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Comment by mxuribe | Hacker News Reader

> Since then, discussions about the benefits of flexible working have intensified around the world, with a boom in large global companies embracing the concept...

I sure hope companies operating in U.S. adopt this behavior more and more. It always seems like in the U.S. we work harder and not necessarily smarter; certainly not healthier. I'm envious of the health-related foundations that other countries at least try to establish for their citizens. I'm tired of chasing the dollar, and wish to only pursue happiness. </sigh>

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I am working in an American company for 17.5 years, most from home (12 years) with occasional visits to the local branch office (Europe) and sometimes to the headquarter in US. I work on different time zones as needed and it gives me some flexibility, but longer hours to make up for it.

It works for me, but for each case where it worked I have another 5 where it was so and so and probably 10 where it was bad for the employee. This is because people tend to work longer hours, lose connection with the team (they are not in the office at the same time), it is harder to find someone when you need them because they work different hours that change a lot. Flexible working has advantages, but it also has disadvantages and trust is not part of the equation most of the time, presence, interactivity and coordination, human connections that are created face to face, these are much more important.

On the other hand, exactly because of the high work ethic USA excels in many regards that these "well-being nations" do not. But you're right, it doesn't necessarily lead to a better health to work harder, however, often it does lead to better business results.

Citation needed on that. Scandinavian work ethic and culture is in my opinion good, and puts emphasis on overcoming hierarchical inertia (e.g. we don't use titles) and lateral thinking in a way that I feel North Americans don't, rather, the emphasis is on "the grind." Putting in insane hours, staying after the boss, etc. A thin veneer of productivity if you ask me. The reason the US excels in business is, I would say, being more willing to sell out their people, though they're probably meeting their match with China and Asia in general now.

> ...The reason the US excels in business is, I would say, being more willing to sell out their people...

Yes, THIS exactly!

Well just dropping a link to a news article or a study wouldn't really change things. If you look at who's the one producing major digital innovations it's still USA. Sure the Nordic countries are smaller but it's hard to compete against countries like USA with well educated people with strong work ethic when you're pushing in half the hours.

Sweden sure is doing well with digital innovations but can't say that the rest of the Nordics are performing equally as well. USA still has Silicon Valley which outperforms every other region in the world.

I'm an Estonian, also a nordic country. We have a bunch of things we are years ahead of in terms of digital innovations (https://e-estonia.com/), all while having a 1.3m population. What does the USA do better exactly?

Estonia is certainly performing well. But since it's so tiny it's really hard to compare against a giant like USA. Although much of the same problem applies to Nordics.

We use Google, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Apple - all American products. Whereas the Nordic countries produce very few major digital innovations used globally.

Also, I didn't know Estonia was a Nordic country.

Well, true, all the big players are from USA. But as far digital innovation inside of a nation go, and for the nation, USA needs to do a lot of catching up. Because while true that USA made a thing called "instagram influencers", it has done very little for its people.

If by Nordic you mean Northern European, then Estonia is Nordic, all tho' often misrepresented as Eastern European.

>> Also, I didn't know Estonia was a Nordic country.

Relevant: https://satwcomic.com/party-crasher

https://satwcomic.com/imposter

https://satwcomic.com/new-nordic

A funny take on why other 'Nordic' countries don't think so

Ok I'm used to considering only Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland as Nordic countries. They're also the only members of the Nordic council.

Estonia I've always just considered a Baltic country, which I suppose is accurate as well. Not that these definitions really matter anyway.

I still remember Skype before Microsoft. And Nokia before Microsoft :-)

What's your point? The Nordics have a relatively high contribution of "innovations", higher than other countries that don't work "half the hours".

Examples: Linux, Spotify, Unity, King, the radio base stations that your phone might be connected to, ...

But even Linux was ultimately developed in USA. So was/is Unity. I don't know if Linux would've ever been the success it is had Linus Torvalds stayed in Finland developing it.

I'd hope we would have a big list of recent examples of major innovations from the Nordics but unfortunately nearly all the major digital products or innovations seem to be decades old. I can't think of almost any globally really promising Finnish digital startup right now.

> We use Google, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, Whatsapp, Apple - all American products.

