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The political and regulatory climate in the US is quite volatile and has been for years, and perhaps they also disagree with the lack of data protection rights.
by cess11 1y ago
The political and regulatory climate in the US is quite volatile and has been for years, and perhaps they also disagree with the lack of data protection rights.
They have a bit of an ethical track record where they've disallowed use of their services for crypto commodity projects and the like, for example.
- simianwords 1y agoThis doesn’t track at all. I’m not an expert but from what I heard startups are moving away from Europe not the other way round. It does seem to be a political or lifestyle choice as a sibling comment pointed out. Edit: I mean ideological not exactly political choice. >I have felt a kind of dissonance with my home country of the United States for a long time now, and I have found it very difficult to resolve. I am not of one mind with my peers in this country on many issues; social, economic, and political. Even limiting this inquiry to matters related to FOSS, it’s quite clear that the FOSS community in Europe is much stronger than in America. In the United States, capitalism is the secular religion, and my values, in FOSS and otherwise, are incompatible with the American ethos. Seems ideological to me.
- simianwords 1y agoFor people downvoting may I ask why? Isn’t it common knowledge that Netherlands is not the most favourable place to run a company?
- bilekas 1y ago> I’m not an expert but from what I heard startups are moving away from Europe Where are you getting that info from ? There's more invesment that ever in EU startups. One I know of recently : https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/06/italian-publishing-house-zanichelli-editore-launches-e60-million-edtech-push-for-unlocking-human-potential/ https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/06/italian-publishing-house...
- simianwords 1y agoSo too in India. But you won’t see startups moving to India (unless for ideological reasons). Simply proving that there are some startups is not useful. I still think it has to do with the founder’s personal ideology.
- the-anarchist 1y agoPrecisely because the average participant of this platform has as much in-depth experience in actually incorporating and running a company in different parts of the world as the average person on the street. Netherlands, and the EU in general, are cumbersome to deal with regardless of all the "startup incentives" they've been pushing in the past few years. Compare the incorporation, maintenance and closure processes of a Delaware/Wyoming/New Mexico/Florida LLC with anything even remotely comparable in Europe (e.g. a BV/NV/SRL in the Netherlands) and you will quickly see why the US has become the world's center-stage for doing business. For SourceHut Estonia and Romania would have probably been a better choices, as from my understanding, they are not investor-driven and do not seem to head that way, they are fully digital/remote, and they require disproportionally more infrastructure than office workers to operate. However, when living in the EU one has to take into account various (frankly absurd) taxation laws that might ultimately prevent founders from incorporating their company in any of the neighboring countries. Hence it would be necessary to look at the details of the founder's circumstances to evaluate if incoporation in a different country would have made sense to begin with. That said, I agree with the top rated comment [1] as for the broader topic of where to incorporate. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44366032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44366032
- simianwords 1y agoThis is what I gathered too. Why then do you think he chose to move to Netherlands?
- nemomarx 1y agoThe benefits and practicality of living in a country are different than those of running a company in it, right? And he kept the company in the us for some time after the move from the sounds of it.
- simianwords 1y agoYes but moving to Netherlands was ideological. What follows is obviously practical.
- nottorp 1y agoIf you want VC money you have to be incorporated in Delaware, I think. If you don't, you get a choice.
- the-anarchist 1y agoIf you want US VC money, that is. If you are happy with cheques from big oil you might as well incorporate in the UAE. There are many places around the world that are friendly towards VC investments/startups (Singapore, Hong Kong, the aforementioned UAE, just to name some). However, sadly the EU is not one of them.
- cess11 1y agoKind of weird thing to lie about. https://www.globalfounderscapital.com/ https://www.globalfounderscapital.com/ https://www.htgf.de/ https://www.htgf.de/ https://seedcamp.com/ https://seedcamp.com/ https://www.parequity.com/ https://www.parequity.com/ https://partechpartners.com/ https://partechpartners.com/ https://www.speedinvest.com/ https://www.speedinvest.com/ https://www.kimaventures.com/ https://www.kimaventures.com/ Then there are many niche VC-networks, like https://www.timetoraise.co/ https://www.timetoraise.co/.
- nottorp 1y agoConfusing the availability of non US funding with where the most money is, especially for the HN crowd…
- Vinnl 1y agoThe comment you're replying to pretty much describes it as a political choice? I don't see why that doesn't track at all.
- simianwords 1y agoSorry I meant ideological choice.
- Vinnl 1y agoWell, that too? Wanting data protection rights, not wanting to potentially suddenly be subject to tariffs, etc. seems to fit that mould.
- simianwords 1y agoHow does it personally help his company?
- Vinnl 1y agoI'm not sure I understand the question, since a company is not a person, but it helps the company to attract customers if they're subject to reputable data protection laws, and they can better plan for the future and retain more profit if they don't have to prepare for e.g. sudden tariffs that could be instituted on a whim?
- bee_rider 1y agoIs this really a meaningful distinction? It is good to have your company in a place that is politically/ideologically compatible with yourself, and also your business model.
- simianwords 1y agoYes it is a meaningful distinction. If I move my company to Saudi Arabia because I am a Muslim wouldn’t that be an important detail?
- Barrin92 1y ago>but from what I heard startups are moving away from Europe pretty much the other way around. Europe's startup base is still smaller than the US but has been growing faster. It's now 20% or so of global VC capital compared to about 5% a decade ago, and has produced unicorns at faster rates. Just misses the mega-sized companies at the tail end (https://tech.eu/2023/07/05/europes-best-decade-in-tech-reaching-new-heights-and-outpacing-the-us https://tech.eu/2023/07/05/europes-best-decade-in-tech-reach...) You can just look at an investor like, ironically enough, Thiel who has been pumping a lot of money into European tech. Defense startups in Germany for example.
- simianwords 1y ago[flagged]
- LunaSea 1y agoSpotify, Klarna, Mistral don't ring a bell?
- simianwords 1y agoFair but I absolutely still stand by my point. EU is an economy of around 400 million population and has a handful of startups at max. It’s ridiculous to move your company to Netherlands from USA if practicality was priority and not personal ideology.
- diggan 1y agoUnless you happen to live in/move to the Netherlands, not the US, just like the owner of this company. In that case it makes not sense to have a US-based company if practically was the priority.
- simianwords 1y agoI agree - but moving to the Netherlands was ideological.
- EasyMark 1y agoIf the owner moved to Europe then it's likely either personal (marriage? family there?) or political/philosophical difference with the authoritarianism starting to effuse the USA, and not related to regulations, as they'll still have to abide by most or all US regulations to do business here.
- simianwords 1y agoAgree. This is important to clarify because it helps others decide whether it is indeed useful for them to move operations to Europe.
- delfinom 1y agoStart-ups maybe moving away from Europe but they won't be selling to European customers. The EU is increasingly moving to assert data sovereignty and control. The US abusing sanctions and tariffs have basically guaranteed it will become set in stone law, after years of it being a debate and exceptions being made.
- throwaway2037 1y agoSorry, I am dumb here. Honest question: In English, what is the difference between "ideological choice" and "political choice"? To me they seem similar, but I am sure that you used them with specifically different meanings.
- skrebbel 1y agoYou're just guessing what the context might be.
- cess11 1y agoYes, that's why I wrote "perhaps", and I based it on what I called their ethical track record. It stands to reason to assume that they might not want to stick around under a crypto scammer government like the current one, since they've kicked crypto commodity projects from their service.