It's very difficult to actually grow a company in a country like Sweden because of the regulations and taxes you are required to pay after a certain amount of employees.
I would rather pay employees a living wage as part of a sustainable business than deal with the hypergrowth VC bullshit that destroys entire market segments with nothing to show for it except ruined lives after the startups finally implode.
There will be no sustainable business. Regulations and taxes strangle your business before it gets to that point.
If you look at the business landscape of Sweden, it mostly consists of large multinational corporations with bases outside of Sweden (IKEA is a good example of this) and government jobs.
It doesn't leave much room for individuals wanting to start a business and actually having an chance at success.
It's a country of 10 millions that builds jet fighters (Gripen), 5G technology with Ericsson, Minecraft, etc.
The current NASDAQ trading platform was also developed in Sweden.
I would say they're doing very well when it comes to business and technology.
All government funded operations except Minecraft..which is now owned by Microsoft.
Funny..the Original owner of Minecraft never stayed in Sweden with his billion dollars.
My point still stands: you can start a company in Sweden, but will never be able to grow it to sustainable levels unless you incorporate elsewhere (or get purchased).
All examples I've seen so far have only helped prove my point.
King.com is incorporated in Malta. Presumably to get around taxes in Sweden and Spotify is incorporated in Luxomburg. Stop changing the topic.
My point is that you can't grow a company in Sweden and every single example you have just given me are companies that left Sweden after growing to a certain stage.
I think I'm done arguing my point because facts and data dont seem to matter here and it's funny how such a seemingly intelligent community can be utterly blinded by politics.
The reality is that I would never incorporate a company in Sweden and incorporating pretty much anywhere else on earth would give me an advantage.
Again: as ANY big company looking to evade taxes, this is not a fault of Sweden.
Why are most SV tech companies in the US incorporated in Delaware? Is it because California sucks and should lower their tax rates or employer obligations to the bottom of the pit that Delaware created?
You never replied my other comment about companies that are still incorporated in Sweden such as Volvo, Electrolux, etc., so you can be done as much as you want peddling your point of view, it doesn't make it right.
Edit: checking your comment history tells me that you call what Bernie Sanders is pushing for as "socialism" and you use that as an excuse to vote for Trump 2020, come on.
You made my point again. If you look at the wikipedia page, it's not incorporated in Sweden. It's a multinational corporation with an office in Sweden.
It's literally headquartered in Stockholm. That's like saying a Silicon Valley startup isn't actually in California or subject to California's laws solely because it incorporated in Delaware.
So are many multinationals, for tax reasons (not labor law reasons) related to something called IP migration that let corporations evade taxes on local income.
Labor laws affect a company if they have employees in that jurisdiction. It doesn't matter if your HQ is somewhere else.
HQ is still here in Stockholm, it grew from Sweden up to the point it was incorporated outside of Sweden to go public, because shareholders will be moaning about it. It is still a very Swedish company, paying taxes in Sweden.
Incorporated outside of Sweden is the key here. It seems people are downvoting me because they dont want to hear the truth...but other commenters keep making my point quite nicely.
Incorporating outside of Sweden allows big companies to enjoy tax benefits and then hire Engineers from Sweden at an average of 50,000USD to 68,0000USD (these numbers can easily be found on Google).
They get lower taxes, a cheap labor pool, and the company isn't limited through draconian taxes and regulations, it only has to deal with it at a satellite office. It's a win-win.
Now show me a company that's large, started in Sweden, and is still in Sweden many years later.
But it's the same exact thing that any larger Western corporation do when they become multinational, be it an American, British, Australian, they go out and create multiple tax schemes to avoid their duties, it's not a matter of Sweden specifically having high taxes or not, it's a matter of a systemic issue for tax evasion that large corporations can afford to abuse.
Electrolux, Ericsson and Volvo are still incorporated and have their HQs in Sweden.
Now, by moving the goalposts, you lost your initial argument. Sure it might be the case that Swedish companies, at some stage of their growth, tend to incorporate in another country.
Still the benefits Swedish employees experience don't seem to be in the way of getting a startup successfully up and running in Sweden.
This was my point all along. You might be able to start a company in Sweden, but you won't be able to grow it there because of taxes and regulations.
It's funny how it took so long for someone to finally admit that I'm correct instead of being willfully ignorant about the realities of a socialist country like Sweden.
Spotify still pays taxes in Sweden. Incorporating doesn't let you avoid income taxes in your HQ country or avoid labor laws, it just lets you play around with the taxes you pay on your foreign income.
