Hacker News Reader

Comment by rvnx | Hacker News Reader

As a first step we should make visas more selective for troublemakers and easier to obtain for highly educated people

As part of making visas easier for educated people, make them less restrictive. I have looked into moving to various European countries with my programming skills, but unless I'm already at the top of my field I'm tied to a job for years and prohibited from starting my own business. To me, this isn't worth it. Also, I don't see a strong reason for that restriction -- startups are exactly what they need.

I've been in exactly this position and it's honestly insane, assuming Europe is actually interested in promoting startup growth. It's simply not set up from a legislative position to be able to compete with the US or China

French Passeport Talent is quite good. Most types aren't tied to the employer and last 4 years. There's the "Création d’entreprise" option that allows creation of a company but it requires you to invest 30k euros into it.

> it requires you to invest 30k euros into it.

That to me is like saying, it requires you to work 40 hours a week at your company. Is that really any kind of hurdle? Most of the entrepeneurs I've known have mortgaged their houses a/o retirement savings.

I'm not sure if there are any limitations on how exactly you can spend that money.

But yes, I also assume this simply means you're capable of paying yourself a salary for a few months which is completely reasonable.

With all due respect, there's not a huge shortage of programmers in Europe.

What is needed is capital, world leading expertise (yes, top of the field - the people who can command the famous $100M sign on bonuses we hear about), and more risk appetite. If you were, say, an investor ready to fund and grow companies with ready captial, I think your options would be more open.

There is plenty of capital (eye watering amounts in most family offices in fact) and world leading expertise in many fields across Europe. The only factor here is more risk appetite and a culture for that risk in an effort to push industry forward. Europe is incredibly risk averse and is more interested in capital preservation than growth

> Europe is incredibly risk averse and is more interested in capital preservation than growth

There exist quite a lot of people in European countries who are risk-affine, but these are not necessarily good at handling the insane amount of red tape.

Believe me: in Germany, there exist quite a lot of people who would (assuming they could, and this criminal act will never be solved) immediately love to kill the politicians who made these red tape laws, and the bureacrats that enforce them.

I can believe this. I've spoken to many European entrepreneurial types that are really struggling with the red tape handcuffs in their countries, and those are people who actually have EU citizenship and for whom the red tape is as lightweight as possible. Being a non-EU in EU is a whole other ball game.

It's sad, because Europe really has a lot going for it. It also doesn't HAVE to go the US/China route of course, but if it does it will need to make some very serious changes that go beyond just preaching about doing it from the political pulpit

There kind of is, in my view. It's easier for me to hire and relocate an engineer from Eastern Europe than from France where I'm based now.

Most baffling to me are the 25 y.o. graduates of engineering universities who can't write five lines of code in a programming language of their choice. All right you want to be a developer, where the hell have you been all these years? You can get to the senior level by that age, let alone learn one programming language.

To be fair, I've had reasonably similar experiences here in Finland.

And I agree with your second point too - I don't really know what's going on with education, or more generally, the culture surrounding it these days (old man yells at cloud I know), I'd like to see that improved, because in a lot of Europe this is being (effectively) paid for by the public, and if it's producing people with no hope then what's the point?

Europe has lots of capital but when it comes to capital “Europe” is not a singular entity. Its surprisingly difficult for a fund in country A to invest in a privately held company of country B. The whole thing about the lack of big tech in Europe is partially caused by this fragmentation. In areas where the EU broke down those barriers (such as manufacturing) Europe is significantly more competitive than the US.

I mean the Netherlands basically voids all your issues here via the DAFT treaty. It’s also a well known visa avenue so I feel like you may not have looked hard enough.

You’re tied to the Netherlands specifically for a few years, but that’s about the only knock I can see.

The Netherlands doesn't allow dual citizenship, so it isn't worth it to me. I want a place that I can eventually get citizenship in without sacrificing what I have.

That's a fair and fine point - albeit missing from your original comment.

What is Europe offering those we need? Lower salary and more taxes?

The first thing that springs off everyone's lips is 'healthcare' but the types of people we need aren't exactly going to struggle to afford higher quality than most public services here, wherever else they are.

Less mad political culture? Walkable cities? A nicer place to live for your less-wealthy neighbours? I can't think of much else that would impress a rich or soon-to-be-rich person from the US especially.

And I don't think offering anything more is a good idea. There's little else a wealthy person can't already just buy in another country, except for maybe looser labour and environmental regulations, and I certainly don't want that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com