad integration policy (by Stefan Löfven in 2015 and 2019). There has probably been said things with similar sentiment in regards to the pandemic. But not those two specific ones. Even though I agree OP is pushing a narrative a bit too much, your correction is also wrong. Since these were not said during the pandemic.
    - jeofken 5y ago
      My comment cleared up that the quotes were out of context, and in pretty dry words explained in what context they were said. If simply stating the context is pushing a narrative, we can’t converse.
      - kruxigt 5y ago
        Libtards often have a problem with the objective reality of things. No surprise here.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > > "We have been naive" and "we didn't see it coming" > For context it should be noted that these two famous quotes by the prime minister and staff were not in the context of software or business, but regarding violent crime and the demographic shift away from natives ethnic homogeneity It's been used (and roundly criticised from the right) mainly in those contexts recently, but also for pretty much anything they've screwed up for over a decade now. IMO the right (both the "accepted" traditional parties and the newer populist ones) is basically right in asking, "If you can't see fricking anything coming, are you really qualified to run the country?" It may work as an excuse the first few times, but it wears out pretty quickly; AFAICS the point where it shows not how hugely unpredictable the consequences of their actions are, but just how bad at predicting / willing to ignore them they are has long since been passed.
admissionsguy 5y ago
Hands off regulation and overall liberty to pursue both private and business affairs without interference (as long as you pay the massive taxes) was a big surprise for me when I moved to Sweden.
- imartin2k 5y ago
  Yeah it's a trade off that can be worth it, as a lot of time and energy is being saved, so mental space can be channeled elsewhere than into frustration about bureaucracy and excessive administrative requirements.
- busterarm 5y ago
  It does seem like Sweden is quite a bit easier to start up a business, cost-wise and regulation-wise, than the rest of Scandinavia. I looked into starting a company in Denmark and was quickly put off. The regulation is still pretty high compared to the US though. Especially once you plan to start employing people. Not that that'd a bad thing.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  > as long as you pay the massive taxes You're supposed to set up operations as a charity to dodge the taxes.
mongol 5y ago
I was thinking of BankID the other day, and that I don't know how the authentication / authorization problem is solved in other countries. Fellow hackers, how do you log in to your internet bank and to your government services such as the tax office?
- f6v 5y ago
  In Belgium bank sends you a token generator that allows activating your account. You put the bank card in and it produces numbers you can use for the internet banking. I only had to use it once with the KBC bank, as it allowed to authenticate with the mobile app after the initial set up. The Belgian resident card also allows you to log into government services. You need a card reader for that(~20EUR). Same as with the banking, you can set up a mobile app that can be used for authentication without a card reader, after you complete the initial set up. When I was living in Germany, my first residence permit(2014) was similar to the Belgian one. However, they stopped issuing those to foreigners in favour of a piece of paper which they stick into your passport. Consequently, I couldn't use any eID in Germany up until 2019 when I moved away. So if you want something done, you get an appointment with the local citizen office. Any paperwork is, well, done with paper. Most of the companies send you a ton of letters.
  - csunbird 5y ago
    > When I was living in Germany, my first residence permit(2014) was similar to the Belgian one. However, they stopped issuing those to foreigners in favor of a piece of paper which they stick into your passport. Interestingly, they stepped back from that two years ago, as almost all of the residence permits are now electrical. The only problem is that the electronic properties of the permits are not used anywhere.
    - f6v 5y ago
      I got my EU long-term residence permit in 2019 and it was still a paper kind. Maybe they really changed it now.
- saberdancer 5y ago
svunk 5y ago
While I agree those aren't unimportant I have come to a somewhat different conclusion after spending some time outside of Sweden. Most people in most places are just busy doing other things. I don't think Stockholm's success is so much what was, but what you didn't have to do. In the early 00s it was relative easy to become "high middle class". Rent controlled public housing was available so you didn't have to spend $10k-$100k to have stable housing. Public transport was in a good state so you didn't have to spend $5k-50k on a car. Education was available but not generally considered necessary. Mostly cost-free universal health care was the norm. Even marriage wasn't the norm. This meant you had pretty good chance of having your life relatively sorted by your mid-twenties and therefor a much lower cost of doing something else. Compared to other countries where most people are busy trying to attain such things for far longer. That other countries didn't have the same success because they didn't have good enough broadband is a somewhat safe explanation. Most countries didn't even try, and still don't try, to get good broadband because success is mostly seen as something private. This is of course somewhat controversial not just abroad but in Sweden as well. As the Stockholm of today would do quite badly by these criteria.
- arcturus17 5y ago
  None of those factors concurred in California or other tech hubs like New York or London though.
  - notfromhere 5y ago
    That’s because Silicon Valley and other tech hubs need money and talent, everything else is secondary. SV specifically had bottomless US defense spending and good local schools to create a talent pipeline. Back in the early days, the defense industry was the primary consumer of chips, which built up the industry via public defense dollars.
    - svunk 5y ago
      While I do think things defense spending matters I don't think it is what makes (or made) the difference. Look at countries like Germany, France or South Korea. Arguably they have some of the best education and industries in the world but they don't have an outsized number of new tech companies. That is because most of the time you aren't inventing technology (because that is too hard) but trying distribute or commercialize technology that mostly exists. Silicon Valley is of course where many things in computing were invented but it is more importantly where business machines became home computers. And in the end that is were most of the graphics cards, operating systems, network switches, software applications and services comes from. Sweden didn't invent many computers or operating systems but it was ready to distribute the next thing once it became available. Just like many good synths and samplers came from Japan but many of the big electronic music artists are from the US, the UK or Sweden.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
Also it's a country where staying inside is comfy, so being in front of a computer as your job is pretty appealing.
lalo2302 5y ago
Skype was made in Estonia
- imartin2k 5y ago
  Co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennström is a Swede and so Skype always had a clear connection to Sweden. But yes, Estonia also deserves a lot of credit for Skype of course, as the development work was mostly done there.
  - nxmnxm99 5y ago
    A lot of the credit? Estonia is 99% of Skype. There's a reason their tech ecosystem (which is more impressive than Sweden's) is called the "Skype Mafia"
    - imartin2k 5y ago
      The Skype mafia looks to me rather “diverse” international https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2019/08/21/the-skype-mafia-who-are-they-and-where-are-they-now/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2019/08/21/the-skype-m... Anyway, my point is that whether correctly or incorrectly, that thanks to Zennström, many people do associate Skype also with Sweden, and he acted as an early role model for other future startup entrepreneurs from Sweden.
    - lalo2302 5y ago
      You can search the #EstonianMafia. Is Skype, Pipedrive, Wise (Transferwise), Bolt, etc...
jjtheblunt 5y ago
> (Skype, Spotify, even Pirate Bay) Ericsson ?
- imartin2k 5y ago
  It's Swedish, but I wouldn't put it in the same category, as the company was founded in 1876.
bserge 5y ago
The UK outdoes Sweden on all of those points. London is the SV of Europe.
- Duralias 5y ago
  As someone not very knowledgeable within these areas, will it continue being that now after Brexit?
  - bserge 5y ago
    Yes. Visas for tech workers aren't a big problem, the UK is still better for starting a business than any EU country and they have the innovator and startup visas, too. Brexit only fucked British manufacturers, non-tangible goods are fine.

