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Re:Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosyste... by zalew on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @11:14AM (#4814787)
> This gives Scandinavians and Dutch entrepreneurs an edge compared to most other European entrepreneurs

how? the world's ranking of english proficiency is dominated by Europeans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index#2... I am pretty sure among the IT branch the scores are much higher although you don't need perfect language skills to understand technical concepts.

Re:Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosyste... by lambda on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @11:45AM (#4814970)
You do notice that all of the countries listed as "Very High Proficiency" are Scandinavian or Dutch, just like he said, right? And many of the continental European countries, like France, Italy, and Spain are listed at only "Moderate Proficiency."

While you don't need perfect language skills to understand technical concepts, not being at full proficiency can be a barrier. I know that when I help people out on StackOverflow, one of the main barriers to answering some people's questions is that they can't formulate it in English in a way that I can understand. Proficiency is a two-way thing; besides being able to read English, you need to be able to speak and write it well to fully interact with the technical community.

Re:Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosyste... by zalew on Wednesday November 21, 2012 @12:40PM (#4815272)
> You do notice that all of the countries listed as "Very High Proficiency" are Scandinavian or Dutch, just like he said, right?

You do notice they aren't recently startup-famous in any way, right?

Re:Why tiny Stockholm has the most stunning startup ecosyste... by mcpie on Thursday November 22, 2012 @06:29AM (#4818394)
You do need language skills for the marketing :)