
Forging a Swiss Lens: How Zurich's tech scene changed my view of SV - msd81257
https://nextrends.swissnexsanfrancisco.org/forging-a-swiss-lens-3-ways-zurich-changed-my-view-of-silicon-valley/
======
timewarrior
I have been involved with Swissnex and been advising Swiss startups for some
time. I also go to Switzerland every other year if not every year and meet
with startups there.

Things I noticed:

1\. Incredibly smart people.

2\. Behind Silicon Valley on best technology and product building practices by
at least 2 years.

3\. Great work ethic and social responsibility.

4\. Do not have world conquering ambitions - which kinda works against them.
One of the founders was talking about an idea and was being very conservative
with market size estimates. So I suggested to him - Think about how you can
conquer the world. And his reply was - We are Swiss, we don't conquer the
world.

I think one of the biggest challenge for Switzerland tech scene is that there
is no viable immigration path for a non-EU citizen. Even after decades, you
might not get a citizenship [1]. It makes it difficult for them to attract
talent from outside, especially those with Silicon Valley experience.

Not that US is any better for Indians. Based on current estimates, if someone
from India applies for an employment based Green Card now, they might get it
in 70 years. And life is a pain because you have to do a lot of paperwork
throughout.

If there was a viable immigration path in Switzerland, I would move there
tomorrow!

1\. [https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/naturalisation-
controversy_amer...](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/naturalisation-
controversy_american-professor-denied-swiss-citizenship/41075124)

~~~
Voloskaya
> Do not have world conquering ambitions - which kinda works against them.

Works against them towards what? Not wanting to conquer the world is
legitimate, I don't see why everyone should absolutely want to become the next
Bezos.

~~~
timewarrior
Imagine you build an AirBnb like solution limited to Switzerland market.
AirBnb will eventually come and eat your lunch.

In today's globalized world - if you are not one of the bigger players and do
not have moat (govt contract, some other kind of exclusivity) - other bigger
players will come after you.

~~~
soperj
You say that, but there are cases even in small countries where this didn't
happen. Like trademe in New Zealand which was just like ebay. Ebay still
hasn't become the major place to do auctions in new zealand.

~~~
phil21
I think you just defined a moat. A tiny low population country that is one of
the most hard to reach major countries in the world kind of proves that point,
does it not?

Basically no one is competing in NZ because no one cares about the NZ market.
It's simply not large enough. Until it is.

I _do_ think there is a _lot_ to be said about not trying to build these giant
world-eating companies that require you selling your soul to the devil.
Companies like Craigslist I have a ton of respect for. A lifestyle company
should be the dream of most, not the crazy disconnected-from-reality VC world
we're seeing today.

I simply think anyone betting on their market being small enough to fly under
the radar is making a very tenuous bargain.

~~~
gambiting
In Poland eBay didn't make a single dent because Allegro is such a huge
beast(and in my opinion is actually better than Ebay is many many ways), and
that's in a country of 40+ million people. Even facebook struggled at the
beginning because everyone had a profile on nk.pl so why bother with a new
service. Even Amazon still doesn't have a presence, because again, Allegro is
the best destination for online shopping.

------
derriz
The point that public transport can be more efficient than private does not
necessarily reflect public investment although the Swiss do invest in
subsidizing transport infrastructure. But what's suprising is that much of the
public transport system is owned and operated by private (profit-motivated)
companies. I think there are about 10 different companies operating what looks
like a unified public transport system in Zürich for example. But you'd never
know this because of the integrated ticketing.

Healthcare is very similar - a blend of private (mostly) and public provision
but with government regulated insurance market. However it's not exactly
efficient - I think an exceptional proportion of national income is spent on
health care (i.e. close to US levels and way higher than European norms) even
if it doesn't appear on your insurance bill every month.

But yes I love that "adjustable work schedules" are the norm here and I think
Switzerland is fairly exceptional from what I know in that regard. I work 80%
(4 days a week) as do some other collegues and there is no perception that
this indicates a lack of dedication to the start-up or that we should be
considered less than committed. It's difficult to describe how much this has
improved my lifestyle.

