Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

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Let me contrast two European business experiences from the past year.

One, very recently, from Paris. Terms of a deal agreed on. But the investor wanted to wet sign over a 2-hour lunch. At the end, he couriered the signed document to his lawyer, to scan and e-mail. The lawyer, unfortunately, didn't notice it come in before leaving early for the week-end. (He promised he would have it out first thing on Monday, at which point he e-mailed it to the wrong person.) Everybody's English is good, but broken, and miscommunications over e-mail and voice occasionally occur. When complaints came up, the reactions were in the form of "calm down" or "be realistic" or a counter-complaint.

Second, a few months ago, from Stockholm. Perfect American English. Documents moved over the weekend. Fast, no-frills dealmaking with a common sense of commercial values. When complaints arose, a discussion emerged around how we could work better together.

As a New Yorker, I love doing business in Sweden over almost anywhere else in Europe. From recent discussions–and statistics–it appears I'm not alone. Culture matters hugely.

I have been doing business with people "elsewhere" in Europe. Never had any problem. You might be generalising a bit early. And if American English is a dealbreaker, or even considered a "plus", maybe your potential business partners pick up on this and could be irritated?

Some American companies I can send an email and get a response in 10 minutes. Others I have to send 3-4-10 and never get a response unless the account manager is called on his personal cell phone.

> You might be generalising a bit

Sweden consistently ranks as an easy place to do business in surveys among executives [1]. It's also much faster and simpler to start a new business in Sweden than it is in France. I'm picking two examples which speak to my broader experiences. That said, they're anecdotes responding to a pattern pointed out in the article.

I'm not saying doing business in non-Swedish Europe is not worthwhile. It's just a lot easier in Sweden. When timelines matter or complexity is high, the Swedish team–in my experience–has come through more frequently. (I put Switzerland into a similar "easy to deal with" category, though I'm biased in being Swiss American.)

> if American English is a dealbreaker

I grew up speaking French and British English, so no, it probably is not. But when co-ordinating communications between an American legal team and overseas ones, I've seen (and perhaps I only notice this because I speak and write in both dialects) one team say one thing and the other read it as something else (or get confused) where all one needs do to alleviate the problem is "translate". This happens less when co-ordinating with Sweden. It's a small factor and certainly attributes no fault to anyone, but it's a factor that adds up to transactional costs.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/these-are-the-easiest...

    one team say one thing and the other read it as something else

To be fair, this happens to me with lawyers, wherever they are from. It has been a recurring theme of my interactions with them! Also, I will concede that I have never done business in Sweden. Just that from my own experience, there are bad apples and variable quality in businesses, wherever they are from :)

The article is pretty clear though, Sweden seems to be hitting above its weight.

Fascinating take on the cultural nuances. Thanks for sharing!

Only problem with Sweden is that eerie feeling of something being too perfect and those moments, where you scratch the surface and find there is something evil hiding in there just below it.

Sweden is a weird country. It is so controlled and everything is so straight, that it almost feels like there are no real humans. I couldn't imagine living there, if I was one of those people, who don't conform to the worldview as defined and constructed by the establishment.

I think what you see is a culture wherein conforming to the majority idea is valued (a lot) higher than the individual's ability for self-expression. This does not mean people don't think differently, the Swedish are notoriously individualistic, but it does mean that your voice isn't heard as often, and when it is, it doesn't really seem like it's your voice, but rather it was agreed upon to be the way forward.

The hyper-individualism, I think, is just the flip side of hyper-authoritarianism. Swedish people are almost happy to pay taxes, Swedish people are some of the most active voters in the OECD (82% turnout last election, let's hope tomorrow's election is no worse!), and Swedish road safety policy is now a Swedish export.

It is indeed a very unusual combination, but I think it's what happens when you mix prosperity, democracy, and secularism for a long time. I hope that the recent waves of misinformation and polarizing media won't ruin it. But it isn't looking good.

The term for this is the Law of Jante [0]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

I lived one year in Sweden (in Lund, near Malmö). Easily one of the two nicest places I ever lived in. People are warm and welcoming. And in my experience at least, you can delve into arguments about society and politics like anywhere else, or even better because it doesn't end up with people mad at each other for having a different worldview like in the USA or in France (again, my experience).

I find strange this assumption I sometimes read here that having a sense of collective means losing your individuality.

I lived in Malmö for quite awhile and knew and worked in tech with many highly educated people, quite a few of them who graduated from Lund. I think that Lund and Malmö tech scene is a bit of a bubble. As I got to know some of the Swedes I worked with deeply, I started to hear complaints from many of them about the societal groupthink that exists in Sweden. There really is a strong sense of collectivism in Sweden, it just seems that the tech scene has been able to break away from it to a certain extent.

That said, I enjoyed many of the same things that you mention about Sweden. The people I worked with were highly educated, pragmatic, and often not willing to make bad engineering decisions if there was no reason to. It was easy to have very in-depth conversations with Swedes about many topics without resulting to emotional attacks or divisiveness.