You say we use them now. But some of these companies are barely past their teenage years. Nokia as a company is around 150 years old, they didnt win fast and they are still in business (but not in the phone business)

How long any of these current, not winners but ”winning it right now” last? Who knows.

They are still young, but they will all fail or ceases to exist eventually and hopefully dont leave cities bankrupt behind them.

Also, we all had instant messages, social networks (very small, geographically) etc. before these behemoths and now days globalism is getting some pushback around the globe, who knows how long and what markets they can later dominate.

But on the other hand, any meaningful comparisons get harder and less relevant for us if we use a time span of the past 150 years. I don't know if it really even matters that much that most companies die eventually. They're still producing lots of value right now. While Nokia is certainly not doing particularly well nowadays despite having a long and partially very successful history.

Edit: year

What does the USA do better exactly?

Well, it seems crass to point this out, but NATO has a big presence in the Baltic states right now because you guys won’t invest in your own defence. So yeah, that is what they do.

That is related to the funding in silicon valley. So many people who want to do startups in europe move to silicon valley.

Yep, that's much of the reason. The whole ecosystem is just incredibly well developed over there.

> ...The whole ecosystem is just incredibly well developed...

The current, or at least historical ecosystem might have been/is silicon valley...But, I'm curious what will happen in the future, when the ecosystem could be more easily replicated elsewhere globally. With regards to digital innovation - assuming products are less about physical goods, and more about digital services - I wonder when budding entrepreneurs will more often be able to generate startups elsewhere because enough of an ecosystem exists elsewhere in other regions/countries that ALSO have great well-being-related environments? I mean, if i were starting a company today, and i wanted customers that could afford to pay higher fees, maybe I wouldn't focus on the U.S. because more and more citizens have less disposal income? (After all, more and more U.S. folks are just trying to keep their heads above water, etc.) Maybe i would launch my startup in another region of the world because those customers are somewhat already comfortable in their lives - due to their nation's social safety net operating model - and would be more willing to part with their money to pay for my startup's higher fees (i.e. signing up for my imaginary startup's higher-margin price plans as opposed to the cheapo plans which have slim margins)?? In response, I suppose U.S. enterprises and especially those in U.S. public office, could try nudging the ecosystem to make U.S. more competitive...but that - i feel - just brings us to either companies working U.S. workers harder (because THAT is what they feel will save the day), or public office folks trying to "bring back" the silicon valley of the good ol' days...instead of - oh i don't know - innovating at the social operating model level. It's an interesting thought experiment. But, to rest on the laurels that silicon valley WAS an important ecosystem, and assuming (or hoping?) that it will continue to be the center of the innovation universe - to me - feels like its full of folly.

I don't think, at all that Amazon, Facebook, Google, Tesla, SpaceX, Microsoft, Apple, Netflix, +++ could have happened in Scandinavia. Even our small success stories are sold to foreign investors before they have time to grow big.

It's harder to determine the cause, though. Contrary to popular opinion, I believe that work ethic, level of dedication, drive and regulatory climate wrt. employee protections, consumer protections etc. has something to do with it.

But this is just a small part of the question. We also don't have solid access to investors and capital, a business/startup-friendly tax & regulatory climate, a home market of 300 million customers, a culturally compatible potential employee pool of 300 million, many of the world's greatest universities, thousands of successful entrepeneurs who participate in the business climate, entrepeneurial success as a prominent cultural trait, excelling in your chosen profession as something to be lauded, bureaucratic & legal support for companies that are about to become successful, a relatively judgement-free climate with regards to high compensation for successful professionals etc etc etc.

It's hard to say if the value of not having business/professional success, or even long hours as a primary cultural value is key when compared to these other elements.

I'm pretty confident that e.g. "The Law of Jante" easily trumps the lack of a 50-hour workweek as an impediment to success, but there are probably also downsides to not even having the latter as an option if it feels necessary.

I agree with what you said. All these things compound and have multiplied effects. It's hard to blame a single factor like working hours when the underlying reasons for even that are cultural, political, geographical, historical etc.

The Scandinavian countries are all in essence "nanny states", great to live in if you are not too ambitious or entrepreneurial. Also because of low-population density and abundant natural resources, their experiments with regard to social-welfare have worked. Unfortunately, that model cannot be replicated in the rest of the world, let alone highly populous countries.