~~~
skrebbel
> But yes I love that "adjustable work schedules" are the norm here and I
> think Switzerland is fairly exceptional from what I know in that regard.

Yeah it's cool. It's becoming increasingly common in the Netherlands. It has
been common for moms for a long time (somehow it's nearly always the women who
work less when they get kids, we're bafflingly traditional that way), but it's
slowly beginning to be acceptable elsewhere too.

7 years ago when I worked at a software agency, a colleague who became dad
wanted to go to 80%. His bosses wouldn't take it and he actually ended up
handing in his resignation before our they realized he was serious. They ended
up offering him the job at 80% btw. Now, the same agency has ike 10% of the
workforce at 80%. That's a pretty big culture change in relatively little
time.

~~~
ThePadawan
Having just interviewed at various companies in Zurich, it surprisingly
varies.

I've also heard "Most of our employees work 80%, but if you prefer, you can do
100% as well - just be advised that we find 80% better for work-life-balance."

------
aetherson
Y'know, I once was talking to a hiring manager about my potential job. He said
something about working 10 hour days and often working weekends.

I said, "Great, I don't think this job is for me. I hope you guys do well!"

And then I got another job, and I work 8 (maybe sometimes more like 8.5) hour
days and no weekends. Outside of genuine "we're on fire" operational
catastrophes, which happen like once or twice a year.

I live and work in SF.

~~~
m_mueller
As a Swiss I think you got a healthy attitude. Many Americans seem to think
that they have no power over what's forced up them in the workplace. You're
selling a valuable, sought after and potentially unique good - your expertise.
Don't let BigCorp trample all over you, they _need_ you. Employee retention
rate is a very important metric for any good company - if they don't care
about that it's a big red flag for any potential employee. In fact, IMO
governments should publicly list retention rates of all employers.

~~~
aetherson
I have a lot of sympathy for the idea that this isn't always true. Amazon's
warehouse workers may just not have enough bargaining power to avoid long
hours. Walmart's employees likewise.

But software engineers in the bay area are uniquely sought-after and well-
compensated individuals in a red-hot market. If you don't want to work long
hours, you don't have to, folks. You just have to put that onto the list of
things you're willing to negotiate about (even if you only negotiate by
looking for another job).

~~~
m_mueller
Yes, the bulk of increasingly automatable jobs that require weeks of training
at best are a very different issue. A capitalist system without UBI will look
like a very bleak dystopia soon.

------
msd81257
Hey all! Original author here. Seems like the server might be down. Bumping
@jotaen's comment on the cached link:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0W2gpfw...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0W2gpfw2vT0J:https://nextrends.swissnexsanfrancisco.org/forging-
a-swiss-lens-3-ways-zurich-changed-my-view-of-silicon-
valley&num=1&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

Thanks @jotaen!!! Really appreciate it.

~~~
OxO4
Minor comment: Stanford is $16,329 _per quarter_, not semester.

~~~
m_mueller
_jaw dropped_

------
dekhn
I worked for a major biotech company in Silicon Valley that was part-owned,
then later fully-owned, by a large Swiss pharmaceutical company. Well, it
wasn't really a pharma company so many as a collection of wealthy Swiss
families that maintained cross-investments in each other's pharma companies
because it was a profitable sector. But I digress.

Anyway, every year, the Swiss would send their top IT people to come look at
our IT systems, and ask us questions about how we did things. What software we
ran, how we administrated it, etc. They generally thought we were quite lazy
and lax; noting that our sysadmins were from a wide collection of countries,
one commented "At Roche, we only hire Swiss citizens to administer the SAP
servers."

Later, Roche bought Genentech because it was far more profitable than any
other investment Roche could make, and they generally adopted Genentech's
approach to IT throughout the larger company. Pretty sure the SAP servers are
still administered by Swiss citizens.

~~~
biztos
> "At Roche, we only hire Swiss citizens to administer the SAP servers."

Ex-Genentecher here too, and that quote really surprises me. Maybe it got that
way later, but when I went to Basel in '95 to do some work I found a very
international team. Granted, there were probably more Swiss among the IT guys
than the Pharma people but it was by no means all-Swiss.

The office language was English but the techies spoke a lot of German (and
occasionally Swiss German) among themselves. My impression was not speaking
German would be a disadvantage for IT, but I definitely did not feel like
anybody was discriminating against the non-Swiss. (I speak German but not
Swiss German.)

I wonder if it changed that much, or if you just met some difficult people.