No, it is because tax evasion using international ports to hoard wealth is a thing, because other countries don't have any will to disallow that when they can earn free tax money from companies trying to evade their duties.
It is a race to the bottom with tax schemes, not the fault of Sweden to try to uphold its values and ways of living. So far it has worked pretty well, tell me more how it can be improved because as a country of 10m people I'd say it is pretty impressive.
Even more if your whining about taxes is so real, then you should come teach the Swedish government how to do it right and better because we are losing a lot of money it seems...
One company said I had to make a video of myself..and then the final interview would be singing a song of my choice in front of the entire company through video conferencing.
This was for a software engineer position. I didn't even bother going on the interview. I feel like the purpose was to see what they could get you to do.
I've made a career out of working for and with smaller companies. My paycheck is very good and I'm always learning new/different technologies.
Most smaller companies dont have these sorts of interviews. Most of mine have been technical in nature and some involved take-home projects, which were then discussed.
I've also avoided the dreaded non-compete clauses that FAANG employees need to sign and work on my own side-business with no issues.
Presumably he meant IP ownership or something along those lines.
To his other point, take homes have their own problems, especially for anything beyond the most trivial 2-3 task. That said, there are certainly many jobs where you want to see concrete evidence of ability. I'm not going to hire someone for a job that involves a lot of writing without seeing some writing samples. And if they don't have anything they can show me for confidentiality reasons, I'm going to ask them to produce something.
Bernie Sanders has advocated for close to 100% taxes for top brackets in the past.
None of the Bernie Bros on this site either want to believe it or to admit it.
The shitty behavior of the Democrats and the push to full blown Socialism has pretty much forced me, my family, and all of my friends to vote Trump in 2020.
Part of being a democracy is that one person doesn’t hold absolute power to set tax rates or switch us over to “socialism.” Why do you think electing Bernie is suddenly going to get all the other congressional representatives to go along with completely changing the way government and economy work?
You'd only see tax increases if you make more than $32 million per year. I'd imagine that none of you, your family, or your friends have been "forced" to vote Trump in 2020 - you're just afraid to admit you support him, and are trying to pin the blame on Bernie.
Would you rather have hundreds of billions of dollars going into the military-industrial complex than going to healthcare and education? You didn't bring up any concerns about how Trump would pay for his military budget. Bernie has already laid out his plan for an extreme wealth tax, which would raise $4 trillion over the next decade, more than enough to pay for his proposals (and wouldn't raise taxes on anyone with a net worth of less than $32M)
Yes. Healthcare doesn't need another middleman Jacking up the prices.
The extreme wealth tax, will only push extremely wealthy people out of the US and the middle class will suffer once again.
I also don't believe the tax increases only on millionaires and the total you are showing for healthcare is much less than half of what's actually projected.
Bernie already said that most people will be getting tax increases.
He's also taxing Wallstreet, which will only reduce the 401ks and retirement funds of the middle class.
Economic destruction, so everyone is on a shittier playing field is his end goal and really the only end result of extreme Socialist policies.
On the contrary, the Chinese government has removed many of the tariffs because their economy is tanking as a result of the recent travel restrictions.
Seems like it's more about clamping down on vigorous questioning of the fairness of the blatantly broken voting process:
> Another tool built in-house at the DNC monitors Twitter traffic. On Monday, it'll watch for misinformation about how and where to caucus. Variations of the word "rigged" had been loaded into system when CNN was shown it Saturday — attempts to undermine legitimate vote results using disinformation is something Democrats are watching out for.
Interesting to consider in light of Twitter Safety's new policies announced today:
> Our new rule: You may not deceptively share synthetic or manipulated media that are likely to cause harm. In addition, we may label Tweets containing synthetic and manipulated media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide context.
I think it is now a ploy by candidates/public figures to just dismiss their opponents as bots. I am in no doubt that there are bots out there sewing mistrust and chaos but accusing someones followers of being "Russian bots" is being weaponized.
> ____ salaries are less than half than in the US for software developer roles.
You can fill the blank with essentially any non-US location and it would remain correct. Nowhere in the world pays tech workers as much as US does, in absolute or relative terms. Most of the world, Canada included, has priced developer salaries close to engineer salaries. The US is the sole exception where developer salaries are priced close to doctor salaries. Let's not pretend Canada is the outlier—US is.
I am not saying US is wrong and the rest of the world is right or vice versa in figuring out the correct price for tech work. I am just saying that there are two schools of thought, one the US, the other the rest of the world, and I am sure both have good reasons for their approach.
