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.
There's an even bigger rift between startup valuations. Less investment, less value created or employee, lower salaries.
To be fair, Europe and the more able governments are making up some of the gap through grant money. Although this leads to a cottage industry of funneling government money into others pockets, whether it be through companies that help you apply for the grants or just bullshit startups that aren't properly vetted.
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.
Wait, you have a 60k USD salary in Poland? Where do you work, what do you do? I'm on 40k and I already feel like this is better than 100k in Denmark, considering their higher taxes and insane cost of living
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?
But SF in general is such a unique case because of the huge tech market and high cost of living. 70-80k EUR in Berlin get you as far as 150k USD in SF i would imagine.
Also very different cultures and socioeconomics in terms of taxes, state welfare etc. It's just hard to compare.
But when I see that tech salaries in expensive European cities like London/Stockholm aren't really much better than in Berlin, I am a bit perplexed too to be honest.
Most of it has to come down to demand and supply in the end.
Some cost don't vary by location, and whatever you have left over after living expenses is absolute purchasing power. In the SF I could (and did) fly light aircraft. Fat chance doing that on $60k no matter where you live.
If we assume Danish wages are similar to Swedish, the $60k bracket should be the most common, actually.
I don't really trust these fantastic Silicon Valley wage statistics. There seems to be bad coverage over a wide range of companies, and it mostly seems to be self-reported in a non-organized way.
BLS collects a wider range of statistics than PayScale or what not the HR departments are spamming with good reviews and salaries.
So the difference is 1.1k USD more a month for the median Bay-area programmer compared to Stockholm in employer cost. It's not really raining VC money over the SF area programmers compared to e.g. Stockholm, where there is more or less none VC money.
There's really no point in climbing over 60k/y in Sweden since you start to pay upwards 50% tax on that. Perks are also taxed, so better condition/more vacation is better way of "raising" the salary.
Two main contributors to this in my experience, and both suggest this is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future.
Part of it is cultural, in that there is still a widespread perception that software engineers are fungible cogs and that no one could possibly be worth that much more than the average technical worker in any other industry -- they value the contribution like industrial labor. I do a lot of work in Europe and many business people find it inexplicable that any software engineer could be worth a senior manager's wage.
The second part is that while wages are relatively low, the cost of employment is astonishingly high in many European countries. Consequently, the fraction of employment cost that gets delivered to the worker as wages is much smaller, all other things being equal. From an employer's perspective, the employment costs are much closer than the paycheck suggests. The company only cares about employment costs, not wages per se. This is unlikely to change anytime soon because it is a manifestation of the social labor ethos common in Europe.
Me too - though I also am perplexed by the massive "respect for other people's down time" rift too. It always saddened me when people said they'd be on vacation and then details of how to bug them with trivial issues.
That being said, I suppose I'm a little hypocritical because I live in Europe and work remotely for a US company. I was already doing fairly well (not astronomical) by local standards but got a 40% raise by just being normal by US standards.
It makes me wonder why there isn't more entrepreneurship here. Labour is cheap and if you fail you're unlikely to die in a gutter (at least you have health care). Hell, even commutes are better for the most part. It should be easier to start something in Europe than in California, not harder. Maybe I'll give it a shot after naturalization.
There are things like cost of living and social security nets that account for the difference, but even then there's still a gap, albeit smaller. It seems that you do have more purchasing power in the US than in Europe, if you're college- or PhD-educated.
On the flip side: I know a few people who turned down opportunities to go work in the US, or who went there and came back to Europe after a few years. Having not worked outside Europe, I'm always curious about discussing the various pros and cons, and although the pros were fairly obvious (good weather all year long, astronomical salary, etc.), one of the cons listed was invariably "I have to live in the US". Exactly why this was a con changed from person to person, but it was always there, and couldn't be accounted to long distance since countries like Japan or Singapore were fine.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say that there's something intangible (which could probably be best ascribed to 'quality of life', as vague as it sounds) that makes very competent people stay in or go back to Europe, and this limits the brain drain somewhat and maintains competition for lower wages on this side of the Atlantic.
When I asked a Swede why salaries in Stockholm are comparatively low even by german standards (mostly because cost of living is higher in scandinavia while salaries are similar) he told me that it might have to do with the fact that in Sweden people are not supposed to rack up huge savings because they will be taken care of by the state when they retire to be able to still live comfortably. Basically you just need to earn what you need to live comfortably unlike in the US where you have to do a lot not to be poor when you reach retirement.
The guy was not in tech and also a generation older than me, so i am not sure if it's fully true, but i was surprised by the low salaries in relation to the cost of living.
> in Sweden people are not supposed to rack up huge savings because they will be taken care of by the state when they retire to still live comfortably
This applies only to native Swedes. As a foreigner, even EU national, it's trivial to end up overboard of the social security net. Beware of tollerating low compensation fed by the "we'll hold your back" cliche. The same situation in Germany.
In Germany, even if you are a German national, there's no guarantee that the state will be able to fund pensions as it does now, due to the shift in demographics.
I love it here, but I operate under the assumption that I'll have to provide for myself in retirement.
Die Renten sind sicher! Jokes aside the thing is if you have to provide yourself for retirement there went something wrong with the core of the "Sozialstaat" and getting something on your plate to eat would be the last of your worries. As demographics shift and our society gets older and older the democratic power shifts as well so trust me when old people have the most voting count in the country your "Rente" will be save. They would rather bleed the young than lose power.
Free education gives an "oversupply" of educated workers. Plus high marginal tax incentivizes payment by other mean than salary (time off, short work hours ...).
