
Young Greek entrepreneurs: 'We are unfazed' - YeGoblynQueenne
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/10/vc-money-pours-into-greek-start-ups.html
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thr34280998
I had some exposure to Greek startup scene and know most companies mentioned
here. Business is doable if your company is registered outside Greece, and
Greek branch is just a shell to pay salaries.

There is talent shortage here. For unqualified office assistant you get
hundred job applicants. But it is very hard to find senior developers. I did a
few job interviews (senior java developer) and offers were comparable to
Budapest. But cost of living is higher.

Business wise it is a nightmare. Tax/business system is changing every a few
months. New rules must be implemented within weeks... There are often strikes
(its just like a weather forecast). Greek employers want endless paperwork of
degrees and certificates... Dont underestimate this side of things, post
soviet countries have real motivations to change, but Greece is just adding
more paperwork.

Bankruptcy is the only way Greece can be saved at this point. Troika wants to
raise taxes indefinitely to the point of revolution, and Greek state has so
much pension/social obligations it is unsustainable.

~~~
kbody
Up until the last line I was with you. But those are separate things.

Just like any organization it's all about the team/people. The government is
clueless without a proper strategy and most of the political scene isn't bold
or capable enough to do major state reforms.

I envy Estonia and Cyprus, they both in a critical time, took bold decisions
that both required great effort and persistence to accomplish their goals.
Greece on the other hand keeps on choosing the short-term seemingly easy way
that ends up -of course- being an illusion.

I believe we had an opportunity to show that we want change, but we the Greek
people keep on failing. I keep losing faith not at the politicians but on the
will and maybe intelligence of the people and after so many years in misery,
it's beyond tiring to see almost no progress and in some cases steps back. The
populism and having a majority of weak politicians is killing this country.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "I envy Estonia and Cyprus, they both in a critical time, took bold
> decisions that both required great effort and persistence to accomplish
> their goals."

I don't know about Estonia, but if I remember correctly Cyprus' solution was a
'bail in' (i.e. using the private savings of its citizens to bail out the
banks). Couldn't they have found a better solution than that, like, for
instance, guaranteeing the savings of their citizens with an asset freeze and
letting the failing companies fail?

~~~
pjc50
_private savings of its citizens_

Quite a lot of the people who had savings in Cyprus over the €100,000
uninsured threshold were _not_ citizens, but foreigners parking their money in
Cyprus as a tax haven. It's still a tax haven: [http://qz.com/178114/what-
russian-money-sloshing-back-to-cyp...](http://qz.com/178114/what-russian-
money-sloshing-back-to-cyprus-teaches-us-about-tax-havens/)

(Not all of them though, some of it was business working capital!)

Asset freeze would not have helped; the whole problem is that a bank with e.g.
€1bn in deposits (liabilities) whose loan business collapses ends up with
_less than_ €1bn in assets. There is no way to 'pay all the depositors and let
the company fail' other than injecting money from outside. In the case of
Cyprus having domestic taxpayers pay for non-domestic non-taxpayers to be made
whole would be .. unpopular.

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pjmlp
If I am allowed to do some PR, Nessos with their MBrace project is a very cool
Greek company.

[http://www.nessos.gr/](http://www.nessos.gr/)

[http://mbrace.io/](http://mbrace.io/)

A good example of F# in production.

~~~
Aeolos
Colour me surprised! I did an interview with those guys and it was a breath of
fresh air.