There are no two schools of thought. There are no two "approaches". It's simple economics. Companies don't decide pay X, they have to pay X. In US, there are genuine software products company and software products happen to scale naturally and make a shit ton of money. In most other countries, software engineers are hired merely as IT guys for "main" businesses like insurance or government. They don't scale.
>The US is the sole exception where developer salaries are priced close to doctor salaries.
This is incorrect. Good software developers in Poland, and to some extent the Ukraine, are enjoying salaries comparable with doctors there, if not more.
How much would a good developer make? I'm looking to move to Sweden from Australia, and from what I saw there was a lot of equality in wages/ compression towards a mean for most fields.
Like in Norway, it seemed like SEs made 1.5-2x what a retail worker would make. Makes for a happier society maybe, but I do want to live a fairly lavish life if possible, and Australia definitely allows for that!
That's what I meant by relative terms. Relative to cost of living, American tech workers get paid much more than any tech workers anywhere else in the world. American tech workers get paid close to American doctors and get to enjoy doctor-level prosperity. Canadian doctors, in relative terms, get paid about as much as American doctors and get to enjoy similar levels of prosperity as them. Canadian tech workers, however, don't get paid as much as Canadian doctors, but as much as Canadian engineers, so they get to enjoy a lower level of prosperity. Canadian engineers get paid, in relative terms, close to American engineers.
Anywhere in the world, with the exception of the US, this is the case. US the outlier. Whether it proves the be the outlier that reverts to mean or one that the mean reverts to remains to be seen. I personally think it would be the former. But I don't have strong opinions on it one way or another.
> Canadian doctors, in relative terms, get paid about as much as American doctors and get to enjoy similar levels of prosperity as them.
No they don't.
> Canadian doctors still make dramatically less than U.S. counterparts: study
> Despite recent fee hikes, Canadian doctors still lag dramatically far behind their American counterparts in income, according to a new study that also underscores the wide pay gap in both countries between front-line “primary-care” physicians and much-wealthier surgical specialists.
> Anywhere in the world, with the exception of the US, this is the case. US the outlier. Whether it proves the be the outlier that reverts to mean or one that the mean reverts to remains to be seen.
The US has been the richest country in the world in terms of average individual consumption (not income, some small countries like Norway have higher incomes) since independence and before. It's been at the technological frontier since the 1940's at the latest, and very close to it its entire existence. There may be mean reversion in the long run but given the greater share of young people, the best higher education system in the world and a relatively open immigration system there's little reason to believe it'll change anytime soon.
> The US has been the richest country in the world in terms of average individual consumption (not income, some small countries like Norway have higher incomes) since independence and before
You’re wrong. After the civil war it’s arguable and it’s certainly true after 1900, but American policies favoring agriculture (thanks to romantic notions from Jefferson among others) retarded widespread industrialization in the US until much later than the UK, France, and Germany.
>Canadian doctors, in relative terms, get paid about as much as American doctors and get to enjoy similar levels of prosperity as them.
This is again incorrect. Canada has a significant issue with brain drain in medicine as grads, like their CS counterparts, head south for better salaries and a better quality of life.
Actually, not at all. It's just a myth from naive tech workers.
Googlers might get 200k but doctors routinely break 400k. Doctors are quite ahead even when you factor in 100k in RSU (which not everybody gets and past stock performance is not an indicator of future performance).
Noting it's H1B data so 10-20% below local salaries. Plus doctors can work anywhere in the country, not just in the city where there is google and facebook.
All the high paying doctors are usually specialists in some hard to break into specialty. Your average family doctor is probably making somewhere in the $200k while they bust their asses paying of $300k in student loans.
If you can land a FAANG job, your total comp (after education costs) will outstrip all but the highest paid physicians.
To be fair you can rent a studio in a luxury condo (with doorman, pool, gym, curtain glass walls, etc.) for the price of a bunk bed in SF, around USD1600/mo. I know, I've done both.
Real estate is expensive to buy and salaries are low, though, that's for sure.
>With the high cost of living, I don't know how anyone can live there.
what's the cost of healthcare, childcare, and transportation like in Canada? I know this discussion personally because I've seen it play out between European and American tech jobs and I've seen a lot of difference in cost for raising children.
In Germany or the Netherlands good public education, kindergardens and so on set you back a few hundred bucks a month, I've seen Americans pay tens of thousands per year. Same for two cars that you don't need if you're an urban resident near a tech hub.
Rent control.
When you compare income vs rent that you see on sites like Kijiji or Padmapper it shows rent for a new tenancy, but that's not what the locals pay.
