Europe will always be hindered by its inflexible and marginal immigration policy. If you want to be the best you have to draw in people from all over the world... India, Germany, Australia, Canada, etc. In my opinion that is what America gets right and what Ycombinator benefits indirectly from. It will be very difficult to reach the level of success that Ycombinator has and will achieve without changes to the macro-mindset. If at all anything this whole Yeurope thing will only increase the visibility of Ycombo in Europe and encourage more hackers to move to the USA.
Having said that, good luck to you guys at Yeurope.
I think the problem with Europe as a place for startups is not the government regulations or the immigration policy. The sources of Europe's weakness are the same as Iowa's: (a) lack of angel investors, (b) society as a whole doesn't understand or support you if you start a startup.
Whereas in Silicon Valley starting a startup is considered an acceptable thing to do (by your landlord, your girlfriends' parents, potential cofounders, etc), and there are lots of investors ready to give you money if you show the least promise.
I concur with you re: angel investors and societal support and an understanding of what it takes to build a company around technology.
But I also think a society that is vibrant from a cultural perspective is equally important -- you need a multicultural mix of art, science and liberal thought to attract the fringe elements who _think_differently_ to your environment. The multicultural aspect is necessary now more than ever considering the global context in which technology is applicable. It is these fringe elements who create startups. Both Stanford and San Francisco provide that mix to the Bay area. You could say that Iowa lacks this, as does most of the USA between NYC and SF.
In Canada for instance, there is the right cultural mix, but a lack of intelligent capital. So I agree with you.
Now, if only the US didn't follow the EU footsteps regarding immigration rather then the other way around...
As someone who is neither European nor American, moving to the EU was much simpler for me then moving to the US would have been. In fact, I would probably not have even gotten a tourist visa to the US these days (which used to be really easy a decade ago)!
The USA is no longer an immigrant friendly country, I'm afraid - not unless you come from a one of a small group of preferred countries like England or Canada.
I came here on a tourist visa (valid for 3 months), then found a part time job & registered to university (M.Sc. in Mathematics & Computer Science).
Once I was registered to university I got a student's visa (valid for 1 year & renewable as long as I am still a student).
Once you manage to get a decent full time job and earn enough money (more then ~43,000 USD/year for Austria) getting an unrestricted work permission and a residency permit is not a problem.
-- We applaud the initiative. Perhaps a different and less confusingly-similar name would have been a better choice.
I know this has been done to death in the other thread, but that's what annoys me too... If they had come out right at the start and said, hey, Y Combinator is doing a cool thing here, we love the idea, we are going to work at it and try to offer the same opportunities to people in Europe but in our own way, it could have been a really cool thing.
Because of the blatant plagiarism combined with an actually desperately needed program in Europe, YEurope is now managing to get increasing attention. What is interesting is that not only are they getting a spotlight, but YC is getting publicity too. Is this media savvy, or simply a way to save time by copying?
I have to give YE credit for addressing the concerns of YC. Their site is no longer the same color scheme as YC. They've added the following text to various areas:
Front Page: " This site is inspired by, but not affiliated with YCombinator.",
FAQ: "Are you affiliated with YCombinator?
No, we're not. YC's program is quite revolutionary. We think of YC as akin to something like the first University, and we hope to bring that concept to Europe. "
FAQ: "Couldn't I just go to YCombinator?
If you have the opportunity to, you should! I'm sure it is a great experience. Some of us don't want or can't move to YC, either because of Visa Issues, or simply because they prefer to stay in Europe."
And they explain their name as "Why Europe" instead of YC's which is based on "The ``Y-combinator'', which is sometimes also called fixpoint combinator, was discovered by H. Curry. With its help it is possible to handle recursive functions in the Lambda Calculus." A very nice derivation for Y C is available at http://www.ececs.uc.edu/~franco/C511/html/Scheme/ycomb.html .
Should they change their name anyway? My answer would be only if YC asks them to, which they haven't (at least not in the public threads to date) because "Why Europe" as a name really makes sense as it is not the place people would normally go to start a startup given the intense regulatory environment there.
they haven't (at least not in the public threads to date) because "Why Europe" as a name really makes sense as it is not the place people would normally go to start a startup given the intense regulatory environment there.
You got me laughing with that one, quite right. To be fair though, London is becoming increasingly competitive with New York for IPOs in the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley, so while you stand a greater chance of going to prison you might have an easier exit if that's the goal.
Having said that, good luck to you guys at Yeurope.