8 ms·

Wow I always hear people talking about why Silicon Vally cannot be reproduced in Europe, but I have never seen anyone put it so pointed. Thanks for education so

by kls 15y ago

Wow I always hear people talking about why Silicon Vally cannot be reproduced in Europe, but I have never seen anyone put it so pointed. Thanks for education someone in the States about the realities of some areas of Europe.

_delirium 15y ago
Things vary on many axes, though. I'm pretty sure that, in Silicon Valley, if you came out and said you would never hire a woman or an old person, you would be fired immediately and blackballed from managerial positions for life (or if you were the owner, sued into oblivion). Meanwhile, in Hungary, I'm going to guess Jakab Andor keeps his job and will be free to hire or not hire who he likes--- because Hungary presumably doesn't take antidiscrimination laws as seriously as the US does. (Also, there's much less corruption in the US, which is probably the key difference.)
- walkon 15y ago
  Actually he says he wouldn't hire anyone, because he won't be attempting startups in the first place. You shouldn't get in trouble for your hiring policies when it is simply: "I don't have employees."
- fraserharris 15y ago
  Just because you can't say it, doesn't mean its not in the back of every hiring managers mind. I've certainly heard people refer to it privately. Anything that increases the base costs of starting a business, such as these, will reduce entrepreneurship.
- jodrellblank 15y ago
  He didn't say he would never hire a woman or an old person, he said he wouldn't hire a woman or an old person in the context of a startup. He might be a HR manager in a larger company with good resources, happily hiring all kinds of people for all we know.
  - andorjakab 15y ago
    I agree, that this problem is the most obvious with small companies. But I think that even on the national scales these regulations harm those, whom they aim to protect. It's a wrong concept to treat the employer and employee like enemies. The good concepts would be win-win-win scenarios. For example, goverments should REDUCE the cost of hiring the handicapped instead of forcing companies to hire them.
    - jodrellblank 15y ago
      A government can't say "no prenancy until you have saved enough to raise your child without working", it's unenforcable. If you force companies to pay for women being pregnant and raising children, companies hurt. If you force companies not to pay, women hurt because pregnancy means instant unemployment and loss of income. If government pays, everyone pays in taxes even startups and people with no children (but at least the cost is spread widely). If nobody pays and it's left to charity, women and children live in poverty and suffer from that. In individual cases, a couple can choose when to have children such that they can win no matter the situation, by deciding to save, or arrange to live on one income, etc. But I don't see any win-win scenarios that can be enforced from outside by legislation. Can you? For example, goverments should REDUCE the cost of hiring the handicapped instead of forcing companies to hire them. How could they do that (without charging you taxes to pay for it)?
      - andorjakab 15y ago
        "How could they do that (without charging you taxes to pay for it)?" Easy. Let's say, in my country €760 NET is a very good salary. If I advertise the job, I get thousands of people to choose from. Some of them will be handicapped. Let's say there is a goverment regulations, that employing the handicapped is duty-free, like cigarettes at the airports. Now I have two options. I either choose somebody who isn't duty-free, and pay €1572 (the empoyee still gets only €760), or, if I'm LUCKY, I will find a somebody suitable for the job among the handicapped persons, and I can choose him or her for the job. That way I've cut my employment costs two half, without paying ANY taxes. It's a nobrainer, even if I have to make some changes in my office to accomodate it for the duty-free person. Because I can slash my employment costs into half on the long run, without paying 1 cent less Salary than to everybody else. And the state? It's a win-win-win. Now they have a lot less people to worry about.
- maaku 15y ago
  He's saying it in the context of pointing out problems and inefficiencies of the system. I interpreted it as "these laws designed to protect women and the elderly are in fact incentivising bad behavior by employers, and thereby doing them harm, not good."
- kls 15y ago
