Hacker News Reader

Comment by lgray | Hacker News Reader

So you're saying that the United States is right and every other developed country is wrong?

Morals aside, that seems like a bit of a stretch.

Whatever the mess US is in, its a mess that produces high number of entrepreneurs and innovation. Try duplicating Silicon Valley, Europe.

Considering those jobs all get paid vacation, you are missing the point entirely. It is the some-high-school educated, sick guy at Subway that they are talking about.

Seattle (just the city) recently mandated 3-days sick leave for all employees in businesses in the city. The sky has not fallen yet and it remains to be seen if there is less flu because the cooks and waiters aren't coughing in your $30 tech worker lunch.

Try duplicating Silicon Valley, United States.

If the US were some magical recipe for innovation and entrepreneurship, then I would expect Silicon Valleys to pop up in every major metropolitan area. Certainly, if you think that the world is big enough to support more than one if only the laws changed, then it's not much of a stretch to think that the US could too.

Perhaps New York would be a good choice. It's on the coast, at a similar latitude. It has a large, educated and diverse population. It's got access to oodles of financial capital (probably more than the Bay Area). It has the same federal laws and (I presume) similar state and municipal laws.

Why aren't tech giants popping up in New York just as much as the Bay Area?

Edit to clarify my point:

This leads to one of two conclusions: either the US is not so exceptional and Silicon Valley is an historical accident, or the world is not big enough for more than one. In either case it doesn't make sense to accuse the rest of the world of dropping the torch of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Silicon Valley and New York or any place in the US are in the same country. Its much easier for entrepreneurs to move to Bay Area and work on their projects than stay in their home town and try to duplicate it. So the reason I think there exist only one Silicon Valley in the US is less friction to move there. While citizens of other countries have very high friction (visa, culture etc) to move to Silicon Valley. So yes I believe if you can make your country's laws entrepreneur friendly you can too create something equivalent to SV. But the laws don't exist independently, they are mere reflection of the values and culture of the country.

Of ALL the things that are unique about this country, the idea that having pathetically low vacation days is a contributor is ridiculous.

My point is that low vacation days is a symptom of capitalism which has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Have you ever considered that vacation might not even be possible without capitalism? After all, how else would employers allocate capital to make up for the employee's absence, and the employee allocate savings to make up for the additional costs of travel and lodging? I suppose a central planner could allocate these limited resources, but history has adequately demonstrated individuals and freely associating groups are much better suited for that task.

Again this is not a particularly useful comment. It prioritises one metric ('startups' and some undefined notion of 'innovastion') over all others.

The 'Europe' you are talking about is characterised by much lower levels of violence/crime and poverty than the United States. One could argue that these are more important metrics.

But in either case, the argument deserves more than the jingoistic rebuttal you offered.

And you're saying that there is a right answer?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com