jeofken 5y ago

> "We have been naive" and "we didn't see it coming" For context it should be noted that these two famous quotes by the prime minister and staff were not in the context of software or business, but regarding violent crime and the demographic shift away from natives ethnic homogeneity

imartin2k 5y ago
It was also used during the pandemic.
zibzab 5y ago
That was said during the pandemic. I feel you are pushing a narrative here.
- jeofken 5y ago
  That I had missed - but that is also not the topic of IT or business, so the point stands > I feel you are pushing a narrative here. Your feelings are beyond my control
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    > Your feelings are beyond my control Clever, yet generally false. How we behave and what we say impacts other people's feelings in general.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- ynfnehf 5y ago
  Those specific quotes (or rather direct translations of quotes) were said in regards to bad integration policy (by Stefan Löfven in 2015 and 2019). There has probably been said things with similar sentiment in regards to the pandemic. But not those two specific ones. Even though I agree OP is pushing a narrative a bit too much, your correction is also wrong. Since these were not said during the pandemic.
  - jeofken 5y ago
    My comment cleared up that the quotes were out of context, and in pretty dry words explained in what context they were said. If simply stating the context is pushing a narrative, we can’t converse.
    - kruxigt 5y ago
      Libtards often have a problem with the objective reality of things. No surprise here.
CRConrad 5y ago
> > "We have been naive" and "we didn't see it coming" > For context it should be noted that these two famous quotes by the prime minister and staff were not in the context of software or business, but regarding violent crime and the demographic shift away from natives ethnic homogeneity It's been used (and roundly criticised from the right) mainly in those contexts recently, but also for pretty much anything they've screwed up for over a decade now. IMO the right (both the "accepted" traditional parties and the newer populist ones) is basically right in asking, "If you can't see fricking anything coming, are you really qualified to run the country?" It may work as an excuse the first few times, but it wears out pretty quickly; AFAICS the point where it shows not how hugely unpredictable the consequences of their actions are, but just how bad at predicting / willing to ignore them they are has long since been passed.

admissionsguy 5y ago

Hands off regulation and overall liberty to pursue both private and business affairs without interference (as long as you pay the massive taxes) was a big surprise for me when I moved to Sweden.

imartin2k 5y ago
Yeah it's a trade off that can be worth it, as a lot of time and energy is being saved, so mental space can be channeled elsewhere than into frustration about bureaucracy and excessive administrative requirements.
busterarm 5y ago
It does seem like Sweden is quite a bit easier to start up a business, cost-wise and regulation-wise, than the rest of Scandinavia. I looked into starting a company in Denmark and was quickly put off. The regulation is still pretty high compared to the US though. Especially once you plan to start employing people. Not that that'd a bad thing.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
> as long as you pay the massive taxes You're supposed to set up operations as a charity to dodge the taxes.

mongol 5y ago

I was thinking of BankID the other day, and that I don't know how the authentication / authorization problem is solved in other countries. Fellow hackers, how do you log in to your internet bank and to your government services such as the tax office?