Sweden of the Scandinavian countries is the odd one out. The serious hardworking big brother. They always had big companies (IKEA, Volvo, Ericsson) compared to Denmark and Norway. Far stronger engineering tradition. Self-sufficient with nuclear plants, weapons, automobiles and so on under the cold war. Far more open to immigration. Bigger difference between rich and poor. Better and deeper financial markets. More hierarchical.
No, I posted about this in another comment thread. Here's it quoted:
> One thing that should be emphasized when comparing salaries between Sweden and other countries is how there is a secret tax baked into the Swedish salary -- arbetsgivaravgiften.
> Basically, in all other nationalities (to my knowledge), you are quoted how much the company will pay for your salary. Then tax is applied, and whatever is left is what you take home.
In Sweden, you are quoted an in-between number. If you are offered $100k before tax in Sweden, that means the employer is _actually_ paying something like $143k. You will still not be getting $100k, but rather that is the "taxable income", so you end up with about $70k, but your employer paid $143k, but you agreed on $100k. Makes no sense.
I used to think like you, with this idea that Swedish salaries are substantially lower -- but if you use the true tax, salaries are actually comparable.
Things I don't need to worry about/additional perks:
- No healthcare costs. Scraped elbow? Free. Brain surgery? Free.
- No saving up for college for my kids.
- 30 days of vacation + ~13 public holidays.
- No student loans (kinda-sorta, most people borrow money to not have to work during college), tuition is free in all universities and colleges.
- Goverment-paid pension savings
- On top of my salary, my employer also pays for
- all insurances
- 31,42% payroll tax (which I never see and is paid on top of my negotiated salary)
- 10-15% of my salary is put in another pension savings account. Again, this is ON TOP of my salary.
- private health insurance to fast track me to a specialist.
The healthcare issues in the US can be a little overblown. People in good careers get good healthcare insurance provided by the company. You often have to pay a copay to ensure you don't abuse the medical system, but seeing someone for a scraped elbow vs. brain surgery are basically the same nominal fee for the best health insurance. And you get to see the doctors you choose, when you want, often very quickly.
If you can't afford healthcare at all, they will bill you but you don't have to pay and they can't turn you away from a hospital emergency room. So basically government mandated free healthcare provided by private companies.
The problem is the lower and middle class, if you don't have insurance but do have something to lose, or if you have minimal insurance and a large medical issue, you can lose all your assets paying for healthcare.
What you said that's really interesting to me is that the high tax rate is paid in full by your company and not counted in your salary. Is that true all over Europe, like France for instance? I am always amazed by the really low salaries but if every bit of it is what you actually keep, it's not so bad. I didn't know it worked that way.
All well and good about healthcare being available and not-as-bad-as-people-say provided 'good healthcare by the company.' But there lies the problem, the dependence on those variables, "good", and "company."
a) What if you're self-employed? You're stuck with mediocre, expensive healthcare for the individual market.
b) What if the company is cheap or negotiates poorly the healthcare options? Sometimes they're mediocre.
c) Costs have been going up, and companies are finding ways to reduce costs (since someone has to pay for those padded healthcare executive salaries and healthy stock prices thanks for solid profit). Thus the same plan(s) get worse year after year.
d) there's a push towards 'high deductible, self-managed / pre-tax account' type healthcare, which is smiled upon as a fantastic way to give people choice. The reality is different, now not only is the healthcare company still the middleman that keeps a chunk that gets paid out to providers, but now it's up to you to 'negotiate' what healthcare service is important to you. Oh gosh, is it expensive? I'll skip this particular service.
The U.S. has got it all wrong, of course. I'm jealous of Swedish or other healthcare systems when I read through threads like these.
Bottom line: the mediocre healthcare system in the U.S. and the emphasis on giving middlemen lots of money for no reason is a barrier to innovation and self-employment. Why strike out on your own and take a risk on building something if you'll lose your precious company healthcare? This problem is only getting worse and clearly has an impact on the political discourse.
My point around the healthcare was that, yes it's an issue, no it's not really an issue for the HN crowd. If you are some sort of programmer/engineer, and want good healthcare, you can get it. And you will avoid making foolish decisions around it, and don't need people to make all your choices for you.
I ran my own small business, provided great healthcare for myself and a couple of employees, and managed to have good healthcare after I shut the company down and was unemployed for a while. I had to do a little research and make a couple good decisions, then it wasn't an issue. And that was before the Affordable Care Act, which provides free healthcare in many states for people who can't afford it.
The one thing is, if you are not working for a decent company, yes, you have to think about it and prepare for it before hand, it isn't all taken care for you without you doing anything. So I say, for the vast majority of people on HN it's not that bad.
And worst comes to worst, you are being irresponsible or have fallen through the cracks, and you get into a car accident, the hospital is going to take care of you anyway.
I ran my own small business, provided great healthcare for myself and a couple of employees, and managed to have good healthcare after I shut the company down and was unemployed for a while. I had to do a little research and make a couple good decisions, then it wasn't an issue. And that was before the Affordable Care Act, which provides free healthcare in many states for people who can't afford it.
Well, in my state the individual market is tied to the state healthcare marketplace, and all of these are PPOs. At the worst, you'll pay $1200 a month for a plan whereby you have to stick to a finite network, and get approval every time from the primary care provider. And there's still a several thousand-dollar deductible. Even if I chose to offer $2000 a month for a plan that's a more open one, there's nowhere to give that money to someone.
I consider that a barrier to innovation / entrepreneurship because many people don't want to quit cushy jobs as employees for a situation like that.
Yea, well that is the result of our more socialized system. My better health care plan was canceled when the affordable care act was implemented, and I had to get a worse one. These government healthcare systems (which, long story, I happen to be on now, I don't pay a cent) are even worse. You want to see someone, you need to get permission. First, get in line to get permission, then get in line to actually get the specialist. And there is no option to do it any other way. So I don't see how the European systems solve these problems. At least in the US, in some places, we still have choice.
