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Why Startups Condense in America
bariswheel writes "The controversial genius developer/writer/entertainer Paul Graham writes an insightful piece on Why Startups Condense in America. Here's the skinny: "The US allows immigration, it is a rich country, it is not (yet) a police state, the universities are better, you can fire people, work is less identified with employment, it is not too fussy, it has a large domestic market, it has venture funding, and it has dynamic typing for careers. Inquire for details within."
America is the western nation that LEAST protects its workers. The overclass here has managed to use a variety of propaganda techniques to allow the ruination of legal protections for American workers. That makes us easier to exploit than the workers in other nations. So, startups want to be here--honest, educated, hardworking and exploitable.
Get back to work, you good little american sheeple!
Homo Sapiens Americanus--A documentary in p
I'm an American, and I have to say it's for two reasons:
1) On average, Americans have a lot of money.
2) On average, Americans are fools when it comes to money.
For many Americans, it's not just easy to part them from the money they have now, it's easy to part them from the money they'll be earning for the next 15-30 years (through high interest credit cards). I don't think this will last much longer, though. Another poster mentioned that the exploitation of workers is going up (which I agree with). Pretty soon #1 won't be true anymore, and a lot of businesses in America will dry up.
it is not (yet) a police state
Funny, apparently we're talking some other USA here.
Ok. Cute. And how very patriotic. I am an entrepeneur who recently set up a US operation. Our main headquarters is in Sweden. And here's my take on the article, for what it's worth (and I think it is if you want to know how the supposed targets of above article actually think).
It's all bullshit. All of it except one comment, which is on the other hand the Holy Grail for us and any other company setting up shop in the US. It is the world's largest market.
Everything else is complete bull. Crap universities, hostile patent litigation, asshole lawyers, extremely expensive software development compared to ANY other country, incompetent hierarchical structures, police state (now), you can fire people but not if they're a minority or you accidentally touch their ass while passing them in the hallway (you'll get sued). And as for immigration, since when did the US have an immigration policy that allows anything but foreign capital easily into the door?
I'm not slamming the US. I'm slamming the obvious wrongness of this article. I love the US, and our hopes are up for a successful launch. Just don't put tapestry on Slashdot by some dick proclaiming proganda without providing the slightest bit of criticism. The US has gone very, very unfriendly with Bush at the helm.
>Pretty much the *entire* American public is pro-education.
Not even a large majority.
Just how many countries in the world are there where a politician could make a career and a run for President talking about "pointy-headed intellectuals", where "egghead" is a term of contempt, where a President can anounce that what education really needs is school prayer, where someone who reads maybe one book a year can be elected to high office, where the people at the bottom of the academic barrel are the ones chosen to teach children, and where students who study (or, God forbid, excel) are *routinely* frelling beaten up?
Education gets tolerated because it's perceived as leading to high-paying jobs and the production of cool toys.
You claim that limits on firing should exist. But the United States does in fact have limits on firing. For instance, a business can't fire an employee for being in one of the following classes: