
Sweden Is a Tech Superstar from the North - henrik_w
http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/26/sweden-is-a-tech-superstar-from-the-north/
======
jernfrost
As a Norwegian I know I am supposed to say something nasty about Sweden, but
hey Go Sweden! Good job! They earned it, they have gone through a long
difficult time of some tough changes. Almost a generation of young Swedes have
ended up working in Norway due to the difficult times in the past. But now
with the oil price crash and Swedish tech sector so hot, it might look like
things are going to go in reverse.

Anyway it is great to be able to show the world that high tax welfare states,
like the Nordic ones can be just as innovative if not more than the free
wheeling capitalist ones.

I think there is positive message here that says you can be nice to your
people and still have a strong, innovative and growing economy.

~~~
adventured
Sweden's recent good years are courtesy of substantial pro-market reforms they
made after several lost decades in which their over-sized welfare state had
caused stagnation.

Don't take my word for it, here's their recent finance minister explaining
what they did and why:

"Like many societies, we went too far in our welfare-state ambitions" ... "If
you’re working yourselves upwards in taxes and deficits, we’re working
ourselves downwards"

[http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0803/international-
invest-...](http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0803/international-invest-guide-
obama-sweden-public-downsizing.html)

[2001] "By 1991 the voters had had enough. They threw out the Social Democrats
for the first time since the war and installed Carl Bildt’s Conservative
government. Bildt set about liberalizing important state-monopolized or
dominated markets, notably telecommunications and banking. As competition in
telecoms cut telephone and internet access charges, Sweden became a hotbed of
technology experimentation, with some of the highest penetration rates for
mobile phones and internet access."

"Bildt cut back Sweden’s confiscatory taxes. His 1991 tax reform package
capped national taxes on personal income at about 50%; before 1991, rates
could go above 90%. Bildt’s tax reform also established capital gains,
dividend and net interest income as special income categories, taxable at 30%.
Corporate income tax: 28%."

[http://www.forbes.com/global/2001/0319/034.html](http://www.forbes.com/global/2001/0319/034.html)

That said, I'm not aware of any free-wheeling Capitalist nations except
perhaps Singapore. The US for example is a highly regulated welfare state with
upper-mid tier taxation among nations.

Meanwhile, Finland is in a depression [1][2][3], with their economy shrinking
year after year, while they refuse to cut their own stagnation-causing over-
bearing welfare state.

[1] [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/12001895/Finlands-
depress...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/12001895/Finlands-depression-
is-the-final-indictment-of-Europes-monetary-union.html)

[2]
[http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/35c8560c-c62f-11e4-add0-00144...](http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/35c8560c-c62f-11e4-add0-00144feab7de.html)

[3] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/the-new-
si...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/the-new-sick-man-of-
europe-has-an-aaa-credit-rating)

~~~
alkonaut
> Meanwhile, Finland is in a depression [1][2][3], with their economy
> shrinking year after year, while they refuse to cut their own stagnation-
> causing over-bearing welfare state.

Finland and Sweden make the perfect natural experiment: one entered the Euro
and can't set their own interest rates, the other did not.

I don't think Finlands welfare state is the cause of stagnation, but they will
have to cut it none the less. Finlands slump grew into a depression mostly
because they are tied to the same interest rates as a number of other
countries, which is the great failure of the Euro experiment.

~~~
nickik
I generally agree with you, montary policy dominates (I would argue that you
take to narrow of a view calling it "setting interest rates" but thats a
different subject).

However I think long term suppy side difficulties do have an impact. Finland
is worse of then one would expect purly based on that.

------
shalmanese
"Stockholm has produced more unicorns per capita than any other city in the
world"

I don't know where this fact was sourced from and why it keeps on getting
repeated but it's obviously not true. According to
[http://fortune.com/unicorns/](http://fortune.com/unicorns/), Sweden currently
has 2 unicorns, Spotify and Klarna. Add in Skype, Minecraft and Candy Crush
Saga as unicorns that have exited and you're up to 5.

In contrast, San Francisco alone has 34 with more in the greater Bay Area.

~~~
sandstrom
The per capita part is key. Sweden's population is 1/35 of the US.

(I haven't checked the numbers, you may still be right, but I the claim
doesn't sound unreasonable)

~~~
shalmanese
The metric is per city.

------
dosshell
If it gets dark outside at 6pm and you have nothing todo, you learn how to use
the computer the government gave your parents a discount on. Almost everyone,
even really poor people, bought a computer and internet because of this. I
think that's the most brilliant thing our leaders did in the last 20 years.

------
maxdemarzi
Neo4j is out of Malmö Sweden, but we also have offices in Stockholm, London,
San Mateo and about a third of us work from home. We're always hiring.

------
fapjacks
A similar article (though not specifically about technology companies and more
about the economic landscape in Sweden in general) got the cover of The
Economist a year or more ago.

~~~
sandstrom
One of their special reports. Below are three direct links.

LEADER

[http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21571136-politicians-b...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21571136-politicians-
both-right-and-left-could-learn-nordic-countries-next-supermodel)

BUSINESS

[http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21570837-nordic...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21570837-nordic-companies-have-coped-well-globalisation-need-new-blood-
global-niche)

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

[http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21570834-nordic...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21570834-nordic-region-becoming-hothouse-entrepreneurship-if-doubt-
innovate)

\---

In this overview (right column; top) all articles from the report are listed,
with links:

[http://www.economist.com/printedition/2013-02-02](http://www.economist.com/printedition/2013-02-02)

------
acchow
Glanced at their deck - Unity? Zendesk? How do they define a Nordic company?

~~~
jernfrost
A company from a Nordic country? Unity and Zendesk are from Denmark another
Nordic country. The Nordics are Scandinavia + Finland and Iceland.

~~~
acchow
So Facebook is a Massachusetts company?

My point is, when a company moves locations and then becomes wildly
successful, one should wonder why its birthplace can't create that success
instead of patting it on its back.

------
chrisper
This is probably why I will work in Europe instead of the US.

