Don't like Brexit? We have a plan | Hacker News Reader

Don't like Brexit? We have a plan

transylvaniabeyond.com

108 pointsbeniaminmincu50 comments

This is really cool and well done. I'm unhappy with the stats they chose though.

I thought that 20x less robberies seemed unlikely so I clicked their source. They were using the absolute number of robberies not per capita. The way they used it is sneakiness bordering on outright lies. This kind of bad-faith abuse of stats always irritates me.

And not all robberies and thefts are reported to /recorded by the police. There are vast differences between countries in those numbers. On the other hand, the car theft numbers is probably accurate, because people need to report to get insurance.

Ha ha... somebody took my comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11892239 a bit too seriously.

There's no need to skew the data even with a few issues it's still a good place to work or make a start-up.

Let's break down the modern, flashy PR move and check some reality:

LGBT rights in Romania (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Romania) - Decriminalized in 1996 - Gender identity: change of legal sex allowed since 1996 - Discrimination protections: protections since 2000 (still don't national ones in the U.S.) - No marriage - No civil unions - Adoption HAAAHAHAAH cmon be serious

LGBT rights in the UK (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_the_United_King...) - Decriminalized in the 60s - 80s, way before 1996 - Gender identity: change of legal sex allowed since 2005, way after Romania - Discrimination protections: protections since 2010, way after Romania - Civil unions in 2005 - Marriage in 2014 - Adoption since 2005 / 2013

It's very easy for an outsider to judge it like that. You can't compare the UK with an ex-communist, very religious country. These things can't really change overnight, it takes a few generations. So yeah, I wouldn't advise any gay people to go to Romania.

I echo that. Also, I'm pretty sure that even in such an "ex-communist, very religious country" there are LGBTs and areas (probably Bucharest) where LGBTs are rather accepted. If de-jure-acceptance instead of just de-facto is a dealbreaker for you I suggest come back in a couple of years/decades :-(

As someone who grew up in Transilvania I would disagree you have as much freedom and influence in Cluj as a member of the LGBT community as in London.

Yes the laws are a bit lacking but if you have the money you could actually change that.

Nobody really cares what your sexual preference or orientation is in Transilvania and most of the younger generation are very open minded so you don't have anything to worry about.

>>> You can't compare the UK with an ex-communist, very religious country.

Yet the above website did just that.

UK wasn't part of the Soviet bloc until 1990, so a bit unfair to compare in my opinion. You either care about LGBT rights or getting some shitty Cuban oranges for your kids at least once a year. I think a lot of societies in the Eastern Europe went through tremendous changes in the last 20 years. Not saying it's all happy happy joy joy now, just that we should consider this in some context.

In Romania, companies which have under 100.000 euro / year income are called microenterprises. Microenterprises have an income tax of 3% which should be paied quarterly. If they have at least one employee, the tax is 2%. If they have at least 2 empoyees, the tax is 1%. The tax on dividends is 5% and IT specialists are free from salary taxes. We moved our headquarters to Bucharest in Q1/2014, but this autumn the team is moving to Sibiu, Transylvania! Glad to be here :-)

This is actually the information I missed on their website. Could you elaborate on...

... did you move there from outside of Romania? ... if so, how did you incorporate there? Did you gave your BV/GmbH/Ltd/SA just another address or created a new company there, that then bought 100% of your old shop?

We're from the US and were looking for promising European land. No, we incorporated a brand new company(WELOVEHN SRL) not to hassle with bureaucracy. Which is cool from an administrative point of view. Romanian lawyers seem to be fluent in English and we still maintain a productive collaboration.

Thanks for your reply! Do you manage from abroad or did you personally relocate as well?

Hope your move proves to be a success!

A quarter of our team was working remotely from Romania, so we decided to relocate. I had plans to go back to CA as soon as everything was in place, but for a while I wanted a vacation... Then it felt wrong to leave and I remained in charge. I'll be back, maybe to get more of my friends in Transylvania with me :-)

Interesting! I was wondering this, too. What happens when the income goes up? To, say, a million euro per year? Do you suddenly get hit with large, "European style" taxes (~40-60%)? Or is it fairly small like with microenterprises, just somewhat increasing as you go up?

If the income goes beyond 100k, you pay 16% tax on profit. Also, if you reinvest a part of the profit to acquire IT software or hardware you are saved from paying 16% of that investment.

Wow, that is totally reasonable. Actually incredibly cheap by European tax standards.

I just find this initiative mind-blowing. In Western Europe, Eastern part has quite of a bad reputation, especially on subjects like safety or development. I've recently heard about several good opportunities there and this makes me even more curious about Romania.

I Grew up in Transylvania and just took one of my friends with me when I was going back for a short vacation he loved it.

We actually took the budget flight from London to Cluj and the bus to my home-town it was a but dangerous at the bus terminal since that's where gipsies hang out to rob you but if you are careful you should be ok plus there's a lot of people around so they can't afford you making a scene or the security will kick them out.

All the other places we went to were quite safe an entertaining.

Mind you I'm a local so I know what places to avoid to not get into trouble so there's that too however most places are quite safe anyway.

If you avoid bad neighbourhoods and some transport hubs with bad security you shouldn't have any problems.

"Surprisingly high quality of life"

Nope (i'm from Romania). I like the "presentation" overall but some things are stretched to the limit there :)

Surprisingly high quality of life among the circles that young urban professionals are likely to interact with ;)

EDIT for context: in eastern Europe, there is a significant urban-rural divide in living standards. Definitely not on the level of Rio de Janeiro vs. favelas or Johannesburg vs. Soweto, but more on the level of an upmarket US suburb vs. rural Appalachia.