  if you came out and said you would never hire a woman or an old person, you would be fired immediately and blackballed from managerial positions for life I took it as an example of why he won't hire anyone and why he won't even sell his apartment and start a venture. As such he would have no company to represent in saying those things. Further if you never hired anyone, I am pretty sure you could state your reasons in America and not run afoul of legislation. Now if you openly stated such and then hired only 25-50 yr old males, sure you are asking for it and are going to get it.
nandemo 15y ago
As far as I know the rant is about Hungary, not the European Union in general. Labour and tax laws aren't the same everywhere in Europe, and the Hungarian economy is hardly representative of the EU's. Reproducing Silicon Valley is another story. Arguably it's very hard to do even in NY or other parts of US that are more or less similar to California. After all, labour law is just one of many factors. For instance, even with all that overhead, I bet it's still much cheaper to hire a bunch of top-notch, English-speaking programmers in Hungary than in California.
- balloot 15y ago
  Define "top-notch". Because under my definition of the term, I would expect there to be very few engineers in Hungary that match that description. IMHO, Silicon Valley works because it houses a hugely disproportionate amount of the very best engineers, and from my experience the top .1% or so of engineers open up possibilities that otherwise simply aren't there. Yes, the capital is here, but I think that's an effect and not a cause. If you took Facebook and started it in any other place in 2004 (with just a handful of exceptions) with exactly the same access to funds I highly doubt it ends up as it is today.
  - danmaz74 15y ago
    And why are there so many top-notch engineers in SV? Because of the climate, because there are more natural-born engineers, or because many top-notch engineers have moved and move there because there is the capital and the best environment for startups? And why would you expect Hungary to have very few top-notch engineers?
  - Maro 15y ago
    All companies started in Hungary, even if they later become US entities, chose to keep their engineering in Budapest, because talent is available, and for much less than in SV. Also, it's less saturated. E.g. I had a chat with a VP of a chech-US startup and they were inquiring about the possibility of expanding in Hungary, because they satured their chech sources, but SV is too expensive / also saturated. Also, companies like Morgan Stanley, SAP or Microsoft are not starting new offices or expanding in SV, but they are over here. So, talent is available. In fact, this is so obvious that companies like Morgan Stanley et.al. showed up here, giving good salaries, making my job as a startup guy trying to hire much more difficult. To be fair though, specific talent like "has worked with Hadoop for a year" or "has worked at Google on the core search engine" is not present here. Also, people are much more likely to prefer to work at a BigCo than in a small startup, compared to SV.
frgtn 15y ago
Europe (at least in my country, eastern Europe) has strict social security laws. Firms cannot fire a person if he/she takes a vacation for child care (men are encouraged to do that too!). The vacation lasts up to 2 years (IIRC). The time is paid for by the government, but you lose your highly-qualified and trained employee for 2 years. Facts aside, I don't approve the author making such a big thing of it though it sometimes may be an issue (if you're hiring for a long project where replacing people is REALLY expensive).
- flojito 15y ago
  In Spain you cannot fire a pregnant woman. It could be even illegal asking for it in a job interview... Recent laws allow the father taking the 50% of vacation for child care. In candidates lists -algo by law- there must be 50/50 men/women. So, definitely, Hungary is not representative from European Union.
  - nakkiel 15y ago
    It's illegal to hide your pregnancy from your employer. If you do so, you simply don't get compensated and expressly give the right to your employer to put the contract to an end.
    - Schmidt 15y ago
      In what country? You have no obligation in Sweden to tell anything about pregnancy or illness you may have.
      - shakesbeard 15y ago
        Same in Switzerland.
      - Jare 15y ago
        As far as I know, in Spain the mother must disclose her pregnancy before 6 months.
scraplab 15y ago
I'm glad we can't reproduce Silicon Valley in the EU. I'd rather we had healthcare and education for all, a top quality transport infrastructure and a more equal society. If we're going to build tech clusters, let's do it on our terms.
- latch 15y ago
  I'm not american, but I think your comment is in bad taste. The region is looking at an Argentina-style economic collapse. It's disingenuous to say you have better social programs when, you know, you might not have been able to pay for it.