In Sweden you don't really have a plan. Everyone is covered regardless including basic sick pay. You can have zero income, pay zero taxes and file zero forms and still be covered like everyone else. The maximum co-pay per year including everything (treatment, hospital, rehab, equipment, medication etc.) is $300 per year. Some other European systems are more like "US light" where you have to qualify and choose. Some employers in Sweden will cover private treatment, vaccinations and more extensive sick pay (you already get 80% of x1.5 of median income if you are employed). But it isn't really required.
This is one of those misconceptions that’s constantly stated by Americans which couldn’t be further from the truth. I know, because I am an American and used to think that. Having lived in the UK for the last 7 years, yes for noncritical issues or elective procedures, you may have to wait a couple of weeks for an appointment (acute care is excellent by the way), but you always have a choice. You can pay for your own private insurance which is extremely affordable compared to the USA and go nuts if you want, or you can wait for the free care. It’s a better system, full stop. America is literally nuts with regards to healthcare.
> What you said that's really interesting to me is that the high tax rate is paid in full by your company and not counted in your salary. Is that true all over Europe, like France for instance? I am always amazed by the really low salaries but if every bit of it is what you actually keep, it's not so bad. I didn't know it worked that way.
It is most certainly not how it works in the UK! However for balance I should say that the employer does pay some tax and pension costs on top of your salary (employers NI and auto-enrollment pension). Whatever the advertised cost, you will be deducted tax and National Insurance by your employer.
Good to know. In the US, your employer pays half of the social security, that's around 7% of your income, plus some medicare taxes that are a lot less.
Although it's not nearly as bad as other people have it, even in a good job with good employer-provided healthcare, there are two things that still really bug me about US healthcare. One is a perennial worry that I'll somehow end up with a 6/7-figure bill anyway, for example because I ended up in an ER where some of the doctors were "out of network" (this kind of billing has now been banned in some states, but only a minority of them). If I had no savings I would just not pay the bill, but since I do have some, I worry this could wipe out years of savings overnight, which makes me anxious. The second issue is that it just takes so much time to manage all the bureaucracy. Usually health insurance will in fact pay (if you have a good one), but you can end up spending literally hundreds of hours on the phone, especially if you had the bad fortune to end up in a hospital. In hospitals it seems that every individual person you encounter sends a completely separate bill, half of which the insurance company will initially refuse to pay for various reasons. This can go on for many months after being discharged.
Actyally there is another tax too, not mentioned. The company is paying something called Employer tax which is about 100% of your sallary before the working tax.
So you get 30k before tax, 20k ends up on your account after tax deducted per month, and company pays state 30k more on top of the other 10k.
"No healthcare costs. Scraped elbow? Free. Brain surgery? Free.
- No saving up for college for my kids.
- No student loans tuition is free in all universities and colleges.
- Goverment-paid pension savings"
It's a little disingenuous to talk about all those 'free things' that 'others' or 'the government' are paying for, because it communicates that those costs are magically externalized.
They are not, of course.
Citizens are paying for all of those things through very aggressive taxation.
Denmark has basically the highest degree of government participation in the economy in the world. [1]
Taxation in Scandinavian countries run deep.
Swedens top tax rate is 67% (!!!) though this includes social security. Payroll tax (employer side of social security) is about 30%, deducted before transfer to employee. And then after you take your money home, you pay an additional 25% VAT on everything you buy.
Think about that: Swedish company allocates $100K to employee. ~30% deducted for SS, so employees income is really $70K. Now, you pay up to 66% of that in taxes (not at 70K, but for higher income earners - certainly a lot of Google folks would!), so say 50% taxes, 'take home' is now $35K. Now, you pay 25% taxes on everything you buy. Assume people save 10% conservatively, meaning $31.5K in spending, which is about $6 VAT taxes.
So from $100K in comp, you're paying $70K to the government.
In the US obviously it would be considerably less.
I know all this has been argued before, but it's important to consider how aggressive that taxation is, I don't think it's ever fair to talk about 'no student debt' or 'free healthcare' without taking into consideration that level of taxation.
The real issue is the cost vs. quality of things like healthcare.
Now - in Canada, we have similar levels of taxation as California or New York and we get healthcare out of that, so now that's something to talk about ...
One thing that should be emphasized when comparing salaries between Sweden and other countries is how there is a secret tax baked into the Swedish salary -- arbetsgivaravgiften.
Basically, in all other nationalities (to my knowledge), you are quoted how much the company will pay for your salary. Then tax is applied, and whatever is left is what you take home.
In Sweden, you are quoted an in-between number. If you are offered $100k before tax in Sweden, that means the employer is _actually_ paying something like $143k. You will still not be getting $100k, but rather that is the "taxable income", so you end up with about $70k, but your employer paid $143k, but you agreed on $100k. Makes no sens.e
Isn't most of the Europe like that? Salary on contract is halfway between before-all-taxes and take home pay. Some taxes are paid by the employer, some others deducted from the employees salary. Way too unintuitive, but it is what it is.
I didn't know that! But it seems difficult to me to justify this system. Cost incurred for paying an employee is tax, anything else is make-believe -- the market forces are decided on cost to the employer, not quoted salary.
It's the same in the USA. The percentages are just different. In the USA, if you are quoted $100k salary, it costs the company about $120k+ (depending on how you account/include things).
Yes, it complicates things, and makes comparisons a bit more difficult. But it makes sense.
In the USA, depending on the company, you will have to add in healthcare as a "cost to company". That's basically included in the Swedish taxes.
Plus you have to normalize culture and employee protection/rights.