f6v 5y ago
In Belgium bank sends you a token generator that allows activating your account. You put the bank card in and it produces numbers you can use for the internet banking. I only had to use it once with the KBC bank, as it allowed to authenticate with the mobile app after the initial set up. The Belgian resident card also allows you to log into government services. You need a card reader for that(~20EUR). Same as with the banking, you can set up a mobile app that can be used for authentication without a card reader, after you complete the initial set up. When I was living in Germany, my first residence permit(2014) was similar to the Belgian one. However, they stopped issuing those to foreigners in favour of a piece of paper which they stick into your passport. Consequently, I couldn't use any eID in Germany up until 2019 when I moved away. So if you want something done, you get an appointment with the local citizen office. Any paperwork is, well, done with paper. Most of the companies send you a ton of letters.
- csunbird 5y ago
  > When I was living in Germany, my first residence permit(2014) was similar to the Belgian one. However, they stopped issuing those to foreigners in favor of a piece of paper which they stick into your passport. Interestingly, they stepped back from that two years ago, as almost all of the residence permits are now electrical. The only problem is that the electronic properties of the permits are not used anywhere.
  - f6v 5y ago
    I got my EU long-term residence permit in 2019 and it was still a paper kind. Maybe they really changed it now.
saberdancer 5y ago

svunk 5y ago

While I agree those aren't unimportant I have come to a somewhat different conclusion after spending some time outside of Sweden. Most people in most places are just busy doing other things. I don't think Stockholm's success is so much what was, but what you didn't have to do. In the early 00s it was relative easy to become "high middle class". Rent controlled public housing was available so you didn't have to spend $10k-$100k to have stable housing. Public transport was in a good state so you didn't have to spend $5k-50k on a car. Education was available but not generally considered necessary. Mostly cost-free universal health care was the norm. Even marriage wasn't the norm. This meant you had pretty good chance of having your life relatively sorted by your mid-twenties and therefor a much lower cost of doing something else. Compared to other countries where most people are busy trying to attain such things for far longer. That other countries didn't have the same success because they didn't have good enough broadband is a somewhat safe explanation. Most countries didn't even try, and still don't try, to get good broadband because success is mostly seen as something private. This is of course somewhat controversial not just abroad but in Sweden as well. As the Stockholm of today would do quite badly by these criteria.

arcturus17 5y ago
None of those factors concurred in California or other tech hubs like New York or London though.
- notfromhere 5y ago
  That’s because Silicon Valley and other tech hubs need money and talent, everything else is secondary. SV specifically had bottomless US defense spending and good local schools to create a talent pipeline. Back in the early days, the defense industry was the primary consumer of chips, which built up the industry via public defense dollars.
  - svunk 5y ago
    While I do think things defense spending matters I don't think it is what makes (or made) the difference. Look at countries like Germany, France or South Korea. Arguably they have some of the best education and industries in the world but they don't have an outsized number of new tech companies. That is because most of the time you aren't inventing technology (because that is too hard) but trying distribute or commercialize technology that mostly exists. Silicon Valley is of course where many things in computing were invented but it is more importantly where business machines became home computers. And in the end that is were most of the graphics cards, operating systems, network switches, software applications and services comes from. Sweden didn't invent many computers or operating systems but it was ready to distribute the next thing once it became available. Just like many good synths and samplers came from Japan but many of the big electronic music artists are from the US, the UK or Sweden.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

Also it's a country where staying inside is comfy, so being in front of a computer as your job is pretty appealing.

lalo2302 5y ago

Skype was made in Estonia

imartin2k 5y ago
Co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennström is a Swede and so Skype always had a clear connection to Sweden. But yes, Estonia also deserves a lot of credit for Skype of course, as the development work was mostly done there.
- nxmnxm99 5y ago
  A lot of the credit? Estonia is 99% of Skype. There's a reason their tech ecosystem (which is more impressive than Sweden's) is called the "Skype Mafia"
  - imartin2k 5y ago
    The Skype mafia looks to me rather “diverse” international https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2019/08/21/the-skype-mafia-who-are-they-and-where-are-they-now/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2019/08/21/the-skype-m... Anyway, my point is that whether correctly or incorrectly, that thanks to Zennström, many people do associate Skype also with Sweden, and he acted as an early role model for other future startup entrepreneurs from Sweden.
  - lalo2302 5y ago
    You can search the #EstonianMafia. Is Skype, Pipedrive, Wise (Transferwise), Bolt, etc...

jjtheblunt 5y ago

> (Skype, Spotify, even Pirate Bay) Ericsson ?

imartin2k 5y ago
It's Swedish, but I wouldn't put it in the same category, as the company was founded in 1876.

bserge 5y ago

The UK outdoes Sweden on all of those points. London is the SV of Europe.

Duralias 5y ago
As someone not very knowledgeable within these areas, will it continue being that now after Brexit?
- bserge 5y ago
  Yes. Visas for tech workers aren't a big problem, the UK is still better for starting a business than any EU country and they have the innovator and startup visas, too. Brexit only fucked British manufacturers, non-tangible goods are fine.