Fun cheap places to get resident and startup
(My home country is ridiculously overpriced, cold and not geek friendly)
(My home country is ridiculously overpriced, cold and not geek friendly)
user: weredone
created: 3 hours ago
karma: 5
about:However, great hackers in Hawaii cost 50-75% what they would in Silicon Valley. A lot of intelligent, quality people move back here after going to school at fairly good schools (many go to USC,UCLA,Berkeley,Stanford - a smaller amount Harvard and MIT before returning home for cultural/family reasons).
I know this because I left Los Angeles for a 30% pay cut to come home to Hawaii. I get paid less, but I can walk around in my tank top all year. Call it an extreme sunshine tax.
The highest profile startup we've had recently are the guys that built Sprout Builder. ilovephotos.com (Blue Lava Technologies) is an amazing product that I'm not sure I'm allowed to discuss, and also built out of Hawaii.
They also have a few incubators/innovation centers where you can get cheap office space (and cheap everything else). They're nice offices,, but subsidized considerably by the local government specifically to spur more innovation here.
Startup scene is pretty good and improving:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/australia_top_web_apps....
Weather is phenomenal, it's about 75 degrees F year around in the capital city, San Jose. And, because it's an isthmus, the Pacific is 2 hours away from San Jose and the Caribbean is 3 hours away.
I lived there in the 80's and it was great. My brother just moved away (had to move away because of work) and said that traffic was getting a bit burdensome, though.
If you go, drop me a line and I'll tell you some great places to go snorkeling.
EDIT: Just noticed the word "warm". If this is a reference to the physical climate rather than the social climate, you'd definitely want Vancouver or Vancouver Island rather than anywhere else in Canada.
Yeah, that's the one problem with Canada... we're too popular. :-)
The immigration rules are in the process of being changed, though (legislation currently before the parliament, I believe) to make the queue somewhat less rigid -- the current process is broken (e.g., each office must consider applications in the order they were received, even if the applicant has died in the years since they applied), so the government is putting forward a "let's consider applicants in whatever order we feel like" bill. If this passes, there's a good chance that highly qualified applicants won't have quite as long a wait in the future.
Another option, of course, is just to send in the application and let the government chew on it while you go somewhere else for a year or two.
But seriously, are there good reasons for me to go from the bay area to Vancouver? I imagine I would just be paying more in taxes...
You don't even need to be a dual citizen -- if you're a citizen of the US or Canada, have a job offer, and have reasonable qualifications (a Bachelor's degree in most fields is enough) you can drive up to the border, mention NAFTA, and get a visa on the spot.
are there good reasons for me to go from the bay area to Vancouver
I haven't lived in the bay area, and I don't know your circumstances, so it's hard for me to give a good answer here. I know when Google offered me a job in Mt.View, one of the factors which led me to not accept was that between Vancouver and what I had seen of the bay area, I much preferred Vancouver -- but I grew up in Vancouver, and my tastes have probably been molded by that. If you grew up in a dry, polluted, urban sprawl, you might prefer the bay area.
I imagine I would just be paying more in taxes...
Don't be so certain. Canada has publicly-funded health care, which tends to raise taxes, but it also has much lower per-capita military spending than the US. I can't make much sense out of US income tax forms, but Google found me http://dbaron.org/views/taxes-2007.html; comparing it to an analysis I did last year http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2007-05.html it looks like a single California taxpayer typically pays a marginal tax rate of about 40% of income while a single BC taxpayer typically pays a marginal rate of about 26% of income -- of course, in BC we have provincial and federal sales taxes which add a combined 12% to most things you'll be buying (does California have any sales tax? I don't know), and gasoline taxes which are higher than you have in the US. In short: I suspect that the difference between taxes you pay in the bay area and taxes you'd pay in Vancouver could be either positive or negative depending on your individual situation.
Then of course there's the issue of real estate costs: Vancouver is the most expensive place in Canada, but I understand that it's still far cheaper than the bay area...
Singapore might be another consideration.
Lots of residential buildings, restos and a few office buildings designated as economic zones (you get a 5 year tax holiday on corporate income tax).
http://www.fort-bonifacio.com/
The con: traffic in Metro Manila is bad (not bad in FB though). Wise to live and work in same area.
Microsoft, TI, IBM, Sun, Friendster, Engine Yard, Yahoo, etc.
Google gave a talk late last year: http://randell.ph/geeky/2007/11/21/techtalk-with-google-engi...
Also if you file for canadian PR (while you're in US) then it won't take longer - US cases are faster than other countries but you need to file while you are living in US.
Your choices: Asia: Singapore, India, Indonesia, Philippines
Europe: any eastern europe that has good weather and geeks.
Far East: Australia (btw australia also has immigration policy, and fantastic weather)
Middle East: Abu-dhabi and Dubai (most happening place, no tax, you just need to find good geeks or import it from India).
Good Luck. P.S: Find out everything about Australia and Canada - they both have immigration policy - in fact i recently heard that australia has something like temp work visa for people under 30 and then you can file for permanent residency.