  - white_devil 15y ago
    Once again, I feel like pointing out it's not only Europe. The US is just as insolvent, and whatever chain reaction might start from Greece can/will reach any Western country at least. Asia is in better shape right now. Every time a country takes on more debt, it means it's failed to live within its means. Very few countries have managed without taking on more and more thin-air money year after year. Western economies are just a huge intertwined clusterfuck. Don't think you're safe.
    - cellis 15y ago
      Please explain which Asia? The Asia which has generations of poverty and casting and wants to do nothing about it? The asia that is largely influenced by super radical islamic clerics? The Asia that will die off soon because its birth rate is so low that it won't replace its aging population? Or the Asia that is so reliant on American and other Western consumers that they have to continuously deflate their currency in order to keep their citizens from revolting against what is one of the largest plutocracies of all time? Sure the west has problems but nowhere near Asia's.
      - white_devil 15y ago
        > The Asia which has generations of poverty and casting and wants to do nothing about it? No, the Asia that has recently engaged in less gambling at the casino of the "financial services industry" than the West. Generations of poverty? Well, that can be explained by human nature. Various "Elites" oppressing/abusing/killing people, and confiscating the wealth created by them. Our problem as a species is that the West consists of the same homo sapiens as all the Asian countries you have a problem with. In other words, our collective problem is that we're all human beings.
mjwalshe 15y ago
But don't forget that in the Eu you pay less of your income for health - and a heath crisis wont lead to family poverty Some one I know moved to the states (from the UK) working for citibank and was paying much more just for his health cover than he would for all the UK benefits.
- vixen99 15y ago
  Health crisis won't lead to family poverty? Is this true for all 27 member states? I've already pointed out that it isn't in Romania. What about the other East European members? Can anyone tell us?
  - Bootvis 15y ago
    There are degrees to this, bad health will cost you money and reduce your earning power in all the states. However if you fall in bad health in the northern states treatment will be paid for and dying as result of lack of health care is very rare.
- paulhauggis 15y ago
  You can buy your own high-deductible health-care plans in the US through most of the major providers (costco also has their own now). It's not the best, but you won't go broke if you have any sort of health emergency.
  - jes5199 15y ago
    Hrm. How good are they? I've read articles about people who have gone broke even though they had health insurance.
cdavid 15y ago
There are a lots of misunderstandings about cost of firing, cost of employment, etc... in Europe. What is true is that it is complicated because every country is different, and some countries can be anal about one thing that others are not. A typical example: in France, you often have to consult union before having to fire people (especially true is big companies). The key point though is "consult". Whether they say yes or not is actually irrelevant (from a legal POV, that is). I am also tried about the "stealing your money argument". In the US, the salary you get after taxes still needs to be used to pay health insurance and retirement. In continental Europe, that's part of the 'stolen' money. You can argue whether it is a good system or not, but an honest comparion is to e.g. remove the social contributions for health (around 6-7 % for a beginner engineer with a good degree), and pension (around 10-12 % IIRC). When comparing e.g. the US vs European country, this has to be taken into account (the graph in the OP is pure non-sense in that regard for the OP argument). As far as Silicon Valley goes: from all countries I have been working in, Japan has by far the lower income taxation. Yet, it does not especially thrive in a silicon valley manner (I also believe California is far from being the state with the lower income tax in the US ?).
- learc83 15y ago
  >remove the social contributions for health (around 6-7 % for a beginner engineer with a good degree), and pension (around 10-12 % IIRC). When comparing e.g. the US vs European country, this has to be taken into account Then you'd have to remove our 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare (employers pay another 7.65% on employees behalf).

