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Comment by Mary-Jane | Hacker News Reader

All the FAANGs are American companies, and they've all been pushing the boundaries. What do you feel America has lost in this respect?

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The US and California in particular lost it's appeal. 20 years ago it was the dream destination for many. Now, even some Indians steer away. I don't know a single European who would want to live in the US. Not even from Eastern Europe. The go-to place is London, Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam, etc.

FAANGS were started 1-2 decades ago. In past 5 years the trend changed. Ask PG. He will never move back to the US.

And no, Texas will never be the next big innovation hub.

Living in the US is dull and uninspiring if you lived away for long. Also the missing social net makes the situation worse and worse every year.

"America" is losing the talent pool.

To give an example: I was among the first airbnb users when it started. In the past few years I used booking.com more because I liked both their website and booking experience better. And yes, they offer private accomodation. Booking.com improved a lot while airbnb stagnated. I admit that I am not the target audiance for the airbnb "experiences" feature though.

Instead I would argue that if the Americans opened their borders, a huge fraction of European tech workers/professionals will relocate there. I'd say that, as middle-class persons, they wouldn't subject themselves to the torture of getting a visa, which may also partially explain the rise of Berlin as a tech hub after Brexit.

Nonsense. You do realize that people don’t just relocate to another country let alone to another continent, especially when the benefits are questionable at best. Somewhat more pay, but for more expenses due to a ridiculous health-care, depending on location, it may very well be less safe, etc.

You may disagree, but “nonsense” sounds a bit excessive. An Italian or Spanish software developer earning 30K euros per annum would likely go to the US if they were offered an American salary. Many of those who went to the UK or to Germany (me included) would have crossed the Atlantic for the right offer.

So you are claiming that the only reason European developers don’t cross en mass is due to non-open borders?

Depending on what we mean by en mass, because Europe is not the third world. But I think it would have an impact on the European market(s) for software developers (as in increased scarcity, higher salaries, ecc…)

I agree with you that inexperienced (lower paid) or young developers might find the US attractive if there weren't visa issues. The older better paid ones, maybe with families even, would probably still choose the social safety of Europe, the mix of people and ideas, the density of interesting places, cultural events, etc.

I mainly reflected on the current trend I observered. Did not consider a sudden change in the US visa policy.

All European developers are lower paid compared to their US counterparts. Except maybe Swiss ones.

And as I said is not really something outright comparable. Housing is more expensive, no universal healthcare, etc.

Housing is more expensive? Have you seen rent prices in London or Zurich?

Developers get great healthcare.

It's pretty comparable.

A half decent flat in London costs in excess of 2000£ per month. Where “decent” means you don’t deal with pests, walls are not made of paper and your neighbour going to the toilet doesn’t cause the whole building to shake.

Universal healthcare varies a lot in Europe, for instance in the UK it is rather limited compared to continental Europe, even compared to Southern Europe. In the UK you would need a health insurance costing ~200-300£pm to enjoy the same quality of care of places like Italy or Germany.

On the other hand a good developer in the US may earn enough to retire in 5 years, 500K$ per annum are not totally unheard of. In Europe if you are very very good, you may get slightly above 100K£, but it’s still extremely rare and you will end up paying half of that in taxes.

It’s not really technology though now is it. They’re pushing the boundaries of capitalism and morality but not technology. It’s been ages since Silicon Valley was about silicon. Almost all the current energy of the valley is in surveillance/ad-tech. Maybe the odd rocket as a fig-leaf.

Where are the HQs of Qualcomm, AMD, Intel, Nvidia located? Yes, everyone talks about Uber et al and indeed those companies barely add innovative ideas compared to the innovation that is needed to increase a CPU's performance. Uber et al instead mainly do a better job at extracting money from their extremely good market positions than the hardware companies do.

Erm… a lot of the “pushing the boundaries” of technology happens at the foundries in South Asia, and equipment providers in the Netherlands.

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