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Comment by startupper | Hacker News Reader

Europe will always be hindered by its inflexible and marginal immigration policy. If you want to be the best you have to draw in people from all over the world... India, Germany, Australia, Canada, etc. In my opinion that is what America gets right and what Ycombinator benefits indirectly from. It will be very difficult to reach the level of success that Ycombinator has and will achieve without changes to the macro-mindset. If at all anything this whole Yeurope thing will only increase the visibility of Ycombo in Europe and encourage more hackers to move to the USA.

Having said that, good luck to you guys at Yeurope.

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I think the problem with Europe as a place for startups is not the government regulations or the immigration policy. The sources of Europe's weakness are the same as Iowa's: (a) lack of angel investors, (b) society as a whole doesn't understand or support you if you start a startup.

Whereas in Silicon Valley starting a startup is considered an acceptable thing to do (by your landlord, your girlfriends' parents, potential cofounders, etc), and there are lots of investors ready to give you money if you show the least promise.

I concur with you re: angel investors and societal support and an understanding of what it takes to build a company around technology.

But I also think a society that is vibrant from a cultural perspective is equally important -- you need a multicultural mix of art, science and liberal thought to attract the fringe elements who _think_differently_ to your environment. The multicultural aspect is necessary now more than ever considering the global context in which technology is applicable. It is these fringe elements who create startups. Both Stanford and San Francisco provide that mix to the Bay area. You could say that Iowa lacks this, as does most of the USA between NYC and SF.

In Canada for instance, there is the right cultural mix, but a lack of intelligent capital. So I agree with you.

Good point.

Now, if only the US didn't follow the EU footsteps regarding immigration rather then the other way around...

As someone who is neither European nor American, moving to the EU was much simpler for me then moving to the US would have been. In fact, I would probably not have even gotten a tourist visa to the US these days (which used to be really easy a decade ago)!

The USA is no longer an immigrant friendly country, I'm afraid - not unless you come from a one of a small group of preferred countries like England or Canada.

How did you move to the EU? Thanks.

I came here on a tourist visa (valid for 3 months), then found a part time job & registered to university (M.Sc. in Mathematics & Computer Science).

Once I was registered to university I got a student's visa (valid for 1 year & renewable as long as I am still a student).

Once you manage to get a decent full time job and earn enough money (more then ~43,000 USD/year for Austria) getting an unrestricted work permission and a residency permit is not a problem.

EU's immigration policy might be changing...

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2398020,00.html

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