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Comment by cecida | Hacker News Reader

Stripe are an engineering first company. You even see the Collison brothers posting here on a regular basis. Creating great tech is built into the DNA of the company.

Great to see them investing further in their home country as well, and mentioning that some of their global leadership team will be based in Dublin.

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Ireland is also a tax haven, but sure, they're benevolently investing in their home country, that's totally what it is.

They never implied anything about motive. Really, why does motive even matter? Opposing motives can meet on the same positive result. It happens all the time with humans; whether it's two friends, or a corporation of 50,000 people, or a nation of 300 million.

Your pessimism seems to ignore the fact that this is a good thing regardless.

They were quoted saying the move "cements [their] Irish roots [and] provides enough space to gradually expand our team."

It'd be a breath of fresh air if CEO's could just say it like it is. I think more people would trust their brand and be more willing to invest in them. Our inner monologue wouldn't have had to fill in the blank with a possible hidden motive. Addressing the most common reason why companies "move" to Ireland could have been an opportunity to build trust.

But the brothers are actually Irish, and seem pretty invested in Ireland. Unlike in the case of almost every other tech CEO, who play up features of Ireland that they don't have experience with.

Like, I am very glad that the Irish government supported these brothers, and very sad that the Irish banks refused to work with them when they tried to start Stripe in Ireland.

It's an added benefit. That's good, no?

Or are you saying all Irish businesses are bad because they are based in the tax haven.

If you don't invest in developing your home country, which country should you focus on? Or we can throw a dart at a map and choose whatever country the dart lands on?

The dart idea might give us better distribution?

Throw a dart and solve problems/invest in solutions for where it sticks. Mostly be fixing ocean problems but I'm OK with that.

Wouldn’t this just mean that countries with larger land mass get more investment rather than countries with more people?

Well, (my) darts aren't accurate, so, maybe? I couldn't hit Belgium from 3m away but I probably couldn't hit USA either. I'm thinking water still wins. And it depends on the map projection too. Maybe the dart is to focus on that specific circular area, like 10km radius or something? Or maybe every group gets an equal slice on the dart board? Just something to help distribution rather than some money-motivated/short-term-outrage method we seem to have now.

Ah, my snarky comment turns into a legit technical question.

Well, throwing a dart wouldn't be too bad though....

This is fun! To test the theory I just threw a pointy pen at the map I have hanging on my wall 5x - 3x water, 1x Ethiopia, 1x USA. Unfortunately I have to do some real work otherwise I'd do a few hundred more and see where we ended up

edit: Looking at my map, I think they arbitrarily shrank the size of the oceans to prioritize landmass (it's one of those ones where you scratch off the countries you've been to), so it's quite possible that the proportion of darts hitting water would be higher normally

The Irish are some of the best dart players in the world, so I think Stripe would end up in Dublin either way.

Most of the loop holes have been closed in Ireland over the past few years. I'd look at the Netherlands, Malta or Luxembourg these days if you're looking for shady booking accounting practices.

It helps that the Collisons' are from Ireland, but there's also a highly educated workforce, native English speakers, a pro-business government, world class backbone internet connectivity, favourable timezone, plenty of renewables on the electricity grid.

What about Gibraltar?

Ehmm, Ireland is not part of the UK.

I was tossing an extra example in the list of "Netherlands, Malta or Luxembourg".

I always read comments like this as: "Every country with lower corporate tax rates than my own is a tax haven"

If a company does business within your borders while your army looks on and the populace waxes lyrical about it being unjust, who is really at fault for that?

Do foreign countries not have the right of sovereignty to make their own laws and tax rates?

No. At least not if you're part of a free trade union like europe.

I partially own a company in the EU, the neighbouring countries have different laws and wildly different company tax rates, care to elaborate on your assertive "no" here? Last I looked countries in the EU also set their own tax rates.

Feel free to prove me wrong on that matter, we are in a sub-thread about Ireland being a tax haven if you need a reminder.

Sorry it was not clear, I didn't mean that all countries in europe have the same taxes.

I was saying that they should in my opinion.

Just as an FYI, every tech company invests in some Irish presence, for the tax benefits.

However, most of them don't put engineering there, and a lot of the leadership is often in London.

That's the context of the post that you replied to, so that you can maybe understand more of the nuances.

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