~~~
dekhn
The SAP servers were considered a bit more core to the company's security, I
think.

It's fair to say if there was an exception to that exec's claimed rule, it
would be Germans.

------
jotaen
Server seems crashed, that link works for me:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0W2gpfw...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0W2gpfw2vT0J:https://nextrends.swissnexsanfrancisco.org/forging-
a-swiss-lens-3-ways-zurich-changed-my-view-of-silicon-
valley&num=1&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

------
matttproud
Zürich > Silicon Valley or San Francisco (esp. if you have a family)

Zürich is a great place to work, live, and relax. The people here are also
stupendously awesome.

~~~
workthrowaway27
How easily can a US citizen find work there?

~~~
joe3774
You can get a work visa if a Swiss company wants to hire you for a special
skill or expertise you have. The easier way is probably to start working for a
Swiss company in the US and then let you relocate to Switzerland still working
for that company.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Is is still hard for US citizens to get bank accounts?

~~~
chrisper
FWIW I am not a US citizen but had to fill out an IRS tax form as well when
getting a bank account in Switzerland since I was living in the US for 5
years.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
My understanding is that anyone with a green card has trouble opening a Swiss
account, even if they are Swiss.

------
fuzzieozzie
That lifestyle is possible in SV too .. it's a matter of how you choose
priorities. At www.compilerworks.com we are purposefully bootstrapped to
enable a high quality lifestyle (there are 3 of us in the Bay Area and 5
internationally).

~~~
nextstep
I can work in SV and use great, reliable public transportation to get
everywhere I want in my life, often in under an hour? And I can have 5 weeks
paid vacation per year? I wasn't able to find these things when I lived
there...

~~~
refurb
I agree with the public transport, but I live in SV and get 23 days of paid
vacation plus 13 stat holidays.

~~~
chrisper
Are sick days part of the 23 days?

~~~
refurb
No. 3 sick days on top of vacation.

------
fludlight
> Assigned laundry days are commonplace...My laundry would be done on Friday
> night at 6.

This seems efficient but also very off-putting.

~~~
_nalply
Usually Swiss people find a way around this limitation. Swap laundry time
slots with neighbours, for example.

~~~
danielvinson
I don't understand why would there be a time slot in the first place... do
people not own their own laundry machines in Switzerland?

~~~
joe3774
People who own houses and apartments usually do but rented places often have
shared laundries. In newer buildings every apartment has its own laundry.

------
kgwgk
> My nationality hampered my ability to obtain medical treatment

Why?

~~~
chrisper
Because of this: [https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wissen/medizin-und-
psychologie/...](https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wissen/medizin-und-
psychologie/Das-Unispital-fuerchtet-sich-vor-Amerikanern/story/25955864)

(Sorry it is in German, but here is a translation
[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tagesanzeiger.ch%2Fwissen%2Fmedizin-
und-psychologie%2FDas-Unispital-fuerchtet-sich-vor-
Amerikanern%2Fstory%2F25955864) )

TL;DR: They do not do it because they are afraid of getting sued by Americans.

~~~
samfriedman
When I worked in Zurich for a few months as an American student, I got pretty
sick with mono. I went to an urgent care clinic, had multiple blood tests
done, medication prescribed, and about a half hour consultation with a doctor
(not to mention nurses). Walked out with about a $100 bill.

Blew my mind.

------
romanovcode
Hey, but at least you get paid more in U.S., right?

~~~
electricslpnsld
Zurich pay can eclipse Valley pay. I have friends who went to ETH for grad
school and were getting close to 100k CHF a year. This is _grad school_ \--
the pay goes up from there.

~~~
rconti
Getting paid while in grad school? Or you're saying the pay goes up as you go
from graduate degree to Ph.D?

~~~
chrisseaton
If you aren't getting paid to be in grad school, then that was a hint that
they didn't really want to take you. Any reputable grad school place will be
paying you.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Depends on the country. In New Zealand it's not common to be paid to do post
grad.