In the USA it's not abnormal to get 2 weeks of vacation per year, less than a week of "paid parental" leave, and be expected to be available to answer emails while you're on your paltry vacation. You can be fired at any time for any reason or no reason (in most cases and states you are an "at will employee")
In Sweden, this work:life balance would be preposterous. Employees get 6+ weeks of vacation a year, over _1 year_ of _paid_ parental leave, working healthcare, subsidized childcare, etc. You cannot be fired without cause and notice.
In the USA, other than social security (which is another topic), employees get very little back for their taxes. But we have a lot of wars to pay for.
You need to look at the big picture when you compare these numbers.
You get quoted what you get paid, and you pay tax on that.
That's rational.
It's just that they way 'employer taxes' are calculated is a little different - and in Nordic countries they are massive (thereby making it feel 'hidden').
VAT when baked into prices is also kind of hidden as well.
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?
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.
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).
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.)
Seconding Valencia (source: living there for two years).
You can buy a 3 bed flat for around 100k€, eat a three-course lunch for 9-15€ and generally enjoy life.
Weather in summer can be too wet though and the metro stops every 10-15 minutes compared to the ~2 in Barcelona. Also, tech jobs pay between 11k-45k€ only AFAIK.
My two top picks would be Barcelona and Madrid. Barcelona has real estate prices on par with Stockholm but from what I’ve read a lot of other stuff is cheaper.
A city where being carless would be no biggie would be a welcome change, too. Swedes really love their cars even though fuel taxes and other car related stuff is crazy expensive here. I think people mainly choose the car because public transportation still sucks at a lot of places. The Madrid metro really impressed me.
If you just need an adventure for a year a two I'd say go for it!
BUT, as an expat living in the Netherlands I mostly see people from south Europe immigrating north (to Germany, Netherlands and probably Scandinavia as well). I don't hear many stories of people immigrating south (other than retirees maybe).
Spain has the weather going for it, other than that I can't think of any measurement of quality of life where it performs better than Sweden (perhaps besides life expectancy).
Who knows maybe you will fall in love with the culture and the weather, but you are coming from one of the highest ranking countries in quality of life.
Also, I hope it's obvious to you that going on a trip and living in a place or 2 different things.
Absolutely, the difference is obvious between the two. I have colleagues who've moved from the South up here who think I'm crazy when I'm talking about it but I should probably mention that the main reason is that I want to try something different from the Northern European culture that I'm so used to, and I want to move somewhere that is closer to the emerging markets when it comes to economic and cultural ties, and Spain is very close to Latin America in that regard. Sweden has a growing populism because we're a very saturated market, sort of becoming like Japan, and I just want to experience something different. I'm not expecting the same social safety net or pay check, or the same culture when it comes to hierarchy and work-life balance. And if it doesn't work out and I miss Sweden too much I'll go back.
So sure yes, definitely go for it! you're a short flight distance away if you've had enough. Being an expat is something I would recommend to anyone, it's a really intense experience.
No, it is not foolish. I know a few Swedish people that made that move over three years ago, and they have not come back yet.
The best company in Barcelona or Madrid is going to be better than the worst in Gothenburg. You may find something really good. It is just that you need to be more selective.
The other thing to take into account is that most Spanish people do not speak English. If you speak Spanish, that is not a problem. Otherwise, you need to find an international company that uses English as its primary language.
To move to another European country is a very easy way of living in a different culture.
> developers telling managers that they disagree with some requirement or similar in a way that was not possible in Spain
As a rule, I've found cultures where teammates express disagreement to be commercially superior to those where they do not. This applies to national as well as to company cultures. It extends past feedback into being open to re-evaluating one's own assumptions. It also facilitates departing one's sense of self from the set of opinions and ideas one happens to hold at a given time.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I have been doing business with people "elsewhere" in Europe. Never had any problem. You might be generalising a bit early. And if American English is a dealbreaker, or even considered a "plus", maybe your potential business partners pick up on this and could be irritated?
Some American companies I can send an email and get a response in 10 minutes. Others I have to send 3-4-10 and never get a response unless the account manager is called on his personal cell phone.
Sweden consistently ranks as an easy place to do business in surveys among executives [1]. It's also much faster and simpler to start a new business in Sweden than it is in France. I'm picking two examples which speak to my broader experiences. That said, they're anecdotes responding to a pattern pointed out in the article.
I'm not saying doing business in non-Swedish Europe is not worthwhile. It's just a lot easier in Sweden. When timelines matter or complexity is high, the Swedish team–in my experience–has come through more frequently. (I put Switzerland into a similar "easy to deal with" category, though I'm biased in being Swiss American.)
> if American English is a dealbreaker
I grew up speaking French and British English, so no, it probably is not. But when co-ordinating communications between an American legal team and overseas ones, I've seen (and perhaps I only notice this because I speak and write in both dialects) one team say one thing and the other read it as something else (or get confused) where all one needs do to alleviate the problem is "translate". This happens less when co-ordinating with Sweden. It's a small factor and certainly attributes no fault to anyone, but it's a factor that adds up to transactional costs.
one team say one thing and the other read it as something else
To be fair, this happens to me with lawyers, wherever they are from. It has been a recurring theme of my interactions with them! Also, I will concede that I have never done business in Sweden. Just that from my own experience, there are bad apples and variable quality in businesses, wherever they are from :)
The article is pretty clear though, Sweden seems to be hitting above its weight.
In my space, the best managed company (and one of the most successful exits) was Swedish [0]. Down-to-earth, honest, transparent management with none of the typical American earnings call tip-toeing. Thinking and strategy were always crystal clear and simply articulated. Metrics were clearly stated and tracked. No BS.
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.