In general I think what has helped Swedes the most (and what grandparent has hinted at) is that Swedish citizens, at least everyone I met, are very internationally minded in that they are absolutely voracious travelers and embrace people of other cultures rather easily (there are the Swedish Democrats, of course, but this mentality is still a relative minority in Sweden). This willingness to interact internationally and deal with other cultures is what I think has helped propel Sweden to the kind of startup success we are seeing here.

People always tend to complain about things like groupthink. Doesn't mean it isn't real, just rarely a concrete problem. Sweden has a ton "first world problems" like status, fear of missing out, vanity etc. Still absolutely nothing compared to social pressure in most of the world. As you probably know things like engineering go back hundreds of years. Tons of successful Swedish inventors, artists, actors, athletes etc.

The American Dream is alive in Sweden. The prime minister is a foster child and welder by trade. Daniel Ek and Markus Persson both grew up under less than ideal conditions and are now billionaires. And if one thinks Sweden is too small most people have the tools to move, like Fredrik Eklund.

That said, it isn't like 10-15 years ago when it seemed like Sweden was spared from many of the worlds problems. Housing inequality, dysfunctional politics, call for easy jobs, lesser standards, less access to social safety net etc. All large but common problems that make "the deal" a lot less appealing. Tons of people moving to UK, Berlin or Norway for work or just trying to have a decent life.

I do think it is a bit of a bubble. To many cocktail parties, consulting companies and incubators, not enough substance. It isn't really clear whether there will actually be a lot of new extraordinaire companies. I think most people are more concerned about their mortgage.

Because if there is anything I would attribute to recent Sweden's success in technology it just that in end of '90s, early '00s Sweden was a really good deal. A decent apartment, good employment and good infrastructure was all available. A lot of people in technology didn't even bother with university. But nothing was "glamorous". So if you wanted to do something you had to do it yourself.

Today everyone is looking for the guarantee. Going to school for 5-6 years, huge mortgage for the rest of their life and chasing money in consulting. I get it, just unlikely to produce anything different.

How familiar are you with other northern european states? (UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Finland)? There is a definite cultural gradient in Europe - and I'm wondering do you feel just estranged by nothern european values in general and not specifically sweden. As a finn I don't really feel there is especially anything weird in Sweden when visiting there (except they have more capital than finland so their nordic wellfare system is a bit more robust than ours - then king of the hill in nordic wellfarestateism being Norway with their oil).

But the benefits are great!

Seriously though, most swedes are very forgiving about others world views. As long as you sort your trash properly.

That's a fun story, but how is it a problem?

Could you elaborate on how it's controlled?

I think your point is overstated, but nonetheless I found it deeply unsettling the nearly all Swedes watch (or attend) the sing-alongs in Skansen in Stockholm. Be-sweatered grandmas and punk kids with faces that are more piercing than skin, sitting together in chairs and on couches, smiling and singing happy songs.

I have never attended Allsång på Skansen, not to my knowledge. Most Swedish people are creeped out by it too. It somehow feels so forced. It's almost like a cult.

To echo your point with pure anecdata:

In my space, the best managed company (and one of the most successful exits) was Swedish [0]. Down-to-earth, honest, transparent management with none of the typical American earnings call tip-toeing. Thinking and strategy were always crystal clear and simply articulated. Metrics were clearly stated and tracked. No BS.

[0] http://www.arcam.com

All of Scandinavia is very similar in this regard. Many Scandinavians loathe doing business with people from the Mediterranean EU, for reasons similar to your first example.

Not sure if the member states of the US have as wide cultural differences as the member states of the EU.

How about The Netherlands? How could The Netherlands improve over Sweden?

I'm going to be honest, there is a bit of give from both sides that need to happen. Cultural differences need a certain getting used to.

The lawyer definitely messed up by emailing it to the wrong person, but business rarely happen over weekends.

That the Swedish are proactive about accommodating it is good, but too much of it and you're diminishing yourself.

> the Swedish are proactive about accommodating

If I had to pick out one thing Swedish culture does well, commercially, that many European cultures do not, it's allowing for dissent to be discussed [1]. Saying "I disagree with you" isn't an affront nor an insult, but the voicing of an opinion. That is not always true e.g. in France, Spain, Korea or the Middle East. (It's untrue in many American corporate cultures, too.)

This isn't a rule. But the number of Swedish teams where I've seen a junior productively question a senior in front of me is far higher than elsewhere in Europe.

[1] Switzerland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark are also good at this.

I think what you've found is a reflection of the du-reform.[0] Swedish people are allowed, nay expected, to poke fun at their supervisors, as a show of good faith and encourage exactly that kind of bottom-up decision making that is so crucial to good teamwork.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen

I think the du-reform was a reflection of the underlying mentality.

That's a fair point, but perhaps splitting hairs to some extent. It is certainly both true that the du-reform was made possible because of the contemporary context, and that the du-reform became a clear signal from the higher-ups in society that this change was embraced.

Thanks for sharing your experience. Would you mind dropping me an email at the address in my profile, I'd like to ask you something offline?

Can confirm. Been doing projects all over Europe for a while, Sweden and Switzerland where the most professional ones. Good culture, smart people.

> Perfect American English.

Maybe, that company has American expats living there otherwise it's natural to have some accent.

Not if you get english-only movies in TV since childhood.

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