These are a few of the reasons:
- highly skilled labour is cheap in absolute terms and the cost to performance ratio for such workers is probably amongst the absolute best in the world. Good for a start-up!
- For the individual worker a job as a highly competent senior developer on average in my 20 years of experience is pretty much just double that of a garbage collector. Salaried men don't get ahead much but start-up workers do to a similar extent as they do in other start-up hubs in the world. Good for the early employees getting shares or stock options.
- Social security systems would still leave me able to stay in my nice home in my nice suburb even without a job. It would not affect the healthcare or education for me and my family at all. I would have to cut down on my intercontinental vacations with my family though. It feels like bet I could make without too much anxiety.
-Sweden has had, and still have to some extent, lots and lots of world leading large tech companies in pretty much every industry like automotive, telecom, different types of processing industries etc. Lots of skills, knowledge and ideas has spun off these large companies or started as suppliers to these. I think this ecosystem is one of the more critical factors which the other Scandinavian countries lack. I cannot come to think of even one Scandinavian unicorn-ish type of company from another Scandinavian country than Sweden. Finnish Rovio is close though, but I cannot come to think of any other non-Swedish company. Sorry but please fill me in here Norwegians, Danes and Finns!
- Stockholm specifically, where all the companies mentioned in the article are from, is a tech hub with lots of skilled and nice people living and working here and lots of good tech companies which makes it start-up friendly for the same reasons it would anywhere else in the world.
- The Swedish society, compared with most other I've experienced, is pretty well oiled and modern (not saying there isn't room for lots of improvement) where infrastructure like transportation, administration of personal and company affairs etc work quite well. More time and energy to focus on stuff that matters like your business and your family.
- The weather sucks for at least 6 months of the year. No I'm serious here. Having pretty much nothing else to do than to work and watch Netflix frees up lots of time and energy for work.
My five cents…