Comment by Zenul_Abidin

5 days ago

Europe should start by reducing the amount of legal paperwork required in running a business, because that is the main reason why founders flee to places such as the US

That's why the famously over regulated California doesn't have any sort of tech scene. All the best big startups usually start somewhere more business friendly like Mississippi or Tennessee

When I read "I don't want to follow safety regulations", I always think "WOW that dude must really have some great product I must get!" -_-'

  • Most of the regulations in question are not safety. More stuff like not being able to fire people.

    • I think ideally they try to make the labor market fairer as it’s so obviously extremely leveraged in favor of employers.

      Which does matter, because if it sucks to be labor then people leave and you don’t have talent. We see this pretty clearly in the US. We have a lot of states where companies can pretty much do whatever they want with their labor.

      And… well… how are those states doing economically? Not good. The big companies are in California and New York State. Inside those “laissez-faire” states the economy is weak, and in the few places it isn’t, it’s where the city itself leans a certain way.

What would you like to see less "legal paperwork" about? What regulations would you want rid of?

Do you think you would stand even the tiniest chance of hiring European tech workers into a company run the way they are in the US?

  • Lot's of low hanging fruit. How about when creating a corporate legal entity not requiring public notaries to spend several hours reading the entire corporate charter out loud to all signatories before signing.

    • That's not something that's required in 'Europe'. It would be a much better discussion if people could point to specific countries and regulations rather than talking as if the whole of Europe had a single regulatory regime for business.

      4 replies →

    • What sort of entity is that? Creating a simple limited company (aksjeselskap) in Norway takes a few minutes of work and is done entirely online. You fill in a few simple forms, create a simple memorandum of association, set up a specific type of account with your bank and deposit at least 30 kNOK (3 kUSD). Get the bank to confirm the deposit to the registry. The registry will send you electronic documents that all board members must sign electronically and that's pretty much it. Takes a couple of weeks of elapsed time, or less.

Absolutely. That and the lack of accessible and agile VC funding in Europe. No idea why someone would downvote the above comment, it's spot on.