Thomas Friedman: Start-Ups, Not Bailouts

From what the German business press has reported and my personal contacts with many entrepreneurs have confirmed, in Germany (which still has a strong "safety-net") you'll be stigmatized.

On the level of your personal contacts, when you start up, you'll mostly not be (morally for example) supported in your intent by your family, friends, peers. Most Germans want a secure job, working hours from nine-to-five, their (circa) 30 (working) days vacations etc. And will most likely aim for that (or eventually fall into the safety-net of the social state) than risk starting their own business.

Second problem is your future: If you start a company and it fails many doors will be (in many cases firmly) closed afterwards making it harder and harder with every failure for you to start again.

I'd say that a safety-net everywhere (!) isn't good. Because, when you put safety-net everywhere, everything becomes overregulated. Favorite joke in Germany is that, because most garages don’t have windows and laws forbid working environments without windows, Apple, Hewlett-Packard and many other garage start-ups wouldn't be possible.

'Keeping face' is very important in China, and founding a failed company would cause you to lose face - which could damage your social network (people willing to trade favors with you).

Also, in China, many people don't respect people who start companies. I often hear the opinion that business people almost need to be devious and unethical to succeed here.

Plus, there is no comparable appreciation for smaller, boutique, local companies here that there is in the US. The notion that 'small can be good and premium' and 'big can be bad and faceless' doesn't really translate. If you ask a person if they think they'd get better quality at a little, specialized cafe vs. a Starbucks, most people would pick the Starbucks (unlike in the US, where Starbucks has been experimenting with running 'stealth stores' where they don't display their logo and which they attempt to customize to the neighborhood).

When I hear that phrase, I usually think of cultural factors, which includes some economic ones like the attitudes of employers. In Silicon Valley at least, it's perfectly reasonable to turn down an $80k solid job offer to start a company with an unproven idea, fail at at it within a few years, then go apply for those $80k jobs again. In a lot of countries: 1) your friends/family will think you're nuts for turning down a good job for some insane side project; and 2) future employers will look at your 3-4 years starting and then bankrupting a company as a negative, not a positive (i.e. as evidence that you're good at running companies into the ground).

Of those, #2 might be the biggest difference? I feel that in the U.S., #1 is actually still pretty strong, at least as far as reactions among non-techie family/friends go.

It can be anything from H1B to illegal immigrant. As long as he is here and is putting into the system more than he is taking out then why care about how he got here?

Slack and inefficiency keeps people employed and spreads the wealth. Until we've got Utopian redistribution, every technical improvement puts someone out of work. Like, say, travel agents. What do people like that do now?

Isn't that a bank, small business loan? You go make your case to a loan officer, you get it or not on the merits.

That's a fair point - selection bias. I thought about that later after I wrote it. I was thinking about people I knew who wanted to move to a country and was successful in doing so, through visa applications, finding jobs with sponsorship or whatever. I realise it's not easy, just trying to play a little devils advocate.