I think your point is overstated, but nonetheless I found it deeply unsettling the nearly all Swedes watch (or attend) the sing-alongs in Skansen in Stockholm. Be-sweatered grandmas and punk kids with faces that are more piercing than skin, sitting together in chairs and on couches, smiling and singing happy songs.
I have never attended Allsång på Skansen, not to my knowledge. Most Swedish people are creeped out by it too. It somehow feels so forced. It's almost like a cult.
I lived one year in Sweden (in Lund, near Malmö). Easily one of the two nicest places I ever lived in. People are warm and welcoming. And in my experience at least, you can delve into arguments about society and politics like anywhere else, or even better because it doesn't end up with people mad at each other for having a different worldview like in the USA or in France (again, my experience).
I find strange this assumption I sometimes read here that having a sense of collective means losing your individuality.
I lived in Malmö for quite awhile and knew and worked in tech with many highly educated people, quite a few of them who graduated from Lund. I think that Lund and Malmö tech scene is a bit of a bubble. As I got to know some of the Swedes I worked with deeply, I started to hear complaints from many of them about the societal groupthink that exists in Sweden. There really is a strong sense of collectivism in Sweden, it just seems that the tech scene has been able to break away from it to a certain extent.
That said, I enjoyed many of the same things that you mention about Sweden. The people I worked with were highly educated, pragmatic, and often not willing to make bad engineering decisions if there was no reason to. It was easy to have very in-depth conversations with Swedes about many topics without resulting to emotional attacks or divisiveness.
In general I think what has helped Swedes the most (and what grandparent has hinted at) is that Swedish citizens, at least everyone I met, are very internationally minded in that they are absolutely voracious travelers and embrace people of other cultures rather easily (there are the Swedish Democrats, of course, but this mentality is still a relative minority in Sweden). This willingness to interact internationally and deal with other cultures is what I think has helped propel Sweden to the kind of startup success we are seeing here.
People always tend to complain about things like groupthink. Doesn't mean it isn't real, just rarely a concrete problem. Sweden has a ton "first world problems" like status, fear of missing out, vanity etc. Still absolutely nothing compared to social pressure in most of the world. As you probably know things like engineering go back hundreds of years. Tons of successful Swedish inventors, artists, actors, athletes etc.
The American Dream is alive in Sweden. The prime minister is a foster child and welder by trade. Daniel Ek and Markus Persson both grew up under less than ideal conditions and are now billionaires. And if one thinks Sweden is too small most people have the tools to move, like Fredrik Eklund.
That said, it isn't like 10-15 years ago when it seemed like Sweden was spared from many of the worlds problems. Housing inequality, dysfunctional politics, call for easy jobs, lesser standards, less access to social safety net etc. All large but common problems that make "the deal" a lot less appealing. Tons of people moving to UK, Berlin or Norway for work or just trying to have a decent life.
I do think it is a bit of a bubble. To many cocktail parties, consulting companies and incubators, not enough substance. It isn't really clear whether there will actually be a lot of new extraordinaire companies. I think most people are more concerned about their mortgage.
Because if there is anything I would attribute to recent Sweden's success in technology it just that in end of '90s, early '00s Sweden was a really good deal. A decent apartment, good employment and good infrastructure was all available. A lot of people in technology didn't even bother with university. But nothing was "glamorous". So if you wanted to do something you had to do it yourself.
Today everyone is looking for the guarantee. Going to school for 5-6 years, huge mortgage for the rest of their life and chasing money in consulting. I get it, just unlikely to produce anything different.
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.
How familiar are you with other northern european states? (UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Finland)? There is a definite cultural gradient in Europe - and I'm wondering do you feel just estranged by nothern european values in general and not specifically sweden. As a finn I don't really feel there is especially anything weird in Sweden when visiting there (except they have more capital than finland so their nordic wellfare system is a bit more robust than ours - then king of the hill in nordic wellfarestateism being Norway with their oil).
If I had to pick out one thing Swedish culture does well, commercially, that many European cultures do not, it's allowing for dissent to be discussed [1]. Saying "I disagree with you" isn't an affront nor an insult, but the voicing of an opinion. That is not always true e.g. in France, Spain, Korea or the Middle East. (It's untrue in many American corporate cultures, too.)
This isn't a rule. But the number of Swedish teams where I've seen a junior productively question a senior in front of me is far higher than elsewhere in Europe.
[1] Switzerland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark are also good at this.
I think what you've found is a reflection of the du-reform.[0] Swedish people are allowed, nay expected, to poke fun at their supervisors, as a show of good faith and encourage exactly that kind of bottom-up decision making that is so crucial to good teamwork.
That's a fair point, but perhaps splitting hairs to some extent. It is certainly both true that the du-reform was made possible because of the contemporary context, and that the du-reform became a clear signal from the higher-ups in society that this change was embraced.
All of Scandinavia is very similar in this regard. Many Scandinavians loathe doing business with people from the Mediterranean EU, for reasons similar to your first example.
Not sure if the member states of the US have as wide cultural differences as the member states of the EU.
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".
101 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 163 ms ] threadTo be fair, Europe and the more able governments are making up some of the gap through grant money. Although this leads to a cottage industry of funneling government money into others pockets, whether it be through companies that help you apply for the grants or just bullshit startups that aren't properly vetted.
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?
BLS, US median for programmers:
82 240 USD/y
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
Engineering Union, Sweden, median for union programmers:
61 416 USD/y, as reported.
80 719 USD/y, including payroll tax.
I believe other European countries could report data in a similar manner. The employer cost is similar.
I don't really trust these fantastic Silicon Valley wage statistics. There seems to be bad coverage over a wide range of companies, and it mostly seems to be self-reported in a non-organized way.
BLS collects a wider range of statistics than PayScale or what not the HR departments are spamming with good reviews and salaries.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/silicon-valley-salaries...
