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I didn't leave France, I moved to the US
- jbeja 13y agoIs there any guide about how to leave your country and achive your dreams?
- monksy 13y ago/r/Iwantout
- ryannevius 13y agoI'm doing it now, and have been for the past 6 months. Basically, you save up, sell what you don't need, pack the essentials, buy a plane ticket, and get on the plane. Pretty straightforward, really. Depending on where you go, you may also need to apply for a visa ahead of time.
- Mz 13y agoI will recommend the book "Wishcraft: How to get what you really want" to help you with this.
- nandreev 13y agoI compiled mini-guides for the most common destinations: http://longerpath.com http://longerpath.com (it was mostly made for my own curiosity, but I'm sure others will find it somewhat useful)
- monksy 13y ago"Tax cuts for startups are real, and it means a developer in France will basically cost you half the price of a US one, and there is good chance he’ll be better :) " In the last paragraph the author stated that France had it's share of problems, but then it states that their developers are "better." Really? Who has had a huge respectable dominance in the IT world in the last few decades? How much have the French contributed to that? Lastly the article goes to claim that "the us is in a downfall and France will lead the way." Next they'll tell me that they're going to take over the startup scene in Berlin.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago"Who has had a huge respectable dominance in the IT world in the last few decades?" Umm, Google does? This fact doesn't help you the slightest when you're competing with them hiring developers for your itsy bitsy startup. In France perhaps developers have less Googles, Facebooks and Dropboxes to choose from so you can indeed access better developers. Or maybe it isn't so. Still worth considering. Could not find the downfall thing.
- monksy 13y agoThats my point. Google is a US innovation.
- Expat2009 13y agoCalm down there, u know how big france is compared to the states? And if u take europe as a whole (equivalent population more or less) and compare it to the states u would probably get equal if not more innovation in europe in the last 50 years. Lol at huge respectable dominance...
- clement75009 13y agoAmen to that. I'm trying to do the same move, and I hate it when people say "ah, you too want to leave France". There are so many things coming into play in the decision to move to another country - most of the time it's in no way a rejection of one's own.
- baby 13y agoAre french developers really better than US ones though? We have EPITA, EPITECH, and the recent 42. But besides that I feel like the CS formation of our universities is very poor... I know a lot of people who've done/are doing CS in university, and their level is pretty low I would say. But maybe I tend to overestimate the US coders' level...
- jordanb 13y agoI took his point to mean that there's a different supply/demand ratio for good developers in France because the denominator is smaller. This is probably especially true versus NYC or SF.
- bvrlt 13y agoI learned most of my CS skills out of school. School gave me more a framework to think (I studied in both France and US).
- MadJawa 13y agoReally depends on the universities. EPITA, EPITECH, SupInfo and the likes are way overestimated and overpriced compared to some good universities.
- baby 13y agoI know a lot of people coming from both sides of the fence and there is a huge difference of level. I challenge you to find just one university in France that gives you a formation equivalent to those of epitech et al.
- DangerousPie 13y agoIs it actually true that "a developer in France will basically cost you half the price of a US one"? I have always been under the impression that labor was a lot more expensive in Europe (and particularly France) because of high taxes and a large amount of social/welfare contributions. This is not to say that there aren't good reasons for having these contributions or that workers in one place or the other are necessarily better "value", but I have never heard anybody argue that labor in Europe is significantly cheaper.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago"labor was a lot more expensive in Europe" I'm not a Euroresident but I'll guess that while minimum wage (or whatever you can haggle) employees are indeed more expensive in Europe, software developers might be less accustomized to six figure salaries that Valley is known for. Therefore, you get them for less base money, plus tax breaks. Plus life might be cheaper in Europe than in the Valley while still maintaining better quality. This in total gives EU GINI americans die for (some even literally).
- icebraining 13y agoWell, Europe's a big place. The average may be higher, but the minimum wage in some countries is lower - for example here in Portugal, it's equivalent to $4.16/hour.
- bvrlt 13y agoThere are several things to take in account. Base salary for fresh out of school engineer is about 40 kEUR. You need to add 75% of social contributions, so that totals around 70 kEUR. If you are a "young innovative company" though, you can have exoneration of these social contributions and only pay ~40 kEUR for the first few years.
- genofon 13y ago- Base salary for fresh out of school engineer is about 40 kEUR Are you talking about France?
- FD3SA 13y agoAlways interested in the factors being optimized when making these decisions. I would think that for people engaging in an inherently risky endeavor such as entrepreneurship, the most important goal would be to hedge against failure. France, and the EU in general, have some of the best social safety nets in the developed world. What exactly does moving to the USA accomplish in 2014? The EU has no shortage of educated engineers or professionals. Is the potential tax savings of incorporating in the US worth the visa and immigration hurdles, lack of consistent healthcare, lack of social safety net and much lower quality of life (vicious judicial systems, abnormal incarceration rates, high crime rates, militarized police, draconian drug laws, etc.)? It is always better to assess a situation rationally, rather than impulsively pack everything in a suitcase after reading a Paul Graham essay. Unlike most of his readers, PG is a Harvard grad and a US citizen.
