Re:Strapped startup declines acquihire, Apple poaches key en...
by 908B64B197 on Monday October 05, 2020 @02:51PM
(#24690734)
I see several factors here.
There's non-compete in most places that makes it hard for employees to switch jobs. Since there's none in California, the strategy to retain employees is to tie their income to equity in the company. That creates a moat around hiring engineers from a competitor (you'll have to match the equity if you want to hire!). There's also labor laws that makes it hard to fire someone; these incentivize the business owner to pay less so that a bad hire has less of an effect. There's also, in a lot of EU countries, so much taxes that it's helpful early one to hire specialized accountants just to claim all the possible subsidies for the business. It can be worth it for businesses with 5 employees. Adding that extra salary will leave less for the early employees.
There's also the fact that some companies simply don't see the value of software, at all. They have a software division but don't treat it as the core of their business. In their mind, it's simply a tool for the business (despite the whole business depending on it sometimes!). So they treat software as a cost center and that drives engineers to tech-focused companies that are clustered in the US. Prime example of that is banking, where no matter how much revenue is directly tied to software, it's still considered a cost center.
Finally, in some market there's simply a talent gap. Ontario, and Canada, strikes me as one since I've met a few Canadians who jumped the border to Silicon Valley but never actually met a Silicon Valley engineer moving up north.
There's non-compete in most places that makes it hard for employees to switch jobs. Since there's none in California, the strategy to retain employees is to tie their income to equity in the company. That creates a moat around hiring engineers from a competitor (you'll have to match the equity if you want to hire!). There's also labor laws that makes it hard to fire someone; these incentivize the business owner to pay less so that a bad hire has less of an effect. There's also, in a lot of EU countries, so much taxes that it's helpful early one to hire specialized accountants just to claim all the possible subsidies for the business. It can be worth it for businesses with 5 employees. Adding that extra salary will leave less for the early employees.
There's also the fact that some companies simply don't see the value of software, at all. They have a software division but don't treat it as the core of their business. In their mind, it's simply a tool for the business (despite the whole business depending on it sometimes!). So they treat software as a cost center and that drives engineers to tech-focused companies that are clustered in the US. Prime example of that is banking, where no matter how much revenue is directly tied to software, it's still considered a cost center.
Finally, in some market there's simply a talent gap. Ontario, and Canada, strikes me as one since I've met a few Canadians who jumped the border to Silicon Valley but never actually met a Silicon Valley engineer moving up north.