To even base an article on those numbers is borderline fraud.
For "San Francisco-Redwood City-South San Francisco, CA Metropolitan Division" BLS reports $106k mean wage for programmers.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151131.htm
Swedish Engineering union reports mean wage:
69 543 USD/y in Stockholm
91 400 USD/y including payroll tax.
So the difference is 1.1k USD more a month for the median Bay-area programmer compared to Stockholm in employer cost. It's not really raining VC money over the SF area programmers compared to e.g. Stockholm, where there is more or less none VC money.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Sweden
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
103 560 USD/y
about 25% higher than swedish pre-tax and taxes are a lot lower in most of the US
US gdp per capita ppp is 54k vs. 37k for EU, so 45% higher, its unsurprising salaries are higher
Never heard about a distincion between a developer and programmer. Seems to be a distinct BLS category.
Part of it is cultural, in that there is still a widespread perception that software engineers are fungible cogs and that no one could possibly be worth that much more than the average technical worker in any other industry -- they value the contribution like industrial labor. I do a lot of work in Europe and many business people find it inexplicable that any software engineer could be worth a senior manager's wage.
The second part is that while wages are relatively low, the cost of employment is astonishingly high in many European countries. Consequently, the fraction of employment cost that gets delivered to the worker as wages is much smaller, all other things being equal. From an employer's perspective, the employment costs are much closer than the paycheck suggests. The company only cares about employment costs, not wages per se. This is unlikely to change anytime soon because it is a manifestation of the social labor ethos common in Europe.
That being said, I suppose I'm a little hypocritical because I live in Europe and work remotely for a US company. I was already doing fairly well (not astronomical) by local standards but got a 40% raise by just being normal by US standards.
It makes me wonder why there isn't more entrepreneurship here. Labour is cheap and if you fail you're unlikely to die in a gutter (at least you have health care). Hell, even commutes are better for the most part. It should be easier to start something in Europe than in California, not harder. Maybe I'll give it a shot after naturalization.
I could probably make 50-100% more somewhere else but I’d likely be working much more. What’s the hourly pay difference?
On the flip side: I know a few people who turned down opportunities to go work in the US, or who went there and came back to Europe after a few years. Having not worked outside Europe, I'm always curious about discussing the various pros and cons, and although the pros were fairly obvious (good weather all year long, astronomical salary, etc.), one of the cons listed was invariably "I have to live in the US". Exactly why this was a con changed from person to person, but it was always there, and couldn't be accounted to long distance since countries like Japan or Singapore were fine.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say that there's something intangible (which could probably be best ascribed to 'quality of life', as vague as it sounds) that makes very competent people stay in or go back to Europe, and this limits the brain drain somewhat and maintains competition for lower wages on this side of the Atlantic.
Pro: The weather is fantastic. Running a sole proprietorship is easy.
Con: Everything else. I'm absolutely not growing old in this place, and I will definitely move back to Europe before I retire.
This applies only to native Swedes. As a foreigner, even EU national, it's trivial to end up overboard of the social security net. Beware of tollerating low compensation fed by the "we'll hold your back" cliche. The same situation in Germany.
I love it here, but I operate under the assumption that I'll have to provide for myself in retirement.
Sweden of the Scandinavian countries is the odd one out. The serious hardworking big brother. They always had big companies (IKEA, Volvo, Ericsson) compared to Denmark and Norway. Far stronger engineering tradition. Self-sufficient with nuclear plants, weapons, automobiles and so on under the cold war. Far more open to immigration. Bigger difference between rich and poor. Better and deeper financial markets. More hierarchical.
> One thing that should be emphasized when comparing salaries between Sweden and other countries is how there is a secret tax baked into the Swedish salary -- arbetsgivaravgiften.
> Basically, in all other nationalities (to my knowledge), you are quoted how much the company will pay for your salary. Then tax is applied, and whatever is left is what you take home. In Sweden, you are quoted an in-between number. If you are offered $100k before tax in Sweden, that means the employer is _actually_ paying something like $143k. You will still not be getting $100k, but rather that is the "taxable income", so you end up with about $70k, but your employer paid $143k, but you agreed on $100k. Makes no sense.
I used to think like you, with this idea that Swedish salaries are substantially lower -- but if you use the true tax, salaries are actually comparable.
- No healthcare costs. Scraped elbow? Free. Brain surgery? Free.
- No saving up for college for my kids.
- 30 days of vacation + ~13 public holidays.
- No student loans (kinda-sorta, most people borrow money to not have to work during college), tuition is free in all universities and colleges.
- Goverment-paid pension savings
- On top of my salary, my employer also pays for
If you can't afford healthcare at all, they will bill you but you don't have to pay and they can't turn you away from a hospital emergency room. So basically government mandated free healthcare provided by private companies.
The problem is the lower and middle class, if you don't have insurance but do have something to lose, or if you have minimal insurance and a large medical issue, you can lose all your assets paying for healthcare.
What you said that's really interesting to me is that the high tax rate is paid in full by your company and not counted in your salary. Is that true all over Europe, like France for instance? I am always amazed by the really low salaries but if every bit of it is what you actually keep, it's not so bad. I didn't know it worked that way.
a) What if you're self-employed? You're stuck with mediocre, expensive healthcare for the individual market.
b) What if the company is cheap or negotiates poorly the healthcare options? Sometimes they're mediocre.
c) Costs have been going up, and companies are finding ways to reduce costs (since someone has to pay for those padded healthcare executive salaries and healthy stock prices thanks for solid profit). Thus the same plan(s) get worse year after year.
d) there's a push towards 'high deductible, self-managed / pre-tax account' type healthcare, which is smiled upon as a fantastic way to give people choice. The reality is different, now not only is the healthcare company still the middleman that keeps a chunk that gets paid out to providers, but now it's up to you to 'negotiate' what healthcare service is important to you. Oh gosh, is it expensive? I'll skip this particular service.