Care to elaborate on where this website is inaccurate?

Sure, here's my own personal opinion about some of them :

-Probably the most spectacular nature in Europe

Romania IS a beautiful country (in a old fashion kind of way) but i really double it that anyone who traveled around Europe a bit would say it has "most spectacular nature". Dunno, go to Faroe Island (as a example) and tell me afterwards how "most spectacular" is Transylvania.

-The largest number of tech specialists in the EU

That is actually the most misleading part though. Not sure if RO has the largest number or not but a potential investor should be aware that most tech specialist are actually located in Bucharest not Transylvania. And the gap in salary requirements/ skills between the 2 is actually pretty big (Bucharest >>> Transylvania). Heck until a few years ago Bucharest was the only IT "hub" in RO.

-Excellent private healthcare system

Yes and no. If you have a serious health problem , you'll get "shipped" to a state hospital and those are bad.

-Some of the greatest festivals in Europe

Guess it also depends on music genres. I'm into metal , for instance, and the metal festivals in RO are definitely not "greatest". It's not like we have Wacken here.

I fell in love with Romania mainly because of the people. You won't find other people being so grateful just because you say hi. Next, the nature: sure, Ko Samui is heavenly, but I'm more into `vampiric` landscapes. We opted for private healthcare(look into "Queen Mary" - this is what you'd choose). I don't know about public healthcare and I don't really care :-) There are two big festivals somewhere near us: Untold and Electric Castle. I'm a metalhead too, but Armin van Buuren, Tiesto or Faithless really sound good! Regarding the number of IT specialists, just read the reports. It's a fact that they have lower salary expectations, but they're hard workers who eventually end up in the US. This is why the author of the website is calling for entrepreneurs. Have a read: http://teamfound.com/blog/romania-it-industry-report/

This site is pretty broken on latest stable Chrome on Android. As soon as I start scrolling I see solid white or grey blocks. Sometimes, at certain scroll heights, I see some text. But mostly I can't actually read the content.

It's worse with Firefox. Scrolling is much less smooth but at least I can read a little more text (instead of Chrome I used Opera.)

Yeah, let's move to a corrupt homophobic country.

http://www.transparency.org/cpi2015 rank 58 on the corruption index (behind greece and ghana),

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Romania 54% of Romanian interviewed stated they would never have a meal with a homosexual. 53% preferred that homosexuality be outlawed. 79.7% of those questioned would not want a homosexual neighbor

UK is the second largest economy in Europe. That fact is not going to change just because they no longer count themselves in Europe. If transylvania is a good place to open an office, it is as good as it has already been. Brexit shouldn't influence anyone based in London to move to transylvania.

Did the UK fall below France? So third largest?

That's odd. First they try to close borders to migrants, and now they welcome migrants?

How is that supposed to work?

They closed borders to migrants who were not likely to set up tech startups. They try to lure migrants who are likely to set up tech startups.

Transylvania just earned my respect

Haha this is amazing! We were already considering moving into a cheaper part of Europe when we got focused on coding rather than BD, this just makes our decision a bit easier

I like the advertising. I like the timing. But what I like most is that they have the urge to tackle their future. Without any restraints to make jokes about themselves to tackle something else: The backwater stereotypes.

This far, I've heard only good things from that area. From people who worked or studied there.

What I'd expect but didn't see: Is the tax-system competitive? How about the other performance indicators regarding incorporation, labor costs and legal certainty?

To answer you tax question, check my previous comment. As for performance indicators, I quote: "Romania will be an economic growth outperformer in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in 2016, and the second fastest growing EU economy (behind Ireland)."(http://www.bmiresearch.com/romania). Also low labor costs, ferm legislation.

Why are they advertising it as Transylvania, rather than Romania?

> Romania is 1st in Europe in terms of number of certified IT specialists. The number of engineers per capita in Romania is greater than in the US, India, China, or Russia

I've heard anecdotally that tech industry pay is awful in Romania compared to the rest of Europe. Perhaps the high number of tech workers is the reason?

I'd totally move to Transylvania. Wonder if I can still work remotely from there... I mean they're only 11 hours ahead of PST.

We're a cyber security company and moved to Romania because around 1/4 of our employees were Romanians working remotely with us. Sure, if you are willing to work from home you can find a job anywhere it's available.

Ha! That was brilliant. I'm glad the mentioned vampires, because sadly that is about the only thing I know about Transylvania.

The nature is really nice and food is great. But I've been robbed there... And the way how they achieve the fastest internet connection is really ugly -- cables are hanging from everywhere, historical building or not, it's really touch to take a photo without cables.

Just google for Cluj cables

This is pretty and all, but it just seems like an opportunistic ad by the tourist board of Transylvania.

If freedom of movement between the UK and the rest of Europe is lost by Brexiting, and they're still willing to accept Brits then I'll be impressed.

this is silly. its a good place to move because its start up friendly? thats nice and all but its hardly relevant to the vast majority of the population. i will admit though that most of the people who are so worried about brexit that they would move to another country are in the age range and socioeconomic bracket from which most start up people emerge. by the way can anyone list some of the reasons why leaving the eu will be a disaster? i dont know anything about the eu.

As a Brit I'd just like to say that _that_ is how a country should grasp an opportunity. Rather than the bitchy whining I've seen from many of my compatriots so far!

Now that's a way to learn about a country I did not know much about. Great impression in my mind! Sounds too good to be true though. Any true experiences here in HN?

Haha.. Funny, I just moved out of there .

How come? Anything we should know?

I think it's a great idea

Author: "R. M. Renfield." Very curious!

Nice job, Adrian Docea!

Best nature in Europe, sure

Reply on news.ycombinator.com