Abundant natural resources? Finland only has timber, hardly the stuff of billionaire dreams :-)

> great to live in if you are not too ambitious or entrepreneurial.

While it clearly hasn't worked out this way (yet) having that social safety net actually should encourage entrepreneurial activity since you have a lot more freedom to fail. Once you succeed you sell out though, because it's easier to grow/expand in other locations.

The observed result is people are not encouraged to do anything out of the ordinary because the current life is good enough and the reward for success is just big taxes, so the system is encouraging the status quo.

The labor laws make it hard to hire and fire. So yeah you can start something, but can't do much if the employee does not work out.

Sweden has a lot of entrepreneurs for being a pretty small country and has historically been pretty friendly to companies.

> ...often it does lead to better business results.

I think you're absolutely correct...but, lately, I've been questioning the whole premise that better business results are even a worthwhile pursuit...at least for me personally. If I bring in an additional $1MM of new value every year for my employer, i had to work really hard for that, and i only get a little pat on the head; and in the process have lost so much (mentally, physiologically, etc.). Certainly, I'm going through an existential change in my life, and as such little to no amount of justification of an American capitalist approach will make as much sense for me...But, nowadays, i really just want to chill a little bit, slow down, smell the roses, etc. And, ultimately, it feels for me that the U.S. seems like less of a place - profession-wise - to enable one to do that. (Sorry for the gloom.)

I dispute the "better business results" claim, I don't think that's factually true. But let's assume it is, why then is wealth so much more concentrated[0] in the US?

Let's assume that the US did have "better business results" and let's also assume that that is the result of worse working conditions. Why then are the workers, working in worse conditions, not benefiting from it directly?

Seems like, if that were true, the US is working average workers harder so that the ultra-wealthy can get even wealthier. Does that benefit society at large?

PS - I'd like to link this, called "The Nordic Model"[1] discusses a lot of good (and bad) about that part of the world.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...

[1] https://economics.mit.edu/files/5726

In contrast, if USA is not performing better then why are most of the digital innovations of US origin? Why do like half of the world's tech billionaires live in Silicon Valley? While Finland has maybe 1?

The Scandinavian countries focus on leveling the playing field for everyone. It allows the less privileged to build a good life, but it also hinders the most ambitious ones. Whereas USA is happy to focus on the extremes, allowing places like Silicon Valley to flourish.

We can argue endlessly whichever is better for the society, but professionals often choose the place to live based on what is best for them, not what political model some place runs on.

Low taxes.

Edit: not anecdotal. I personally know 3 execs from Scandinavian countries who tell me this is why they moved here. Also health care. They travel back to EU for routine stuff, but when they need elective procedures or advanced treatments you just cannot get those back in the EU.

> They travel back to EU for routine stuff, but when they need elective procedures or advanced treatments you just cannot get those back in the EU

Which advanced procedures aren't available in the EU? By the way, you can find private clinics in most EU countries if you don't want to use public health providers.

Yes, in the UK most professional jobs will offer private health as a benefit, plus NHS rules for getting on lists for operations are pretty fair, essentially if you can prove it’s affecting your life you can get operations for lots of things. There are the classic tabloid stories of people getting boob jobs and gender reassignment surgery on the NHS but I’m sure for the people affected it was a godsend.

My own brother got his ear pinned back when he was a teenager because he was being bullied about it at school. Cost nothing and happened within a couple of months of GP appointment.

And obviously being a highly developed western country you can find private clinics for just about anything you want.

I as chatting with someone in UK on Reddit who has some rare disease and trying to see what he could do to improve from it. Apparently he had reached a dead end with the UK medical system but his research indicated there are some doctors in the US who knew more and was desperately trying to find a way to get the same treatment. Sadly all his parents/sibling died from that disease so he had no support network. I felt really bad for him but had no way to help him. All I could suggest is he speak to a patient advocate. What would you have told him differently?

The NHS has been fucked by consistent cuts by the Tory government. Unfortunately they just don’t have enough money to cater for things like this. I would write to my MP but I know that’s just going to be a fart in the wind.

