
Announcing Google Research, Europe - FredericJ
https://research.googleblog.com/2016/06/announcing-google-research-europe.html
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Roritharr
This really makes me consider moving my family to Zurich.

Looking back at growing up in Germany/Europe made me really feel disadvantaged
compared to people growing up in more tech friendly environments. I would want
my child to grow up somewhere where technology is not overwhelmingly debated
about in a negative light.

So much good stuff is coming out of ETH that it really seems to be a place
where people talk more enthusiastically about tech in general.

~~~
XCSme
I have actually applied to Google Zurich (but after 10 interviews they didn't
hire me) and studied a bit how the life is there. There are many advantages or
living there, but the cost of life and the fact that most people in Zurich are
immigrants makes it a pretty cold city where it is hard to make friends or
stay for a very long period of time. I think that now your point about "tech
friendly environments" is not relevant anymore, because many countries support
tech companies and offer a lot of grants for programmers and tech-related
activities.

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make3
10 interviews? is that normal for a research job? that feels like a lot

~~~
blub
Apparently Apple, Google & co have so many applicants that they can do
whatever they want. How incompetent can one be at interviewing to need 10 or
20 interviews?!

Soon they'll make candidates crawl through broken glass.

~~~
freyir
> _How incompetent can one be at interviewing to need 10 or 20 interviews_

Yes, after a full day of interviewing and five interviews, presumably preceded
by phone interviews, the people responsible for hiring should be capable of
reaching a decision.

I've found that hiring managers who don't value your time lead to managers who
don't value your time. They say they want to screen for the best and
brightest, but maybe they really want people who are subservient and willing
to jump through hoops.

~~~
koide
It's more likely both. They want good subservient people.

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planetjones
A good sign of commitment by Google to their Zurich office - recently the
Swiss papers had stories of Google looking towards building their London
office, due to limitations in acquiring work permits for staff in Switzerand.
This news somewhat contradicts it; Zurich really is an attractive location for
talent to flock toward.

~~~
spacecowboy_lon
Zurich attractive? - I though it might be Google hedging its bets in the event
of Brexit.

Though Cranfield CIT and half way between Oxford and Cambridge woudl have been
another good choice. - they could even have taken RAF Twinwoods over as a site
for a DC as it has a direct link to the Grid.

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tdaltonc
If they thought that Brexit would have a big impact on their business, they
could just wait a couple weeks to announce anything.

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moondowner
I guess ETH Zurich and EPFL are the reason why Google chose Switzerland
"Europe is home to some of the world’s premier technical universities, making
it an ideal place to build a top-notch research team"

~~~
tomp
I'd guess the main reason is low tax on salaries, and less competition from
finance than e.g. London.

~~~
nuschk
Well, finance takes also a large chunk of Switzerland's GDP and thus is
scooping up many engineers as well. Maybe it's not as pronounced as in London,
but it certainly isn't very easy to hire good engineers here because of all
the banks and hedge funds.

I think google came to Zurich because of EPFL/ETH, the very high living
standard and most of all the rather liberal labor law. It's very easy to fire
someone in Switzerland, compared to the surrounding countries.

~~~
fnsa
I think that Google went to Zurich because an early engineer was from there.

~~~
config_yml
Urs Hölzle (also an ETH alumni), who was googler n°8, but I'm not sure that
was the reason; ;)

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amelius
I would rather see Europe monetize their own tech instead of some US company.

~~~
dharma1
Would be great if the next Google/Facebook/Microsoft was European and HQ'd in
Europe, but it's hard to see that.

ML anecdotes - Schmidhuber makes a point of how LSTM was developed on European
taxpayer's dime. Backpropagation was invented by Esko Linnainmaa (a Finnish
researcher) in the 70s.

Universities or startups can't compete with finance/Google/FB level
compensation, so that's where a lot of the bright minds go.

~~~
Maro
I also used to think that, and in the long-term I agree, and I have (i) done a
startup in Europe (failed for lacking of funding) (ii) worked for a European
startup (Prezi). But right now I work for Facebook (in London), and this is a
good thing. You can go to these places and learn a lot, a lot more than what
you can figure out on your own with your friends sitting in a garage or at one
of the moderately successful European startups (moderately successful=0.1% of
Facebook, that's already like $300-500M), which any sane entrepreneur here
would be super happy over, fully so.

By "a lot" I mean cultural things, vision, strategy, how to set your own
expectations, how decisions are made, what tools are available, etc.

