How Sweden became the Silicon Valley of Europe

Re:How Sweden became the Silicon Valley of Europe by arthur_sav on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @06:43AM (#28140378)

I think the biggest issue with Sweden is attracting talent.

Some issues:

Payouts for top talent are not great. Compared to US, you rarely get stock based comp or salaries higher than $80k/y and even then most of it goes to taxes. That is not unique with Sweden though, it's EU in general.

Second. The weather is not for everyone.

IMO that puts a cap in the potential growth as only the top companies can attract and pay the talent (Spotify Klarna, iZettle etc.).

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Re:How Sweden became the Silicon Valley of Europe by alkonaut on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @06:51AM (#28140441)

The weather is definitely not for everyone. For the whole package to be attractive I think you need to weigh in the whole package with long holidays, parental leave, walkable cities, good work-life balance, cheap childcare and so on. It’s definitely not the place to go to work 3 years then buy a sports car. It’s a good place to go if you feel ready to switch a pay cut for a different style of life if you just had a couple of young kids perhaps.

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Re:How Sweden became the Silicon Valley of Europe by zibzab on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @07:09AM (#28140561)

> walkable cities

I know this is not what you meant, but I have a story about city walks for you:

Got lost and had to walk alone in downtown DC one late night. Made me decide to not take that job in NY and move back to Europe.

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Re:How Sweden became the Silicon Valley of Europe by ciabattabread on Thursday August 12, 2021 @08:23AM (#28155331)

So if you had gotten lost in actual NY, say, in Greenwich Village or another tourist-friendly rich neighborhood, you would’ve stayed?

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Re:How Sweden became the Silicon Valley of Europe by zibzab on Thursday August 12, 2021 @11:11AM (#28157313)

Well, you don't always get to choose the area you get lost in :)

Source: got lost in another country a month later. In a city with the highest homicide rate in the world.

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Re:How Sweden became the Silicon Valley of Europe by arthur_sav on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @02:28PM (#28145795)

Exactly my point.

This lifestyle suits a chill family life, not "Let's freaking build the next facebook and code 24/7".

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Re:How Sweden became the Silicon Valley of Europe by hogFeast on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @03:21PM (#28146456)

I interviewed at somewhere that iZettle acqui-hired...salary terrible, no benefits, next-level bad interview process (they had someone from HR doing technical interviews, I asked why, the HR person actually said they didn't know). Almost every other local tech company, admittedly not a backwater, paid higher.

In my experience, generally, there isn't a straight read from "company you have heard about" to "has any clue what they are doing".

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