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Comment by RestlessMind | Hacker News Reader

> In France, apparently you can go on unemployment for 2, up to 3 years to start a startup. With up to 80% pay.

Then why does France have such a low rate of new business formation (5.3/1000 people) - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS?most_rec...

Or as another indicator, number of tech startups per Million is 234 for the US, while only 24 for France - https://www.startupranking.com/countries

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3 things:

- the culture is not the same as the US. French people tend to be very financially risk-averse

- the VC eco-system in France exists but it is trash

- people who have the skills to create startups in France tend to do it outside of France because they will have access to better capital/labor markets (for example, DataDog and Docker both have french founders)

> - people who have the skills to create startups in France tend to do it outside of France because they will have access to better capital/labor markets

There are a lot of French people here in the bay area.

From what they told me, it's actually easier to come to the bay area, navigate through the US immigration system and get funded than get funded at home. Not only that, some startups got funding from VC funds with LPs... from France!

Also, how easy is it to fire people in France? If it’s difficult then startups will be much more reluctant to hire in the first place, and founders to embark on the whole startup adventure which necessarily implies a lot of hiring/firing.

Quite hard, but other countries with similar labor laws (like the Netherlands) manage to have decent startup ecosystems.

> the culture is not the same as the US. French people tend to be very financially risk-averse

Interesting, given the number of people who claim that better social benefits in the US would encourage more startups and other business formation.

There is no such claim. Id claim that a system that helps all of of society by providing health, employment, income, childcare, housing and transportation security isn’t necessarily completely toxic for a small number of Startup founders, as a system. Since it also may help founders to an extent. Its about individual risks that are possible.

The problem in Germany and France is the VC and business culture, but thats not primarily a result of income taxes.

Because in France, in order to hire someone you need to have a shit ton of cash on hand... and then if they suck, you can't just fire them. It's too expensive to start a venture, so the folks that are willing to risk it leave in order to do so.

Because tech talent is cheap for the amount of productivity in US with ability to fire at will.Ease of fooling and swindling people if you have the right connections. In Europe shit that gets you into jail is a just a small monetary fine in USA.

> In Europe shit that gets you into jail

How many people went to jail for Wirecard?

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