5 ms·

Always interested in the factors being optimized when making these decisions. I would think that for people engaging in an inherently risky endeavor such as ent

by FD3SA 13y ago

Always 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 ago
I 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.
- tormeh 13y ago
  This. Europe, because of lingual and cultural differences, lack the sort of high-density clusters you get in the US. There's no Cambridge, MA or bay area because moving around is such a big deal here. Berlin is the closest we have, but it's not nearly enough. Basically, Europe is too spread out. Americans always talk about the US' low population density, but the population density of NY and LA is incredibly high. It's in the cities that most creative endeavors get done. The flyover states and the countryside is only of interest to cartographers and the people who live there.
  - mjn 13y ago
    Could be what I'm looking for and how far I'm willing to drive to get somewhere, but as a subjective feeling, Copenhagen feels like it has a bigger concentration of intellectually stimulating "stuff" happening on a regular basis than either the SF Bay Area or Atlanta did (the two places I lived previously). This is probably not literally true numerically, but in terms of things I hear about, are accessible to me (usually for free), and easy to get to, I run into a lot more, despite being a foreigner who doesn't even speak Danish, which you'd think should be a handicap. There are always interesting talks and meetups happening, from regular events like SpilBar (http://english.dadiu.dk/invitation-spilbar-14-0-surprise http://english.dadiu.dk/invitation-spilbar-14-0-surprise) or Science & Cocktails (http://www.scienceandcocktails.org http://www.scienceandcocktails.org) to active hackerspaces (https://labitat.dk https://labitat.dk and http://www.illutron.dk http://www.illutron.dk), a whole building hosting an indie-game community (http://www.dfi.dk/nyheder/filmupdate/2010/velkommen-til-spilhuset.aspx http://www.dfi.dk/nyheder/filmupdate/2010/velkommen-til-spil...), etc. Events at universities also feel more "open to the public": if I want to hear a bunch of internationally famous visitors talk about biotech or experimental mathematics, I can go to something like http://danstem.ku.dk/events/seminar_series_2014/ http://danstem.ku.dk/events/seminar_series_2014/ or http://www.math.ku.dk/english/research/xm/seminar/ http://www.math.ku.dk/english/research/xm/seminar/ respectively. Whereas apart from a handful of advertised public talks, the large amount of stuff undoubtedly happening at Stanford or UC Berkeley didn't feel like part of "my" neighborhood, something I'd hear about or go to as a non-Stanford, non-Berkeley person (or necessarily even be allowed into). There was certainly interesting stuff in SF as well, but it felt less like it was always happening, and more like I had to seek it out and drive anywhere from San Jose to Oakland to get to it, more like a "trip" to an event (like SuperHappyDevHouse, which is great) than a feeling that stuff is always happening all around me. The videogame-dev scene in particular was very scattered, with a good number of studios generally in the area, but that meant anywhere from Marin County to Santa Cruz, so you didn't really end up at the same events on a regular basis.
cylinder 13y ago
Entrepreneurs aren't moving here because of taxes. They are moving here to access a huge market and to join an ecosystem that fosters entrepreneurship (with money and other forms of support). A law-abiding professional and entrepreneur isn't going to spend a moment thinking about incarceration rates, drug laws, and "militarized police." Big things can happen in the US in a short amount of time, which is the dream young entrepreneurs are chasing. If things don't work out they can always head back to their safety net. So, spending your risk-taking years here makes perfect sense.
nraynaud 13y ago
For France at least, the retirement and unemployment safety nets don't apply to CEOs. But they get health insurance which is already a lot (and way cheaper than a private one).
mjn 13y ago
> the potential tax savings of incorporating in the US Whether there are tax savings at all also depends on your specific situation. If you're an employee, income taxes are almost certainly lower in the U.S. than most of the rich countries in Europe. But if you're starting a company or working for yourself, it depends a lot more on which U.S. states and/or European countries you're considering, and what kind of business you're planning to do (sector, number of employees, etc.). Two places Europe can sometimes end up cheaper: 1. If you're a one-person sole proprietor. American income taxes are relatively high here, and the need to cover your own health insurance, disability insurance, etc. adds some extra expense and paperwork. Here are some numbers I estimated a few months ago for Silicon Valley vs. Copenhagen tax rates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6192339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6192339 2. If corporate income taxes are relevant to your business. There are ways to minimize their impact (especially if you're willing to pay for good tax consultants), but the headline rates are generally higher in the U.S. than in Europe, though rates vary widely in Europe so it depends on where you're considering in particular. Ireland generally has the lowest rates; in the U.S., NYC has particularly high rates (and some complex rules for registering businesses). 3. If you want to do your taxes yourself. American business taxation is nearly impossible to figure out correctly without professional assistance, and there are myriads of pitfalls and penalties. One that varies a lot is "flexibility". My impression is that the French labor market is rather inflexible, and in general the American one is the most flexible. However on specific issues the American one is somewhat inflexible. There is a particularly big difference between "full-time" and "part-time" employment in the U.S., because the employer is expected to provide "benefits" (at least health insurance, often many other things) to full-time employees. In some of Europe the employer doesn't need to worry about these kinds of things at all (which also cuts down on the amount of HR you need to do). In Denmark it's relatively common, at least in tech startups, for people to work part-time schedules, e.g. 2 or 3 days a week.
ef4 13y ago
> 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. The thing is, social safety nets aren't especially relevant to that kind of risk. Those of us with the luxury of education aren't going to end up starving on the streets if our startups fail, we'll just go get jobs. The people who really need social safety nets aren't in a position to start startups. So the more tangible risk is how others in your profession will perceive failure. This is an area where America shines. > 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.) Those are all serious issues, but you're misunderstanding them if you think they apply to typical startup founders. America is very unequal. Those problems persist precisely because the relatively wealthy can easily stay insulated from them. And any educated European coming here to start a technology company falls comfortably into that class. He or she would be living in one of the nice cities, surrounded by people with similar values and education, enjoying quality-of-life metrics that are significantly higher than the broader American averages.
- mjn 13y ago
  > He or she would be living in one of the nice cities, surrounded by people with similar values and education, enjoying quality-of-life metrics that are significantly higher than the broader American averages. Where would that be, though? I've lived in a few cities (Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, L.A. area, S.F. area), and even though I lived in relatively nice areas of those cities, I wouldn't say any of them are nice cities full-stop. For one thing none of the urbanized areas are actually particularly safe, unless you are very careful where you walk (and if you drive, careful where you park your car). I lived in Midtown Atlanta for years, and it certainly wasn't; you had to only take one street a few blocks in the wrong direction to go from $1m houses and $2k/mo lofts to "I wouldn't walk there alone after dark". You can run into those issues in Europe as well, but mostly in "poorer" cities. The amount of care you have to take walking around Chicago or Atlanta, taking note of which streets and neighborhoods are safe and which aren't, feels more the kind of caution you need to exercise in Istanbul, Sofia, or Athens, rather than Copenhagen, Frankfurt, or Brussels. In practice I find most upper-middle-class-and-wealthier Americans just don't walk anywhere, especially not after dark. That is a way of mitigating the issue, but leads to a different lifestyle. In my opinion, a lower-quality-of-life one, though many Americans genuinely seem to like the car-centric lifestyle, so that may not be others' opinion. One place America does excel is if you like suburban living. But I don't think it does cities nearly as well as it does suburbs.