I have my own experience with this, I was/am a heroin addict and it took 12 months to get into any treatment at all. And A&E wait times are increasing year on year, either this winter or next there is going to be a crisis. Already we’ve come close.

I still maintain that for the vast majority of people and ailments the NHS is perfectly adequate, it’s just hobbled by the government at the moment. You could conduct a poll of almost any demographic in the country and they would say they would be willing to pay more taxes if they were ringfenced for the NHS.

> Edit: not anecdotal.

I think that is pretty much anecdotal as per definition.

to clarify, not anecdotal to me having primary sources, but yes anecdotal to those reading my anecdote.

> Why do like half of the world's tech billionaires live in Silicon Valley?

Because wealth is concentrated at the top... That's the whole problem. Society gets poorer while the ultra-wealthy continue to accumulate wealth.

> It allows the less privileged to build a good life, but it also hinders the most ambitious ones.

Good..? So your complaint is that Nordic countries try to make give everyone a good standard of living rather than creating poverty so a few more millionaires can become billionaires? That argument doesn't make any sense to me. I don't even see where you're coming from.

> We can argue endlessly whichever is better for the society, but professionals often choose the place to live based on what is best for them, not what political model some place runs on.

A lot of professionals aren't ultra-wealthy though. They're the ones working longer hours in the US for similar pay relative to most of Europe. They're being exploited harder and seeing nothing as a result except their proportionate spending power diminish further as their healthcare costs continue to outpace their wages.

> So your complaint is that Nordic countries try to make give everyone a good standard of living rather than creating poverty so a few more millionaires can become billionaires?

That's putting words into my mouth. I'm not complaining, merely observing. You're free to want more socialism, nobody is stopping you. I'm not saying one system is better than the other, they all have their own merits.

USA attracts top talent with top salaries, these are the people who are prepared to work hard and expect to be compensated well for that. They understand it's a sacrifice and they're willing to make it. Working willingly hard for a high compensation is not what I'd describe as exploitation.

Such a person in a Nordic country is working hard yet not compensated well for it. I don't see that as a better outcome for them and neither do they - that's why they emigrate to the USA. It's hardly relevant for building their own lives that there's some poor people living elsewhere in the USA.

The poor do not get poorer. It's not a zero sum game. The size of the pie is constantly increasing in absolute terms.

I don't think you understand how US salaries compare to European ones, it's not even close.

>The poor do not get poorer. It's not a zero sum game. The size of the pie is constantly increasing in absolute terms.

Much slower than the pie increases. In fact slices (salaries) in the US have been almost stagnant since the 70s, while the "pie" got 10x the size...

1. Almost stagnant means that they did not increase their % of wealth - their wealth increased. 2. Focusing on income ignores the plummeting costs of goods, what they can buy is much better and more plentiful than they could in the 70s.

>Focusing on income ignores the plummeting costs of goods, what they can buy is much better and more plentiful than they could in the 70s.

Actually the most important good, a house, is much more expensive to buy/rent than in the 60s/70s.

There were times when a middle class family with one working member could afford a house and send the kid to college without huge debt - something near impossible now even with 2 working members.

As for goods, those are hardly a compensation, if people work crazy hours, with stagnant pay, and get less share of _their_ society's wealth (their current society's, not compared to 20, 30 or 1000 years ago, which is what matters. We don't compare ourselves with medieval serfs or cavemen to see if we're doing OK, and we don't pat ourselves in the back in 2019 if we live in a trailer park because we have electricity and some rich person in 1800 wouldn't).

So, yeah, thanks to cheap foreign manufacturing one can have more stuff (just not the important stuff, like house and healthcare and education and better job conditions).

Agreed, healthcare, education, and housing -- the three most regulated and corrupt industries have grown at an accelerated rate. The are hurting people -- they are caused by unlimited loans (education), corruption/bureaucracy/regulation (healthcare), and housing (government regulation/zoning). These have nothing to do with income and production, but instead are caused by poor governing policies and regulation.

Also goods, e.g. electronics, media, communication, food, are of a higher quality than they were in the 70s -- a substantial qualitative difference that is hard to measure and compare over time.

You are in no way answering to the question: why in Silicon Valley and not in Finland or other countries?

