After Nokia Layoffs, Tech Workers in Finland Regroup and Refocus

Not directly related but

Realm (https://realm.io/) was started by two former Danish Nokia developers working out of Denmark. I met Bjarne back in 11 or 10 at a Danish hackernews meetup and already back then were they talking about it and how Nokia had started to close down places like Denmark.

Just goes to show how there are always great startups with great insights hiding inside large organisations. And that the problems or discoveries they make inside those organisations can be extremely valuable.

http://www.businessinsider.com/realm-started-by-former-nokia...

I was around during the fateful February in 2011 where Nokia shut down the meamo/meego division in Ruoholahti, Helsinki.

I was surrounded by insanely talented and passionate individuals, and while I get the impression a lot of talent dispersed and "went home" (it was a very diverse atmosphere in terms of culture) there were a few that banded together and made `Jolla`.

Which, I don't hear much of these days, but I hope they eventually carve out a small chunk of the market at least.

Nokia is pretty well known in Finland for hiring a _lot_ of contractors/companies. So layoffs can be quick, severance can be avoided but the downshot for them is increased salaries.

A good thing about being laid off by Nokia is that they will often give money if you are starting a company as they mentioned with one of the start ups formed by laid off employees. When Nokia laid off the Maemo/MeeGo folks, they gave them money and IP to start with.

I worked at Nokia in Finland from 2006 to 2014. I have nothing but good things to say about the company.

I have since moved back to the United States, but my management philosophy has definitely been shaped by the culture there and the way they treated their employees.

That's the correct attitude, and it illustrates a stark difference between American and European culture.

In America, this would never be allowed happen. You would need to be able to start a business using your own resources, or you will end up working for someone else or if that fails, homeless and living in poverty.

Some people argue that America has too large a population and the funds required would be too much of a burden for businesses or the government, but I don't buy this. I think it has to do more with keeping the powers that be in place, and a loathing of government programs by most Americans.

except obviously for Nokia, i never heard about big companies R&D offices in Finland/Helsinki (i've worked at 3 transnational BigCo-s). I'd [naively as i have no specific info] suspect that it should be a good location to have R&D office attractive for programmers from Baltic region, not?

Good to see the government and Nokia stepping up to mitigate the pressure of employees who were laid off.

It’s exciting.