by FD3SA 13y ago

rb2k_ 13y ago

I 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.

tormeh 13y ago
This. Europe, because of lingual and cultural differences, lack the sort of high-density clusters you get in the US. There's no Cambridge, MA or bay area because moving around is such a big deal here. Berlin is the closest we have, but it's not nearly enough. Basically, Europe is too spread out. Americans always talk about the US' low population density, but the population density of NY and LA is incredibly high. It's in the cities that most creative endeavors get done. The flyover states and the countryside is only of interest to cartographers and the people who live there.
- mjn 13y ago
  Could be what I'm looking for and how far I'm willing to drive to get somewhere, but as a subjective feeling, Copenhagen feels like it has a bigger concentration of intellectually stimulating "stuff" happening on a regular basis than either the SF Bay Area or Atlanta did (the two places I lived previously). This is probably not literally true numerically, but in terms of things I hear about, are accessible to me (usually for free), and easy to get to, I run into a lot more, despite being a foreigner who doesn't even speak Danish, which you'd think should be a handicap. There are always interesting talks and meetups happening, from regular events like SpilBar (http://english.dadiu.dk/invitation-spilbar-14-0-surprise http://english.dadiu.dk/invitation-spilbar-14-0-surprise) or Science & Cocktails (http://www.scienceandcocktails.org http://www.scienceandcocktails.org) to active hackerspaces (https://labitat.dk https://labitat.dk and http://www.illutron.dk http://www.illutron.dk), a whole building hosting an indie-game community (http://www.dfi.dk/nyheder/filmupdate/2010/velkommen-til-spilhuset.aspx http://www.dfi.dk/nyheder/filmupdate/2010/velkommen-til-spil...), etc. Events at universities also feel more "open to the public": if I want to hear a bunch of internationally famous visitors talk about biotech or experimental mathematics, I can go to something like http://danstem.ku.dk/events/seminar_series_2014/ http://danstem.ku.dk/events/seminar_series_2014/ or http://www.math.ku.dk/english/research/xm/seminar/ http://www.math.ku.dk/english/research/xm/seminar/ respectively. Whereas apart from a handful of advertised public talks, the large amount of stuff undoubtedly happening at Stanford or UC Berkeley didn't feel like part of "my" neighborhood, something I'd hear about or go to as a non-Stanford, non-Berkeley person (or necessarily even be allowed into). There was certainly interesting stuff in SF as well, but it felt less like it was always happening, and more like I had to seek it out and drive anywhere from San Jose to Oakland to get to it, more like a "trip" to an event (like SuperHappyDevHouse, which is great) than a feeling that stuff is always happening all around me. The videogame-dev scene in particular was very scattered, with a good number of studios generally in the area, but that meant anywhere from Marin County to Santa Cruz, so you didn't really end up at the same events on a regular basis.