The U.S. has got it all wrong, of course. I'm jealous of Swedish or other healthcare systems when I read through threads like these.
Bottom line: the mediocre healthcare system in the U.S. and the emphasis on giving middlemen lots of money for no reason is a barrier to innovation and self-employment. Why strike out on your own and take a risk on building something if you'll lose your precious company healthcare? This problem is only getting worse and clearly has an impact on the political discourse.
I ran my own small business, provided great healthcare for myself and a couple of employees, and managed to have good healthcare after I shut the company down and was unemployed for a while. I had to do a little research and make a couple good decisions, then it wasn't an issue. And that was before the Affordable Care Act, which provides free healthcare in many states for people who can't afford it.
The one thing is, if you are not working for a decent company, yes, you have to think about it and prepare for it before hand, it isn't all taken care for you without you doing anything. So I say, for the vast majority of people on HN it's not that bad.
And worst comes to worst, you are being irresponsible or have fallen through the cracks, and you get into a car accident, the hospital is going to take care of you anyway.
Well, in my state the individual market is tied to the state healthcare marketplace, and all of these are PPOs. At the worst, you'll pay $1200 a month for a plan whereby you have to stick to a finite network, and get approval every time from the primary care provider. And there's still a several thousand-dollar deductible. Even if I chose to offer $2000 a month for a plan that's a more open one, there's nowhere to give that money to someone.
I consider that a barrier to innovation / entrepreneurship because many people don't want to quit cushy jobs as employees for a situation like that.
It is most certainly not how it works in the UK! However for balance I should say that the employer does pay some tax and pension costs on top of your salary (employers NI and auto-enrollment pension). Whatever the advertised cost, you will be deducted tax and National Insurance by your employer.
So you get 30k before tax, 20k ends up on your account after tax deducted per month, and company pays state 30k more on top of the other 10k.
- No saving up for college for my kids.
- No student loans tuition is free in all universities and colleges.
- Goverment-paid pension savings"
It's a little disingenuous to talk about all those 'free things' that 'others' or 'the government' are paying for, because it communicates that those costs are magically externalized.
They are not, of course.
Citizens are paying for all of those things through very aggressive taxation.
Denmark has basically the highest degree of government participation in the economy in the world. [1]
Taxation in Scandinavian countries run deep.
Swedens top tax rate is 67% (!!!) though this includes social security. Payroll tax (employer side of social security) is about 30%, deducted before transfer to employee. And then after you take your money home, you pay an additional 25% VAT on everything you buy.
Think about that: Swedish company allocates $100K to employee. ~30% deducted for SS, so employees income is really $70K. Now, you pay up to 66% of that in taxes (not at 70K, but for higher income earners - certainly a lot of Google folks would!), so say 50% taxes, 'take home' is now $35K. Now, you pay 25% taxes on everything you buy. Assume people save 10% conservatively, meaning $31.5K in spending, which is about $6 VAT taxes.
So from $100K in comp, you're paying $70K to the government.
In the US obviously it would be considerably less.
I know all this has been argued before, but it's important to consider how aggressive that taxation is, I don't think it's ever fair to talk about 'no student debt' or 'free healthcare' without taking into consideration that level of taxation.
The real issue is the cost vs. quality of things like healthcare.
Now - in Canada, we have similar levels of taxation as California or New York and we get healthcare out of that, so now that's something to talk about ...
[1] https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm
[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/sweden/personal-income-tax-rate
Basically, in all other nationalities (to my knowledge), you are quoted how much the company will pay for your salary. Then tax is applied, and whatever is left is what you take home.
In Sweden, you are quoted an in-between number. If you are offered $100k before tax in Sweden, that means the employer is _actually_ paying something like $143k. You will still not be getting $100k, but rather that is the "taxable income", so you end up with about $70k, but your employer paid $143k, but you agreed on $100k. Makes no sens.e
I suspect it's the same for many countries - though with different percentages. And yes makes comparisons very hard.
Update: looking at this comment - this is not unique - same in Croatia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17941203
Yes, it complicates things, and makes comparisons a bit more difficult. But it makes sense.
In the USA, depending on the company, you will have to add in healthcare as a "cost to company". That's basically included in the Swedish taxes.
Plus you have to normalize culture and employee protection/rights.
In the USA it's not abnormal to get 2 weeks of vacation per year, less than a week of "paid parental" leave, and be expected to be available to answer emails while you're on your paltry vacation. You can be fired at any time for any reason or no reason (in most cases and states you are an "at will employee")
In Sweden, this work:life balance would be preposterous. Employees get 6+ weeks of vacation a year, over _1 year_ of _paid_ parental leave, working healthcare, subsidized childcare, etc. You cannot be fired without cause and notice.
In the USA, other than social security (which is another topic), employees get very little back for their taxes. But we have a lot of wars to pay for.
You need to look at the big picture when you compare these numbers.
You get quoted what you get paid, and you pay tax on that.
That's rational.
It's just that they way 'employer taxes' are calculated is a little different - and in Nordic countries they are massive (thereby making it feel 'hidden').
VAT when baked into prices is also kind of hidden as well.
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?
Would you say that I’m being foolish? Maybe we could take this discussion privately.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15975815
(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.)
You can buy a 3 bed flat for around 100k€, eat a three-course lunch for 9-15€ and generally enjoy life.
Weather in summer can be too wet though and the metro stops every 10-15 minutes compared to the ~2 in Barcelona. Also, tech jobs pay between 11k-45k€ only AFAIK.
