4 ms·

In the past 5 years, I haven't regretted leaving France once. I am thankful for having grown up there, but as an entrepreneur/engineer adult it would make no lo

by GuiA 14y ago

In the past 5 years, I haven't regretted leaving France once. I am thankful for having grown up there, but as an entrepreneur/engineer adult it would make no logical sense for me to stay there. The government complains about "la fuite des cerveaux" (brain drain), but they're not doing much to prevent it (whether it is for entrepreneurs or researchers— I've been in both camps).

l0nk 14y ago
Please stop whining. I'm a French "entrepreneur/engineer adult" and I have no reason to leave France.
lloeki 14y ago
The startup scene in France is glacial. During the presidential elections, the only political figure who seem to get it and bound to fix this mess was François Bayrou, while the remainder were focusing on saving what remains of our heavy industries. I randomly watch news/docs about some French "startup", and the spread mean size seems to be 20 to 100 employees. That's enough to make you think what "bootstrapping" means here. Even without talking about that side of things, it's extremely hard to find anyone technically truly competent to sidekick with, let alone in technologies compatible with startup rhythms (even Rails and Django are a rarity, the huge flock only knows C# and Java at a very, ahem, academic level). Not exactly helpful if you want to build your MVP quickly. I'm not even talking about the legal paperworks that would sink a founder's time like your nearby blackhole. I'm contemplating doing this myself since a few years and the amount of crap you have to wade through is astounding. The sanest solution is moving to the UK (but my personal situation prevents that, for now). The whole ecosystem is heavyweight and not nimble at all.
- subsystem 14y ago
  I don't see how that's different from everywhere else.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Excellent point. The idea that the U.S. is an entrepreneurial hotbed outside of a few small areas (in which costs of living are absurd and real estate parasites take most of the benefit) is laughable. "The U.S." is a leader in technology because of Silicon Valley, and in finance because of Wall Street. Take those two locations away and you have an average European country: not terrible, but not something that other countries would go out of their way to emulate.
    - hga 14y ago
      I don't think the facts support your position at all. For starters, there's a lot of biomedical entrepreneurial technology work done outside of these two area. Or look at the mini-mill revolution in steel production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimill). Those are just two examples where the state of the art is being pushed hard. Less technologically advanced (often disruptive innovations (which mini-mills sort of are due to their feedstocks vs. equipment)) happen all over the place, I could dig up a bunch of examples in firearms, especially accessories (e.g. EOTech in Ann Arbor, Michigan). Or my parents in the early '80s when consumer use of C-band transmissions took off (for people in areas not served by cable companies; this is now down in the K-band by Direct TV and Dish): They first helped the first company to develop remote control systems that would move your dish from satellite to satellite. One eventual extension of this or spinoff was small (e.g. 4 feet) dishes that would fold down for travel, e.g you could put one on top of your RV. But the more interesting work was in LNBs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_noise_block-downconverter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_noise_block-downconverter), which combine a low noise amplifier with down conversion for easy signal transmission to the receiver inside the home. This was fairly advanced stuff for the era, the usual analog stuff, surface mount construction way before it was (widely) used in computers, they'd put them in a freezer and bake them, etc. All done in the deepest of Red State SW Missouri, in the Joplin area. There's lots more entrepreneurial stuff my family did from this location, that's just one of the the highest tech examples. Also look at where US job growth comes from in modern times. Smaller companies that were startups, not big established companies.
      - 14y ago
- anovikov 14y ago
  If only London was such a physically comfortable place to be and live in as Paris!
subsystem 14y ago
Seems like a pretty hefty generalization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring

by GuiA 14y ago

l0nk 14y ago

Please stop whining. I'm a French "entrepreneur/engineer adult" and I have no reason to leave France.

lloeki 14y ago

The startup scene in France is glacial. During the presidential elections, the only political figure who seem to get it and bound to fix this mess was François Bayrou, while the remainder were focusing on saving what remains of our heavy industries. I randomly watch news/docs about some French "startup", and the spread mean size seems to be 20 to 100 employees. That's enough to make you think what "bootstrapping" means here. Even without talking about that side of things, it's extremely hard to find anyone technically truly competent to sidekick with, let alone in technologies compatible with startup rhythms (even Rails and Django are a rarity, the huge flock only knows C# and Java at a very, ahem, academic level). Not exactly helpful if you want to build your MVP quickly. I'm not even talking about the legal paperworks that would sink a founder's time like your nearby blackhole. I'm contemplating doing this myself since a few years and the amount of crap you have to wade through is astounding. The sanest solution is moving to the UK (but my personal situation prevents that, for now). The whole ecosystem is heavyweight and not nimble at all.

subsystem 14y ago
I don't see how that's different from everywhere else.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Excellent point. The idea that the U.S. is an entrepreneurial hotbed outside of a few small areas (in which costs of living are absurd and real estate parasites take most of the benefit) is laughable. "The U.S." is a leader in technology because of Silicon Valley, and in finance because of Wall Street. Take those two locations away and you have an average European country: not terrible, but not something that other countries would go out of their way to emulate.
  - hga 14y ago
    I don't think the facts support your position at all. For starters, there's a lot of biomedical entrepreneurial technology work done outside of these two area. Or look at the mini-mill revolution in steel production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimill). Those are just two examples where the state of the art is being pushed hard. Less technologically advanced (often disruptive innovations (which mini-mills sort of are due to their feedstocks vs. equipment)) happen all over the place, I could dig up a bunch of examples in firearms, especially accessories (e.g. EOTech in Ann Arbor, Michigan). Or my parents in the early '80s when consumer use of C-band transmissions took off (for people in areas not served by cable companies; this is now down in the K-band by Direct TV and Dish): They first helped the first company to develop remote control systems that would move your dish from satellite to satellite. One eventual extension of this or spinoff was small (e.g. 4 feet) dishes that would fold down for travel, e.g you could put one on top of your RV. But the more interesting work was in LNBs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_noise_block-downconverter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_noise_block-downconverter), which combine a low noise amplifier with down conversion for easy signal transmission to the receiver inside the home. This was fairly advanced stuff for the era, the usual analog stuff, surface mount construction way before it was (widely) used in computers, they'd put them in a freezer and bake them, etc. All done in the deepest of Red State SW Missouri, in the Joplin area. There's lots more entrepreneurial stuff my family did from this location, that's just one of the the highest tech examples. Also look at where US job growth comes from in modern times. Smaller companies that were startups, not big established companies.
    - 14y ago
anovikov 14y ago
If only London was such a physically comfortable place to be and live in as Paris!

subsystem 14y ago

Seems like a pretty hefty generalization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring