
Beyond Spotify and iZettle: How Sweden became Europe’s capital of startup exits - imartin2k
https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/07/beyond-spotify-and-izettle-how-sweden-became-europes-capital-of-startup-exits/
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JumpCrisscross
Let me contrast two European business experiences from the past year.

One, very recently, from Paris. Terms of a deal agreed on. But the investor
wanted to wet sign over a 2-hour lunch. At the end, he couriered the signed
document to his lawyer, to scan and e-mail. The lawyer, unfortunately, didn't
notice it come in before leaving early for the week-end. (He promised he would
have it out first thing on Monday, at which point he e-mailed it to the wrong
person.) Everybody's English is good, but broken, and miscommunications over
e-mail and voice occasionally occur. When complaints came up, the reactions
were in the form of "calm down" or "be realistic" or a counter-complaint.

Second, a few months ago, from Stockholm. Perfect American English. Documents
moved over the weekend. Fast, no-frills dealmaking with a common sense of
commercial values. When complaints arose, a discussion emerged around how we
could work better together.

As a New Yorker, I love doing business in Sweden over almost anywhere else in
Europe. From recent discussions–and statistics–it appears I'm not alone.
Culture matters hugely.

~~~
scraffa
Only problem with Sweden is that eerie feeling of something being too perfect
and those moments, where you scratch the surface and find there is something
evil hiding in there just below it.

Sweden is a weird country. It is so controlled and everything is so straight,
that it almost feels like there are no real humans. I couldn't imagine living
there, if I was one of those people, who don't conform to the worldview as
defined and constructed by the establishment.

~~~
toxik
I think what you see is a culture wherein conforming to the majority idea is
valued (a lot) higher than the individual's ability for self-expression. This
does not mean people don't think differently, the Swedish are notoriously
individualistic, but it does mean that your voice isn't heard as often, and
when it is, it doesn't really seem like it's your voice, but rather it was
agreed upon to be the way forward.

The hyper-individualism, I think, is just the flip side of hyper-
authoritarianism. Swedish people are almost happy to pay taxes, Swedish people
are some of the most active voters in the OECD (82% turnout last election,
let's hope tomorrow's election is no worse!), and Swedish road safety policy
is now a Swedish export.

It is indeed a very unusual combination, but I think it's what happens when
you mix prosperity, democracy, and secularism for a long time. I hope that the
recent waves of misinformation and polarizing media won't ruin it. But it
isn't looking good.

~~~
javiramos
The term for this is the Law of Jante [0]

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)

------
kartan
Flater management helps. I have seen developers telling managers that they
disagree with some requirement or similar in a way that was not possible in
Spain. You will have been fired. Also, the mindset in Spain is that you are
lucky if you have a job and people keeps bad jobs as family and friends will
not understand "why do they complain if they are far better than other
people".

Sweden has been better off economically, and it has a safety net that allows
developers (and other workers) to say NO to very stupid things.

When people ask me why I emigrated to Sweden, the answer is easy. It has a
healthier work culture than most parts of the world. What use is 20% more
salary if I got to live a stressed and miserable life?

~~~
pimmen
I’m actually thinking of moving to Spain from Sweden (born and raised in
Gothenburg) because the real estate market here is absolutely ridiculous and
our personal debts a ticking bomb, and a trip to Spain last year exposed me to
the vibrant tech startup culture fueled by growing demand from Latin America.

Would you say that I’m being foolish? Maybe we could take this discussion
privately.

~~~
nunomdc
Just as a curiosity. Where in Spain?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Not OP, but someone else on HN about 8 months ago [1] suggested Valencia. As
they said, it is lovely, inexpensive, and beautiful (we bought a flat there as
a vacation home).

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15975815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15975815)

~~~
pimmen
Yeah, I was mostly in Andalusia and I thought it was gorgeous so it certainly
has that going for it, but I think I would like bigger cities. Especially
thinking career wise.

(Was very surprised that some Spaniards I met didn’t think Andalusia was
something special but that the spruce filled forests of Sweden was a paradise.
Grass is greener and all that.)

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0xfaded
It wouldn't take much in terms of salaries to corner the "Europeans that
choose not to go to SF" talent market. A $60k salary is still pretty normal
here in Denmark. I'm ex-SV doing my own startup, but I wouldn't take a
salaried position at another company. It will be interesting to see if these
billion dollar exits lead to even slightly more competitive tech salaries.

~~~
msvan
I've always been perplexed by the massive salary rift between Europe and SV.

~~~
ed_balls
You have to normalise by purchasing power and take the quality of life into
account. My 60k salary in Poland gives me similar quality of life like 100k in
Denmark and 140k in SF.

~~~
krakatau1
Yes, that's another abnormal labor market. I'm from Croatia, but I've seen
similar things with colleagues from eastern and central Europe.

IT salaries here are much better than western Europe compared to other
professions and it's not worth migrating.

I've interviewed for jobs in Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Germany and the
highest offer was 75k € for job in Brussels region.

According to online calculators thats 40k take home salary with housing and
services at least twice as expensive. My 50k € Croatian salary leaves me with
33k net with vastly better quality of life.

Why are western Europe's developers paid so little while living in much richer
countries?

------
escapologybb
If I might ask a more general question about start-ups, particularly people
who have some experience directly with start-ups.

Is the goal of the start-up always to aim for an exit by being bought by
somebody bigger, or do most people start businesses with a view to longevity
but then end up being given offers they can't refuse? Or is it impossible to
generalise? I suspect it's the latter as is usually the way with complicated
human systems.

I always wondered if the point of a start-up was to have a good idea, get a
load of funding to flesh the idea out and then throw your bait into the water
hoping some large company like Google or Apple comes along and snaps up your
IP for an eye watering amount.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. :-)

~~~
mikkelam
If you get funding from investors most of them will want their money back plus
returns. That’s why they invest after all. The exit is how the investors get
their money back

~~~
stefano
They could get their money back by (gasp) getting their share of the company
profits. Which is actually how it usually works outside of SV-like
investments.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _getting their share of the company profits_

Early-stage investors and dividend-collecting investors are not the same. They
might be different parts of a single portfolio, but they're separate
strategies. Switching from one mode to the other is something public markets
are very good at. If a company wants to pay dividends instead of getting
acquired, it should go public and start paying dividends.

------
balfirevic
Whenever I read salary comparisons between Europe and US (or between different
countries in general) I never quite know what to make of the numbers. There
are many different components to it (take-home pay, tax, pension, health
insurance) and, for some reason, only some of those are considered your "gross
salary", while other are considered to be "paid by employers" (which is pretty
nonsensical distinction).

Anyway, for this to not just be a rant, I'll give you a break-down of what is
considered a very good salary for developers in Croatia, an EU country (I took
a nice round number of 15000 croatian KN for take-home monthly pay). Junior
developer salaries can be half of that (even less in some companies). Take
note that Croatia is doing pretty bad economically. For reference, average
take-home monthly salary is around 970 USD (median is around 800 USD). All
numbers are for monthly salary, in US dollars.

Take home pay - 2351,10 USD

Pension contributon for current retirees - 570,88 USD

Personal pension - 190,29 USD

Country tax - 587,77 USD

Local tax - 105,80 USD

Health insurance - 570,88 USD

Employment insurance - 64,70 USD

Work injury insurance - 19,03 USD

\----------------

Total cost for employer - 4460,44 USD

Out of these, take home pay, personal pension and health insurance could be
considered you own pay and not some form of tax (total monthly - 3112,26 USD).
That being said, health care is pretty bad (some stuff is decent) and no young
person expects their personal pension fund to survive until retirement
(government controls the pension investment funds). Also, education is mostly
free but also not that great.

Yearly numbers:

Take home pay - 28213,17 USD

Take home pay with personal pension and health insurance - 37347,18 USD

Total cost for employer - 53525,32 USD

As a side note, first five items from the above list are considered your
"gross salary" by law, while the last three (health, employment and work
injury insurance) are considered to be "paid by employer".

I wonder how this compares to other countries.

------
bogomipz
The Spotify cofounders themselves expressed doubts about the viability of
Stockholm for startups though.[1]

[1] [https://money.cnn.com/2016/04/13/news/companies/spotify-
swed...](https://money.cnn.com/2016/04/13/news/companies/spotify-sweden-
stockholm-new-york/index.html)