cylinder 13y ago

Entrepreneurs aren't moving here because of taxes. They are moving here to access a huge market and to join an ecosystem that fosters entrepreneurship (with money and other forms of support). A law-abiding professional and entrepreneur isn't going to spend a moment thinking about incarceration rates, drug laws, and "militarized police." Big things can happen in the US in a short amount of time, which is the dream young entrepreneurs are chasing. If things don't work out they can always head back to their safety net. So, spending your risk-taking years here makes perfect sense.

nraynaud 13y ago

For France at least, the retirement and unemployment safety nets don't apply to CEOs. But they get health insurance which is already a lot (and way cheaper than a private one).

mjn 13y ago

> the potential tax savings of incorporating in the US Whether there are tax savings at all also depends on your specific situation. If you're an employee, income taxes are almost certainly lower in the U.S. than most of the rich countries in Europe. But if you're starting a company or working for yourself, it depends a lot more on which U.S. states and/or European countries you're considering, and what kind of business you're planning to do (sector, number of employees, etc.). Two places Europe can sometimes end up cheaper: 1. If you're a one-person sole proprietor. American income taxes are relatively high here, and the need to cover your own health insurance, disability insurance, etc. adds some extra expense and paperwork. Here are some numbers I estimated a few months ago for Silicon Valley vs. Copenhagen tax rates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6192339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6192339 2. If corporate income taxes are relevant to your business. There are ways to minimize their impact (especially if you're willing to pay for good tax consultants), but the headline rates are generally higher in the U.S. than in Europe, though rates vary widely in Europe so it depends on where you're considering in particular. Ireland generally has the lowest rates; in the U.S., NYC has particularly high rates (and some complex rules for registering businesses). 3. If you want to do your taxes yourself. American business taxation is nearly impossible to figure out correctly without professional assistance, and there are myriads of pitfalls and penalties. One that varies a lot is "flexibility". My impression is that the French labor market is rather inflexible, and in general the American one is the most flexible. However on specific issues the American one is somewhat inflexible. There is a particularly big difference between "full-time" and "part-time" employment in the U.S., because the employer is expected to provide "benefits" (at least health insurance, often many other things) to full-time employees. In some of Europe the employer doesn't need to worry about these kinds of things at all (which also cuts down on the amount of HR you need to do). In Denmark it's relatively common, at least in tech startups, for people to work part-time schedules, e.g. 2 or 3 days a week.

ef4 13y ago

> 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. The thing is, social safety nets aren't especially relevant to that kind of risk. Those of us with the luxury of education aren't going to end up starving on the streets if our startups fail, we'll just go get jobs. The people who really need social safety nets aren't in a position to start startups. So the more tangible risk is how others in your profession will perceive failure. This is an area where America shines. > 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.) Those are all serious issues, but you're misunderstanding them if you think they apply to typical startup founders. America is very unequal. Those problems persist precisely because the relatively wealthy can easily stay insulated from them. And any educated European coming here to start a technology company falls comfortably into that class. He or she would be living in one of the nice cities, surrounded by people with similar values and education, enjoying quality-of-life metrics that are significantly higher than the broader American averages.

mjn 13y ago
> He or she would be living in one of the nice cities, surrounded by people with similar values and education, enjoying quality-of-life metrics that are significantly higher than the broader American averages. Where would that be, though? I've lived in a few cities (Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, L.A. area, S.F. area), and even though I lived in relatively nice areas of those cities, I wouldn't say any of them are nice cities full-stop. For one thing none of the urbanized areas are actually particularly safe, unless you are very careful where you walk (and if you drive, careful where you park your car). I lived in Midtown Atlanta for years, and it certainly wasn't; you had to only take one street a few blocks in the wrong direction to go from $1m houses and $2k/mo lofts to "I wouldn't walk there alone after dark". You can run into those issues in Europe as well, but mostly in "poorer" cities. The amount of care you have to take walking around Chicago or Atlanta, taking note of which streets and neighborhoods are safe and which aren't, feels more the kind of caution you need to exercise in Istanbul, Sofia, or Athens, rather than Copenhagen, Frankfurt, or Brussels. In practice I find most upper-middle-class-and-wealthier Americans just don't walk anywhere, especially not after dark. That is a way of mitigating the issue, but leads to a different lifestyle. In my opinion, a lower-quality-of-life one, though many Americans genuinely seem to like the car-centric lifestyle, so that may not be others' opinion. One place America does excel is if you like suburban living. But I don't think it does cities nearly as well as it does suburbs.