Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers?

Re:Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers? by izacus on Friday November 27, 2020 @01:20PM (#25231247)

Exactly. It's an amazing place to live, has good tech scene, but it's not Silicon Valley. Also the economic focus is completely different - they focus on small enterprises and medium sized businesses which form a significantly more resilient economy (there's a reason why Switzerland did rather well in this pandemic).

Asking why the Swiss don't invest in same industries like Californians do would be like asking Morrocans why they don't fund an Alpine ski jumping team.

It's a fundamentally different focus - is that so hard to understand to people living in the Valley? That not all economies see the value in javascript webpages?

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Re:Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers? by LargoLasskhyfv on Saturday November 28, 2020 @12:42AM (#25235566)

I feel that analogy is wrong somehow, because:

https://www.skiresort.info/ski-resort/oukaimeden/

They could, and maybe they should :)

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Re:Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers? by Rochus on Friday November 27, 2020 @03:30PM (#25232308)

> they focus on small enterprises and medium sized businesses

Some of the largest companies have emerged in Switzerland.

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Re:Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers? by Rochus on Friday November 27, 2020 @06:25PM (#25233497)

For the sceptics: Nestlé, Roche, Novartis, BBC (now ABB), but also Swatch, Syngenta, Schindler, Logitech, Sonova, Ypsomed, etc. just to name a few.

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Re:Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers? by pjmlp on Saturday November 28, 2020 @04:38AM (#25236546)

Indeed, and working at any of them will teach how it feels like working on a place where software development is a cost center, not the business that they care to sell.

Forget about doing Bonsais of quality following the latest trends of every software conference, what matters is the physical product that gets out of the assembly line.

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Re:Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers? by Rochus on Saturday November 28, 2020 @05:15AM (#25236705)

> and working at any of them will teach how it feels like working on a place where software development is a cost center, not the business that they care to sell.

And have you worked for them? I have for some. For those who develop software it is an essential tool and the software developers closely work with natural scientists and are as appreciated as any other team member. On the other hand you won't have problems finding an American software company where developers are held in cubicles with no daylight.

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Re:Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers? by pjmlp on Saturday November 28, 2020 @05:26AM (#25236755)

I have, but not for that list in particular.

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Re:Switzerland – Europe's Silicon Valley for Developers? by rjsw on Friday November 27, 2020 @01:45PM (#25231493)

> like asking Morrocans why they don't fund an Alpine ski jumping team.

Ski jumping is a Nordic event not Alpine. There are a fair number of Morrocan Alpine ski racers.

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