- rb2k_ 13y agoI moved to Boston from Germany. I haven't experienced the "lack of consistent healthcare, lack of social safety net and much lower quality of life". Those probably all exist, but they have no real influence on my everyday life. Some of the things that I enjoy over here: - Everything is exciting and I'm learning a lot. Just the act of getting bank accounts, how to buy gas, ... Everything is new. That'll probably wear off. - Everything is convenient. Companies seem to care more about my general being happy than they do in Germany. All of the promotions are a bit annoying, but at the same time, processes seem a bit more streamlined. - Things happen sooner over here. Stripe, the iPhone, Netflix/Hulu, Amazon Prime, ... All of them show up in the US first. At some point they might show up in other countries. This keeps being the epicenter for technology innovation. - I can buy groceries on a Saturday (or on Sunday at 2 am for that matter) - There is a lot more self reliance. I'm not forced to pay into a state retirement fund, I can handle that stuff myself. - There are a LOT of smart people bunched up in a relatively small area. Wherever you go, there is usually somebody with something interesting to say. The social climate is probably worse, apartments on the east-coast (especially Boston) are more expensive and usually not in a good shape, I can't find a proper bathtub, I can't drink a beer in public, lots of other parts of the country are inhabited by people with incompatible views on life and the political system is horrible. All in all, I am not living in "the US", I'm living in a nice little bubble in a very affluent part of the east-coast and I very much enjoy it. I could have probably also moved to Berlin, but for somebody that is more into Science/Engineering, this place seems pretty nice.
- balls187 13y ago> Tax cuts for startups are real, and it means a developer in France will basically cost you half the price of a US one, and there is good chance he’ll be better :) I think the author meant to use a ;)
- yawz 13y agoIt's really hard (if possible) to make such comparison. I studied and worked in France. Now I live in the US. In some respect it's not fair to compare "US" to "France" as a country. US has many technology poles and most of the time feels like a group of countries sharing the same language and currency.
- wallzz 13y agoWe are mostly comparing EUROPE to the US , Europe also has big technology poles (Grenoble ,Berlin, Paris ...) , the problem is that big tech giants in europe work independently of each other or work with US firms!, the UE must create one single technology pole where all the firms will be implemented! Paris can't handle more than what it handles now !
- rakoo 13y agoWell first we need everyone to speak the same language. Esperanto, here we come !
- gm 13y agoEveryone in EU already speaks English :-) Not trying to be an ass by saying that, but if you go to Europe claiming to be Canadian :-) and speaking English, you will not have a hard time pretty much anywhere, at least in Western EU.
- Ecio78 13y agoI'm not sure where you've been but I'm still finding people not able to speak English in Luxembourg City (that is supposed to be really multi cultural as Luxembourgish citizens speaks French, German and Luxembourgish and also there a a lot of foreign companies, UE institutions and like 45% of the inhabitants of the town are expats). And of course if I think about my country (Italy) I can think of plenty of people that are unable to say a word in English, and another huge amount of people that can't go over few words. But I can concede that things are probably getting better as new generations are more exposed to English and they're doing better, but there's still a long way to go...
- brm 13y agoI dream of a system that allows me to swap my citizenship with a similarly qualified EU Citizen that wants to come to the US.
- wallzz 13y agoand why is that ?
- gm 13y agoMe too. I would absolutely love to do this... (The reason is that I'm tired of the political crap going on here, it would be refreshing to see different political crap :-). Plus I absolutely love Europe. Would like to live there till I'm sick of it)
- falsestprophet 13y agoHacking a (non-computer) system to your advantage: the two of you can get married.
- murbard2 13y agoI not only moved to NYC, I most definitely, very emphatically left France. That country is doomed, the culture there is viciously opposed to success and ambition.
- wallzz 13y agoI totally agree , as an Algerian who is studying in France , I find that there is a general feeling of frustration and gloom,that is being powered by the media, and the political parties.
- murbard2 13y agoIt's not just the gloom, there's an age old and very prominent anti-capitalistic mentality.
- mavdi 13y agoCrazy or what? "... written recently about French entrepreneurs leaving France because it was a terrible place to start and grow a business but ...... if your users, partners and possible future investors are here, you have to consider having at least a foot here." And why do you think that is the case Einstein? The reason your users, partners and future investors are not in France is that France is no longer competitive.
- gommm 13y agoWell the size of the respective countries also has an impact... It's easier to localize once in english to target all the north american market compared to trying to localize for all the different EU countries, so targeting the US market makes sense.
- mavdi 13y agoI don't think in a digital market, size and language of a country matters. We see a lot of excellently successful Israeli start ups for instance. Small country, Hebrew language and different alphabet too. The fact of the matter is, bright young French people are leaving their country behind. I see many of them in London, and most of them are very successful here. France is no longer an enterprise centre where cool things happen and innovation is celebrated. Hopefully that will one day change.