by kls 15y ago

_delirium 15y ago

Things vary on many axes, though. I'm pretty sure that, in Silicon Valley, if you came out and said you would never hire a woman or an old person, you would be fired immediately and blackballed from managerial positions for life (or if you were the owner, sued into oblivion). Meanwhile, in Hungary, I'm going to guess Jakab Andor keeps his job and will be free to hire or not hire who he likes--- because Hungary presumably doesn't take antidiscrimination laws as seriously as the US does. (Also, there's much less corruption in the US, which is probably the key difference.)

walkon 15y ago
Actually he says he wouldn't hire anyone, because he won't be attempting startups in the first place. You shouldn't get in trouble for your hiring policies when it is simply: "I don't have employees."
fraserharris 15y ago
Just because you can't say it, doesn't mean its not in the back of every hiring managers mind. I've certainly heard people refer to it privately. Anything that increases the base costs of starting a business, such as these, will reduce entrepreneurship.
jodrellblank 15y ago
He didn't say he would never hire a woman or an old person, he said he wouldn't hire a woman or an old person in the context of a startup. He might be a HR manager in a larger company with good resources, happily hiring all kinds of people for all we know.
- andorjakab 15y ago
  I agree, that this problem is the most obvious with small companies. But I think that even on the national scales these regulations harm those, whom they aim to protect. It's a wrong concept to treat the employer and employee like enemies. The good concepts would be win-win-win scenarios. For example, goverments should REDUCE the cost of hiring the handicapped instead of forcing companies to hire them.
  - jodrellblank 15y ago
    A government can't say "no prenancy until you have saved enough to raise your child without working", it's unenforcable. If you force companies to pay for women being pregnant and raising children, companies hurt. If you force companies not to pay, women hurt because pregnancy means instant unemployment and loss of income. If government pays, everyone pays in taxes even startups and people with no children (but at least the cost is spread widely). If nobody pays and it's left to charity, women and children live in poverty and suffer from that. In individual cases, a couple can choose when to have children such that they can win no matter the situation, by deciding to save, or arrange to live on one income, etc. But I don't see any win-win scenarios that can be enforced from outside by legislation. Can you? For example, goverments should REDUCE the cost of hiring the handicapped instead of forcing companies to hire them. How could they do that (without charging you taxes to pay for it)?
    - andorjakab 15y ago
      "How could they do that (without charging you taxes to pay for it)?" Easy. Let's say, in my country €760 NET is a very good salary. If I advertise the job, I get thousands of people to choose from. Some of them will be handicapped. Let's say there is a goverment regulations, that employing the handicapped is duty-free, like cigarettes at the airports. Now I have two options. I either choose somebody who isn't duty-free, and pay €1572 (the empoyee still gets only €760), or, if I'm LUCKY, I will find a somebody suitable for the job among the handicapped persons, and I can choose him or her for the job. That way I've cut my employment costs two half, without paying ANY taxes. It's a nobrainer, even if I have to make some changes in my office to accomodate it for the duty-free person. Because I can slash my employment costs into half on the long run, without paying 1 cent less Salary than to everybody else. And the state? It's a win-win-win. Now they have a lot less people to worry about.
maaku 15y ago
He's saying it in the context of pointing out problems and inefficiencies of the system. I interpreted it as "these laws designed to protect women and the elderly are in fact incentivising bad behavior by employers, and thereby doing them harm, not good."
kls 15y ago
if you came out and said you would never hire a woman or an old person, you would be fired immediately and blackballed from managerial positions for life I took it as an example of why he won't hire anyone and why he won't even sell his apartment and start a venture. As such he would have no company to represent in saying those things. Further if you never hired anyone, I am pretty sure you could state your reasons in America and not run afoul of legislation. Now if you openly stated such and then hired only 25-50 yr old males, sure you are asking for it and are going to get it.

nandemo 15y ago

As far as I know the rant is about Hungary, not the European Union in general. Labour and tax laws aren't the same everywhere in Europe, and the Hungarian economy is hardly representative of the EU's. Reproducing Silicon Valley is another story. Arguably it's very hard to do even in NY or other parts of US that are more or less similar to California. After all, labour law is just one of many factors. For instance, even with all that overhead, I bet it's still much cheaper to hire a bunch of top-notch, English-speaking programmers in Hungary than in California.

balloot 15y ago
Define "top-notch". Because under my definition of the term, I would expect there to be very few engineers in Hungary that match that description. IMHO, Silicon Valley works because it houses a hugely disproportionate amount of the very best engineers, and from my experience the top .1% or so of engineers open up possibilities that otherwise simply aren't there. Yes, the capital is here, but I think that's an effect and not a cause. If you took Facebook and started it in any other place in 2004 (with just a handful of exceptions) with exactly the same access to funds I highly doubt it ends up as it is today.
- danmaz74 15y ago
  And why are there so many top-notch engineers in SV? Because of the climate, because there are more natural-born engineers, or because many top-notch engineers have moved and move there because there is the capital and the best environment for startups? And why would you expect Hungary to have very few top-notch engineers?
- Maro 15y ago
  All companies started in Hungary, even if they later become US entities, chose to keep their engineering in Budapest, because talent is available, and for much less than in SV. Also, it's less saturated. E.g. I had a chat with a VP of a chech-US startup and they were inquiring about the possibility of expanding in Hungary, because they satured their chech sources, but SV is too expensive / also saturated. Also, companies like Morgan Stanley, SAP or Microsoft are not starting new offices or expanding in SV, but they are over here. So, talent is available. In fact, this is so obvious that companies like Morgan Stanley et.al. showed up here, giving good salaries, making my job as a startup guy trying to hire much more difficult. To be fair though, specific talent like "has worked with Hadoop for a year" or "has worked at Google on the core search engine" is not present here. Also, people are much more likely to prefer to work at a BigCo than in a small startup, compared to SV.

frgtn 15y ago

Europe (at least in my country, eastern Europe) has strict social security laws. Firms cannot fire a person if he/she takes a vacation for child care (men are encouraged to do that too!). The vacation lasts up to 2 years (IIRC). The time is paid for by the government, but you lose your highly-qualified and trained employee for 2 years. Facts aside, I don't approve the author making such a big thing of it though it sometimes may be an issue (if you're hiring for a long project where replacing people is REALLY expensive).

