Correct. This is why you see almost no billion dollar "tech" companies coming out of Scandinavia or Europe in the past 10 years. The places with so called, work life balance.
That is a spurious relationship at best. Actually you couldn't possibly have chosen a worse example. Scandinavia actually has the highest share of billion-dollar exits compared to the rest of the world (7% of such exits compared to 2% of global GDP and 3% of total European population) http://nordic.businessinsider.com/the-nordics-are-the-best-f...
Anecdotally, famous Nordic startups include Spotify, Skype, Mojang (behind Minecraft), King (behind Candy Crush, Farm Heroes), Rovio and Supercell.
This guy makes claims with 0 evidence. Points he makes:
1. Nordic countries have more über wealthy per capita.
2. Nordic countries are social democracies.
Then he draws the conclusion, with no corroborating evidence, that these two things are inextricably linked. No data to link these two points at all. Nordic countries in general have a high GDP PPP, and that is probably not solely (or at all) due to being social democracies. Scandinavian systems need to be efficient due the nature of their environment, e.g. they have a lot of land and not a lot of population, and fairly harsh climate (e.g. poor farming conditions). I would almost argue that "being cold" is probably a better indicator of national wealth per capita than "being a social democracy" (though admittedly, I haven't done thorough research either). I mean, look at Canada. Look at the non-farming bits of the US vs. the farming bits. Look at North versus South Italy. etc. Industrialization is more efficient and effective in regions where alternative methods of production weren't great in the first place.
For reference, here is the population density of the nations he was comparing (in people per km^2):
The US has 11x the population density of Iceland. Easier to have shared wealth when each person in your country can have 11x the land they could have in another country (with the caveat, of course, that this only applies if you are an industrialized nation).
I mean, just look at one of his "indicators" - billionaires per million people. By that metric, iceland is at that top. But there is only a single billionaire in iceland. Statistically, then, it's easier to be a billionaire in iceland. In practice, however, that is not the case. Things like population subsets need to be considered. In the US, you have a very large population, which is obviously going to impact per capita stats. However, you need to ask what proportion of those people are actually pursuing wealth in a way that could ever result in becoming a billionaire. e.g. a grocery bagger, probably never to be a billionaire. A plumber? Same. A hippy in a commune? Same. No data has been shown to adjust for lack of competition. At the end of the day, you have to look not at the total population, but at how many people are actually competing to become uber wealthy. Because, while attaining wealth isn't a zero-sum game, it certainly isn't an "everyone wins" game either.
Scandinavian countries have a very high proportion of jobs that don't really have a cap on upper income, such as software/game development, banking, music production, etc. because they have exceedingly efficient economies (as he actually touches on).
However, there is not clear reason to believe that they are efficient because they have social democracies. In fact, the converse (they became social democracies because they already had efficient economies) is just as likely, if not more so.
> The US has 11x the population density of Iceland. Easier to have shared wealth when each person in your country can have 11x the land they could have in another country (with the caveat, of course, that this only applies if you are an industrialized nation).
Can you elaborate on this supposed link between population density and shared wealth in developed nations? I don't understand the logical underpinnings of your argument. Developed countries almost by definition are less reliant on local geography.
Moreover, I don't see how space metrics are even relevant here. Iceland may technically have a lot of available "land" - but more than half the country lives in Reykjavik. A similarly lopsided urban / rural population distribution holds true in other Nordic countries.
You are exactly right. I did a poor job of explaining my thinking.
My point about geography and population density needs to be related to my point about industrialization to make any sense.
It is this: Nordic countries have modern economies weighed very heavily towards industrialization/mechanization, but most importantly, they are efficient. As you say, they also have a "lopsided urban / rural population distribution", which is a much better way of saying (thank you) what I was trying to say: Nordic countries have land, but it's not good for the classic wealth generator - farming. This is why the population is focused in urban areas and is not spread out. However, luckily for places like Iceland, modern cities don't really care how good the land is for farming. An oil refinery doesn't care about the health of the soil. A modern factory doesn't care if the terrain is a bit rocky. Solar panels don't care. Mines don't care. etc., etc. Basically all modern industry is fine in a place like Iceland.
This an unexpected and immense boon to making a modern industrialized nation efficient, because on the one hand, you have major population centres with not much in-between (due to the lack of farming), which is in itself efficient, because areas you need to service with public services are greatly reduced. But on the other hand, you have plenty of space to put modern things like factories or new cities or what have you.
Compare this to the US, the country with more arable farmland than any other country on earth. Sure, the US has big population centres, but they are spread out, and many of them are still driven by rural economies. This greatly reduces efficiency, and is generally why the spread out states seem to be further behind the small / densely populated ones.
I've included the percentage of population that is urban below for comparison, according to The World Bank, from 2015. Also, I think it is slightly different when the rural population is doing something like fishing (Nordic) vs farming, but I won't go into that here.
US - 81%
Sweden - 86%
Iceland - 94%
Comparing anything to the US is a little bit silly though, because the US is comprised of 50 states, all of which are quite a bit different from each other. For instance, I bet the uber wealthy per capita in say California or New York is much, much higher than the Nordic countries. So the obvious answer to this video is probably "move to New York or California if you want to make a lot of money". I will say that would probably require more initial capital than a nordic country, but if you have the initial capital, then your chances are probably better. SO THE ACTUAL ANSWER IS: Get a great education and livelihood in Norseland while you're young, get some seed capital, and move to Cali/NYC/etc to really start making bank.