My two top picks would be Barcelona and Madrid. Barcelona has real estate prices on par with Stockholm but from what I’ve read a lot of other stuff is cheaper.
A city where being carless would be no biggie would be a welcome change, too. Swedes really love their cars even though fuel taxes and other car related stuff is crazy expensive here. I think people mainly choose the car because public transportation still sucks at a lot of places. The Madrid metro really impressed me.
No, it is not foolish. I know a few Swedish people that made that move over three years ago, and they have not come back yet.
The best company in Barcelona or Madrid is going to be better than the worst in Gothenburg. You may find something really good. It is just that you need to be more selective.
The other thing to take into account is that most Spanish people do not speak English. If you speak Spanish, that is not a problem. Otherwise, you need to find an international company that uses English as its primary language.
To move to another European country is a very easy way of living in a different culture.
As a rule, I've found cultures where teammates express disagreement to be commercially superior to those where they do not. This applies to national as well as to company cultures. It extends past feedback into being open to re-evaluating one's own assumptions. It also facilitates departing one's sense of self from the set of opinions and ideas one happens to hold at a given time.
http://clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimension...
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. :-)
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.
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.
Some American companies I can send an email and get a response in 10 minutes. Others I have to send 3-4-10 and never get a response unless the account manager is called on his personal cell phone.
Sweden consistently ranks as an easy place to do business in surveys among executives [1]. It's also much faster and simpler to start a new business in Sweden than it is in France. I'm picking two examples which speak to my broader experiences. That said, they're anecdotes responding to a pattern pointed out in the article.
I'm not saying doing business in non-Swedish Europe is not worthwhile. It's just a lot easier in Sweden. When timelines matter or complexity is high, the Swedish team–in my experience–has come through more frequently. (I put Switzerland into a similar "easy to deal with" category, though I'm biased in being Swiss American.)
> if American English is a dealbreaker
I grew up speaking French and British English, so no, it probably is not. But when co-ordinating communications between an American legal team and overseas ones, I've seen (and perhaps I only notice this because I speak and write in both dialects) one team say one thing and the other read it as something else (or get confused) where all one needs do to alleviate the problem is "translate". This happens less when co-ordinating with Sweden. It's a small factor and certainly attributes no fault to anyone, but it's a factor that adds up to transactional costs.
[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/these-are-the-easiest...
The article is pretty clear though, Sweden seems to be hitting above its weight.
In my space, the best managed company (and one of the most successful exits) was Swedish [0]. Down-to-earth, honest, transparent management with none of the typical American earnings call tip-toeing. Thinking and strategy were always crystal clear and simply articulated. Metrics were clearly stated and tracked. No BS.
[0] http://www.arcam.com
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.
Seriously though, most swedes are very forgiving about others world views. As long as you sort your trash properly.
I find strange this assumption I sometimes read here that having a sense of collective means losing your individuality.
That said, I enjoyed many of the same things that you mention about Sweden. The people I worked with were highly educated, pragmatic, and often not willing to make bad engineering decisions if there was no reason to. It was easy to have very in-depth conversations with Swedes about many topics without resulting to emotional attacks or divisiveness.
In general I think what has helped Swedes the most (and what grandparent has hinted at) is that Swedish citizens, at least everyone I met, are very internationally minded in that they are absolutely voracious travelers and embrace people of other cultures rather easily (there are the Swedish Democrats, of course, but this mentality is still a relative minority in Sweden). This willingness to interact internationally and deal with other cultures is what I think has helped propel Sweden to the kind of startup success we are seeing here.
The American Dream is alive in Sweden. The prime minister is a foster child and welder by trade. Daniel Ek and Markus Persson both grew up under less than ideal conditions and are now billionaires. And if one thinks Sweden is too small most people have the tools to move, like Fredrik Eklund.
That said, it isn't like 10-15 years ago when it seemed like Sweden was spared from many of the worlds problems. Housing inequality, dysfunctional politics, call for easy jobs, lesser standards, less access to social safety net etc. All large but common problems that make "the deal" a lot less appealing. Tons of people moving to UK, Berlin or Norway for work or just trying to have a decent life.
I do think it is a bit of a bubble. To many cocktail parties, consulting companies and incubators, not enough substance. It isn't really clear whether there will actually be a lot of new extraordinaire companies. I think most people are more concerned about their mortgage.
Because if there is anything I would attribute to recent Sweden's success in technology it just that in end of '90s, early '00s Sweden was a really good deal. A decent apartment, good employment and good infrastructure was all available. A lot of people in technology didn't even bother with university. But nothing was "glamorous". So if you wanted to do something you had to do it yourself.
Today everyone is looking for the guarantee. Going to school for 5-6 years, huge mortgage for the rest of their life and chasing money in consulting. I get it, just unlikely to produce anything different.
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.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
The lawyer definitely messed up by emailing it to the wrong person, but business rarely happen over weekends.
That the Swedish are proactive about accommodating it is good, but too much of it and you're diminishing yourself.
If I had to pick out one thing Swedish culture does well, commercially, that many European cultures do not, it's allowing for dissent to be discussed [1]. Saying "I disagree with you" isn't an affront nor an insult, but the voicing of an opinion. That is not always true e.g. in France, Spain, Korea or the Middle East. (It's untrue in many American corporate cultures, too.)
This isn't a rule. But the number of Swedish teams where I've seen a junior productively question a senior in front of me is far higher than elsewhere in Europe.
[1] Switzerland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark are also good at this.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du-reformen
Not sure if the member states of the US have as wide cultural differences as the member states of the EU.
Maybe, that company has American expats living there otherwise it's natural to have some accent.
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.
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2016/04/13/news/companies/spotify-swed...