flojito 15y ago
In Spain you cannot fire a pregnant woman. It could be even illegal asking for it in a job interview... Recent laws allow the father taking the 50% of vacation for child care. In candidates lists -algo by law- there must be 50/50 men/women. So, definitely, Hungary is not representative from European Union.
- nakkiel 15y ago
  It's illegal to hide your pregnancy from your employer. If you do so, you simply don't get compensated and expressly give the right to your employer to put the contract to an end.
  - Schmidt 15y ago
    In what country? You have no obligation in Sweden to tell anything about pregnancy or illness you may have.
    - shakesbeard 15y ago
      Same in Switzerland.
    - Jare 15y ago
      As far as I know, in Spain the mother must disclose her pregnancy before 6 months.

scraplab 15y ago

I'm glad we can't reproduce Silicon Valley in the EU. I'd rather we had healthcare and education for all, a top quality transport infrastructure and a more equal society. If we're going to build tech clusters, let's do it on our terms.

latch 15y ago
I'm not american, but I think your comment is in bad taste. The region is looking at an Argentina-style economic collapse. It's disingenuous to say you have better social programs when, you know, you might not have been able to pay for it.
- white_devil 15y ago
  Once again, I feel like pointing out it's not only Europe. The US is just as insolvent, and whatever chain reaction might start from Greece can/will reach any Western country at least. Asia is in better shape right now. Every time a country takes on more debt, it means it's failed to live within its means. Very few countries have managed without taking on more and more thin-air money year after year. Western economies are just a huge intertwined clusterfuck. Don't think you're safe.
  - cellis 15y ago
    Please explain which Asia? The Asia which has generations of poverty and casting and wants to do nothing about it? The asia that is largely influenced by super radical islamic clerics? The Asia that will die off soon because its birth rate is so low that it won't replace its aging population? Or the Asia that is so reliant on American and other Western consumers that they have to continuously deflate their currency in order to keep their citizens from revolting against what is one of the largest plutocracies of all time? Sure the west has problems but nowhere near Asia's.
    - white_devil 15y ago
      > The Asia which has generations of poverty and casting and wants to do nothing about it? No, the Asia that has recently engaged in less gambling at the casino of the "financial services industry" than the West. Generations of poverty? Well, that can be explained by human nature. Various "Elites" oppressing/abusing/killing people, and confiscating the wealth created by them. Our problem as a species is that the West consists of the same homo sapiens as all the Asian countries you have a problem with. In other words, our collective problem is that we're all human beings.

mjwalshe 15y ago

But don't forget that in the Eu you pay less of your income for health - and a heath crisis wont lead to family poverty Some one I know moved to the states (from the UK) working for citibank and was paying much more just for his health cover than he would for all the UK benefits.

vixen99 15y ago
Health crisis won't lead to family poverty? Is this true for all 27 member states? I've already pointed out that it isn't in Romania. What about the other East European members? Can anyone tell us?
- Bootvis 15y ago
  There are degrees to this, bad health will cost you money and reduce your earning power in all the states. However if you fall in bad health in the northern states treatment will be paid for and dying as result of lack of health care is very rare.
paulhauggis 15y ago
You can buy your own high-deductible health-care plans in the US through most of the major providers (costco also has their own now). It's not the best, but you won't go broke if you have any sort of health emergency.
- jes5199 15y ago
  Hrm. How good are they? I've read articles about people who have gone broke even though they had health insurance.

cdavid 15y ago

There are a lots of misunderstandings about cost of firing, cost of employment, etc... in Europe. What is true is that it is complicated because every country is different, and some countries can be anal about one thing that others are not. A typical example: in France, you often have to consult union before having to fire people (especially true is big companies). The key point though is "consult". Whether they say yes or not is actually irrelevant (from a legal POV, that is). I am also tried about the "stealing your money argument". In the US, the salary you get after taxes still needs to be used to pay health insurance and retirement. In continental Europe, that's part of the 'stolen' money. You can argue whether it is a good system or not, but an honest comparion is to e.g. remove the social contributions for health (around 6-7 % for a beginner engineer with a good degree), and pension (around 10-12 % IIRC). When comparing e.g. the US vs European country, this has to be taken into account (the graph in the OP is pure non-sense in that regard for the OP argument). As far as Silicon Valley goes: from all countries I have been working in, Japan has by far the lower income taxation. Yet, it does not especially thrive in a silicon valley manner (I also believe California is far from being the state with the lower income tax in the US ?).

learc83 15y ago
>remove the social contributions for health (around 6-7 % for a beginner engineer with a good degree), and pension (around 10-12 % IIRC). When comparing e.g. the US vs European country, this has to be taken into account Then you'd have to remove our 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare (employers pay another 7.65% on employees behalf).