Obviously if you want to become a billionaire, you're not going to move to Plano, TX. Yet Plano is affecting the per capita stats.
That is a bad example - Scandinavia is punching way above it's weight and reputation in terms of number of unicorn startups[1] produced on a per capita basis.
Sweden has a population of 9.8 million yet it has produced Skype, Mojang, Spotify, King, Klarna [0]
Australia has 2.5x the population but only two unicorns. The UK and London market themselves as the capital of unicorns in Europe yet with 6.5x the population they have either the same number of unicorns or just four more (depending how you count them).
That is remarkable for a country like Sweden, especially when considering the strength and size of the Swedish expatriate community in tech around the world (many tend to leave).
In terms of similar results, I think only Singapore is in similar or better unicorn per capita territory.
[1] "unicorn" isn't the best measure since it is a private valuation and you can get different answers depending on who you ask, but most people would recognize those Swedish startups as being successful.
Skype was a started in Sweden, by a Swede and a Dane. They then however set up a dev office in Estonia where the initial client was developed and set up their headquarters in Luxembourg, I'm assuming for tax reasons. They have however always had offices in Stockholm. That being said Microsoft has announced that they're closing the Stockholm Skype office to consolidate the development to Estonia.
Thanks for your comment! My apologies, no disrespect intended - I should have clarified I meant "left" for the purpose of your IPO. It was and is fantastic to see Australian talent prosper to such heights.
I see many clever companies where I live in Melbourne - however I am saddened by what I perceive as the neglect the government is showing for the tech sector, especially startups; I'm looking e.g. at how share options are taxed. I believe there's a lot of lost opportunity here.
I'd rather have a real work life balance (it's not so called, it's very real) than any amount of abuse working for a US style startup would throw at me.
Most of my colleague would as well.
To have the disdain for life you seem to display you must live in a very distant place from a sane version of reality.
There was a great scene in a Clive Owen movie - Shoot Em Up - where he goes on a bit of a rant about the correlation between fancy cars, driving like an asshole, and success. I think there's a small level of vague relevance here.
"Mr. Smith: I move my finger one inch to use my turn signal. Why are these assholes so lazy they can't move their finger one fucking measly inch to drive more safely? You wanna know why?
DQ: Not particularly.
Mr. Smith: Because these rich bastards have to be callous and inconsiderate in the first place to make all that money, so when they get on the road, they can't help themselves. They've gotta be callous and inconsiderate drivers too. It's in their nature."
Europe has plenty of passionate "asshole" founders and other workaholic types. The lower avg valuation of the tech scene has more to do with investors and general aversion to risk, dependency on public sector financing (really awesome but limiting in maneuverability), stronger status quo legislation, reduced VC scene and a more limited early-adopter audience for your products.
It was founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (Danish) in equal measure. The software was based on Janus Friis' earlier work (the Kazaa p2p network). It was developed by an outsourced team in Estonia.
I don't know, during the last decade we've had billion dollar tech companies such as Spotify, King and Klarna come out of Stockholm which isn't the largest hub in Europe.
So what? Even at Uber, 90% of their employees, the ones who actually made the company as valuable as it is, won't see much in terms of reward for it, and they'll have sacrificed that work-life balance to do so.
ML engineer is a programmer usually with a BS in CS, sometimes a MS. They are, in the end, only an engineer.
The AI scientists, those with work in computer vision, natural language, and audio, developing novel networks and training methods, make at least $500K/year. I've been a data scientist and the pay (and work content) was a joke. I switched to AI and damn, work makes you think and you get paid like a mid-range NBA star.
I went back for a PhD. I know a lot of people can't do this, but this is the reason why there are few AI specialists. You just can't become an expert by reading blogs and even research papers online. You need the full specialist environment, from discussions outside the bathroom to the drawings on the whiteboard.
And here I am dreaming of achieving it by doing MOOC courses :)...So, not possible at all this way?
Theoretically, one would feel, that by just reading blogs, watching videos along side taking MOOC courses, and spawning GPUs on the cloud, should do it.
Plenty of countries have laws against different types of racist behavior. Sweden has them for some types of speech. A rare exception to freedom of speech in our laws.
> They might be happy to get about Dutch style, on a bicycle. To most Americans that mode of transport is unthinkable for things like shopping or bringing up a family, but the Dutch do it.
Unfortunately you lost nearly all your credibility by using the Dutch as a positive example. The Dutch economy is overwhelmingly based on the extraction, production, and export of natural gas, chemicals, and fuel [1]. This doesn't seem environmentally friendly to me.
No matter what law you pass or what incentive you give, recent college grads (I'm a liberal from Berkeley, myself) will find a way to maximize my utility at the expense of the environment. Corporations do this and so do millions of people around the world. Even the Dutch are not immune.
If you want to truly save the environment, go work in battery science and solar production. Because right now, even in HN's beloved Scandinavian countries, oil and gas remains their number one industries. The Norwegians especially know this and are milking it for all it's worth. How will you convince them if you can't convince me - someone not distracted by the billions of dollars involved with oil and gas drilling?