~~~
dharma1
I agree it's a good learning opportunity for individuals, but I still hope
Europe will be able to produce new large, successful tech companies in the
future. Right now a lot of the value is captured by US companies

~~~
kuschku
For that the European home market needs to become easier to compete on,
though, and it currently looks like it’s moving towards getting a lot worse
instead.

The Brexit might throw us back ten years.

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Buetol
I love how they throw in a link to picasa instead of google photos. Anyway,
this is really good news with the EPFL and ETH next to it, it's perfectly
placed next to the core research centers of Europe.

~~~
igk
Also close enough to Germany(hours with a train/bus from TUM)to hoover up the
bright minds from there.

And then there is France (polytechnique) and the rest of Europe...

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tormeh
Anyone know why so many tech/pharma companies have research/development
departments in Switzerland? It sounds expensive and not very centrally
located.

A young company where I live have HQ in Switzerland, but that's just a post
box and some servers for tax reasons. The are so few people working there it's
negligible.

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jedberg
This is great, I'm glad that they are tapping into the many very smart
Europeans who aren't willing to leave Europe to work in the states.

That being said, I'm pretty sure this is almost an entirely tax based move. By
doing this, they now have a way to spend a bunch of the money they have
"stranded" in Europe.

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s3nnyy
I definitely see the reasons behind this move. The computer vision department
at ETH is particularly strong and that spills over to industry as well. There
is Fashwell, a startup that is doing pretty well and they do ML / computer
vision quite extensively.

Also, the ML meetup in Zurich has 2000 members, which is a lot for a small
town like Zurich ([http://www.meetup.com/Zurich-Machine-
Learning/](http://www.meetup.com/Zurich-Machine-Learning/)).

Salaries are huge (7000 CHF - 12.000 CHF after taxes) and the living standard
is very high. I am well-connected in the tech-scene in Zurich and if you're
thinking of moving here and need support, send me a message (e-mail is in my
HN-handle). Disclosure: I am a tech-recruiter.

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wehadfun
Is that a dog?

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dominotw
>This really makes me consider moving my family to Zurich.

If you immigrate to America you can become an American. You can shop till you
drop, eat mc donlads, celebrate 4th of july and call yourself an american.

This can not be said for _any_ other country. In Germany you will always be an
"immigrant", maybe if your kids are white and young enough to pick up the
language maybe they can become invisible. But for anyone else it impossible to
become german, dutch ect. I don't mean any of it in a negative way, btw.

~~~
ulfw
Completely disagree on that.

Lived ten years in California. Studies, Green Card etc. Could have gone for
citizenship, but didn't. I was never seen as an American. Ever. Not even a
little bit. I was always 'the German'.

Almost every coffee shop, restaurant, super market, you name it I got asked
where I am from or where my accent is from.

No. It is not cute. It reminds you you are NOT one of them.

~~~
bostonpete
> you name it I got asked where I am from or where my accent is from.

Your interpretation of these sorts of questions may have been influenced by
your German upbringing.

There's a wide variety of accents even by Americans who were born and raised
here. Add in the fact that we're all pretty much only a generation or two
removed from at least one immigrant, and discussion about where people are
from, etc. is typically just a way for people to make conversation and attempt
to connect with one another.

There are probably nationalities which would make certain people uncomfortable
and treat you differently, but I don't think Germany is one of those.

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Aoyagi
Yeah, surely this isn't a move to get some EU funding... And to provide a base
for the massive lobbyist team in Brussels.

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kamakazizuru
1) Why do you think Google needs EU funding for their research ? Last I
checked they had one of the largest cash reserves outside the US - which means
a lot of it is in the EU, if anything this is a way to smartly spend that cash
rather than get taxed repatriating it.

2) The lobbyists can be based in Brussels, Zurich isn't that close to Brussels
anyways!

~~~
Aoyagi
1) Needs? Of course they don't need it. A -lot- of organisations asking for EU
funding don't need it.

2) Yeah, but Zurich is a much nicer place than Brussels :) . And most likely
not as watched by investigative journalists.

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wbhart
I wonder if this is because Google is having trouble recruiting people to the
US, due to the crazy political system there, or because of visas or because of
people with concerns about surveillance, gun control, the death penalty, lack
of whistleblower protections, etc.

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geodel
Or it could be just because they want distributed teams with multicultural
talent in different timezones.

~~~
sotojuan
From what I've seen there's a ton of research or computer science-y talent in
Europe. Makes sense for Google to try to get some of that.