Because the military-industrial complex of the world’s largest super power invested in the basic research and infrastructure to create this context. It’s the same reason the Soviet’s excelled in technological pursuits relative to many small European countries and why Russia still has an outsized place in IT.

Because Finland, while would appreciate having such large companies, doesn't want this kind of shitty social environment and inequality, so it doesn't encourage it. Besides, it does just as well (and ever better than the US for the large majority of its citizens) without having billionaires...

The US has 330+ million people and Finland has 7 or so... :-)

>In contrast, if USA is not performing better then why are most of the digital innovations of US origin? Why do like half of the world's tech billionaires live in Silicon Valley? While Finland has maybe 1?

Because there are a lot of people with servant mentality there to cater to their whims...

Workers are benefiting from it, at least financially. The median income in the U.S. is more than 20% higher than in Finland, adjusted for cost of living: https://economistsview.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b33869e20133.... (Note also that the American work-week is only about 7% longer than the Finish work-week.) That difference increases as you go into the upper middle class.

But for the bottom 10%, which in the U.S. largely consists of people who do not work, U.S. incomes are a third lower.

That figure leaves off the cost of healthcare (both premiums and services) for the US but includes it for Finland. So you aren't comparing like with like.

Finland pays $4,033, and the US $9,892 per capita (2016) for healthcare according to OECD figures. Since 2016 healthcare costs in the US have continued to increase faster than the rate of inflation.

The figure includes employer-paid and government-paid insurance for both countries. 80% of health expenditures in Finland are paid by the government or employers, and almost 90% in the U.S. https://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/OECD-Focus-on-Out....

The income figures don't include out-of-pocket healthcare costs, but those are relatively small in both countries: about $1,100 per person per year in the U.S. and it looks like $800-900 per person in Finland. (Which by the way lines up nicely with your figures above, applying the fact that 20% of expenditures in Finland are out of pocket, versus about 11% in the U.S.)

Note that the data linked above is from the "mid-2000s" while we are using healthcare expenditures from 2019. A fairer comparison with more updated data is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c.... Here, the U.S. median household income is almost 30% higher in 2016, or $7,740 per year. The difference in out-of-pocket healthcare expenses for a three-person household reduces that to about $7,000 per year.

>Workers are benefiting from it, at least financially. The median income in the U.S. is more than 20% higher than in Finland, adjusted for cost of living

The difference is useless in the U.S. as its eaten away but healthcare, college costs, and several other kind of expenses...

Not to mention the quality of life, infrastructure, etc those extra 20% get you (even if they weren't eaten away) is way worse...

See above re: healthcare expenses. College costs are also small in comparison to a lifetime of earning thousands of dollars less. Most college graduates in the US have no debt, and the median debt for those that do is $10,000-25,000. Higher American salaries make that up in just a few years. Finnish National pension isn’t any more generous than Social Security, and other expenses are tiny in comparison.

As to “quality of life”—that’s subjective. If I wanted to live in a 900 square foot house without air conditioning, like the average Finn, I’d move back to Bangladesh.

There are 44.2 million borrowers who owe a total of over $1.5 trillion in student debt. That's a 35K average, but there are people owing 50K and 100K.

Not sure where you see the "higher salaries making that up in just a few year", since ex-students are saddled with debt for decades after graduation, and tons of young people can't find decent jobs. Low unemployment doesn't mean "enough paying jobs".

>As to “quality of life”—that’s subjective.

Well, not really.

>If I wanted to live in a 900 square foot house without air conditioning, like the average Finn, I’d move back to Bangladesh.

Well, if you mainly have Bangladesh experience to compare to, it's no wonder why America looks like such a wonderland to you.

For the average American it would be a huge upgrade to live "like the average Finn", even if they don't have the larger (shoddily built, average American houses are the worst I've seen in the west, and I'm not even getting into trailer parks and ready-mades) house.

>> the US is working average workers harder so that the ultra-wealthy can get even wealthier. Does that benefit society at large?

Some people are calling that the "Iron Man" principal. If we can funnel enough money into the hands of billionaires, they will invent the things to solve all the world's problems. The real world is not a comic book.

>On the other hand, exactly because of the high work ethic USA excels in many regards that these "well-being nations" do not.

Like what? From birth mortality to all kinds of quality of life indicators its well below most of these countries...

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