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Comment by somedude895 | Hacker News Reader

I tend to agree. Apparently it's very hard to get funding for novel ideas in Switzerland. And yes, risk aversion is a big part of Swiss culture, an example of which being that Swiss are some of the most over-insured people, and savings rates also regularly top the charts. A fairly egalitarian society with a high standard of living makes for a people that doesn't like or "have to" take risks

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And there is a quote: "In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Sometimes I wonder whether one of the factors that makes US the mecca of technology is the lack of safety net there (compared to Europe).

The primary advantage of the US is cultural. It is not just the anomalously high risk tolerance and wealth, but people who attempt audacious goals tend to be celebrated. Americans shed the Tall Poppy Syndrome that is a very visible feature of virtually all other European cultures, perhaps because the US was predominantly settled by "tall poppies".

After years of working in various parts of Europe, I think it distills down to this. Sufficient talent, desire, and capital exists in Europe -- it is missing no ingredients -- but society there pervasively and subtly undermines anyone who dreams of attempting something really bold. It is a shame.

To put it another way, European culture values humility over ego, and does not applaud those who manage to exploit those "lesser" than themselves quite so much.

No, you are not putting it another way. Achievement is not “exploiting those lesser than themselves”.

> Sometimes I wonder whether one of the factors that makes US the mecca of technology is the lack of safety net there

Not really. My bet is on the abundance of capital (hello global reserve currency) combined with excellent universities and a cultural willingness to take risks and do bold things. People who need a safety net, such as food stamps or housing assistance, are rarely the people who start big companies. They're usually too caught up in just trying to survive day-to-day.

And a huge homogenous home market.

Yep agreed.

> they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Hey, the Swiss evolved the cuckoo clock into a wristwatch... nope, even this innovation was by two Polish and Czech immigrants.

That's from Jeremy Clarkson, innit?

Despite that quote being mostly wrong [0][1], a safety net might account for some idleness. But there's more. You might find a local variation of the Law of Jante [2], for example.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_mercenaries

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo_clock#First_modern_cuck...

2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

It's said by Orson Welles' character in "The Third Man" (1949). Famous quote, allegedly ad-libbed: https://youtu.be/I8RW3K3hhWU

Cuckoo clocks originated in the Black Forest in Germany, north of the Swiss border. People associate them with Switzerland because of innovative marketing!

It’s not like Switzerland has one of the highest number of nobel prize and patent per capita in the world... That’s really not a spot on cliché quote...

If you have a lot to lose... My biggest change was the lose of appetite for risk when I moved to a first world country. When you have a comfortable life it’s hard to kick out of it.

I don't know how egalitarian it is. Having visited Geneva and spoken with many people there about the crazy high cost of living - it seems that most low wage earners survive by living in nearby French towns and commuting in to work. That's an economy maintained by the indentured servitude of non-native people.

The commute of most of those workers is usually less than half of what most rockstars of Sillicon Valley need to endure, not to mention that the public transport extends to border towns in France and is significantly better than the one in SV. Geneva lies directly on the border so those towns are way closer to most workplaces than Oakland is to San Francisco.

The issue with Geneva is that there's no more physical space to build - but living in France with Swiss Geneva canton minimum wage will boost your quality of live way beyond most San Francisco dwellers.

The problem might be there are thousands of French, Italians, and other Europeans sharing the same Swiss dream while standing in the traffic jams. I doubt the rents by the Swiss border in France are at the "French level".

As someone who lived in both places I can easily tell you that Geneva traffic jams / crowds don't come close to what most employees of SF tech startups endure on their way to work.

To make Geneva as awesome as Silicon Valley, you'd have to prolong the jams and time spend on the road by about 2-3x and remove all the busses and trams.

The rent in those region from what I've heard from colleagues (I work as a SWE in Paris) is trough the roof. you also have to pay taxes in both countries, but compensation wise you'll still end up with a significantly better deal even taking into account things like cost of living. The commute is not better for me or my colleagues in the Paris region.

> it seems that most low wage earners survive by living in nearby French towns and commuting in to work

My interviews with Swiss companies when discussing the employment form usually turn to "you can live in France and commute daily to Switzerland". Yeah, thanks no thanks.

I've done that and it was lovely! 20 minutes bike ride each way, crossing the border every morning and evening on my bike. Nicer than most commutes.

In bad weather taking the bus, which was always on time and never delayed in traffic.

Are we talking about Europe where you are free to live where you want? If people are living in France it’s just that it’s cheaper nobody is prevented to live in Switzerland. The main problem arise when the janitor working in SwitzerlanD is getting 3x the salary of the high school tacher in nearby France. Btw Zurich where the cost of living is higher is far away from any border....

I've lived in Geneva and Zurich, and there is a big difference between the two. Geneva is basically France, with some Italian and Portugese thrown in for added rule breaking, but Swiss so the "special" rules apply to other people. It's full of self-entitled snow flakes, backwards and not like the rest of Switzerland at all.

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