It's very difficult to actually grow a company in a country like Sweden because of the regulations and taxes you are required to pay after a certain amount of employees.
I would rather pay employees a living wage as part of a sustainable business than deal with the hypergrowth VC bullshit that destroys entire market segments with nothing to show for it except ruined lives after the startups finally implode.
There will be no sustainable business. Regulations and taxes strangle your business before it gets to that point.
If you look at the business landscape of Sweden, it mostly consists of large multinational corporations with bases outside of Sweden (IKEA is a good example of this) and government jobs.
It doesn't leave much room for individuals wanting to start a business and actually having an chance at success.
It's a country of 10 millions that builds jet fighters (Gripen), 5G technology with Ericsson, Minecraft, etc.
The current NASDAQ trading platform was also developed in Sweden.
I would say they're doing very well when it comes to business and technology.
All government funded operations except Minecraft..which is now owned by Microsoft.
Funny..the Original owner of Minecraft never stayed in Sweden with his billion dollars.
My point still stands: you can start a company in Sweden, but will never be able to grow it to sustainable levels unless you incorporate elsewhere (or get purchased).
All examples I've seen so far have only helped prove my point.
King.com is incorporated in Malta. Presumably to get around taxes in Sweden and Spotify is incorporated in Luxomburg. Stop changing the topic.
My point is that you can't grow a company in Sweden and every single example you have just given me are companies that left Sweden after growing to a certain stage.
I think I'm done arguing my point because facts and data dont seem to matter here and it's funny how such a seemingly intelligent community can be utterly blinded by politics.
The reality is that I would never incorporate a company in Sweden and incorporating pretty much anywhere else on earth would give me an advantage.
You made my point again. If you look at the wikipedia page, it's not incorporated in Sweden. It's a multinational corporation with an office in Sweden.
It's literally headquartered in Stockholm. That's like saying a Silicon Valley startup isn't actually in California or subject to California's laws solely because it incorporated in Delaware.
So are many multinationals, for tax reasons (not labor law reasons) related to something called IP migration that let corporations evade taxes on local income.
Labor laws affect a company if they have employees in that jurisdiction. It doesn't matter if your HQ is somewhere else.
HQ is still here in Stockholm, it grew from Sweden up to the point it was incorporated outside of Sweden to go public, because shareholders will be moaning about it. It is still a very Swedish company, paying taxes in Sweden.
Incorporated outside of Sweden is the key here. It seems people are downvoting me because they dont want to hear the truth...but other commenters keep making my point quite nicely.
Incorporating outside of Sweden allows big companies to enjoy tax benefits and then hire Engineers from Sweden at an average of 50,000USD to 68,0000USD (these numbers can easily be found on Google).
They get lower taxes, a cheap labor pool, and the company isn't limited through draconian taxes and regulations, it only has to deal with it at a satellite office. It's a win-win.
Now show me a company that's large, started in Sweden, and is still in Sweden many years later.
No, it is because tax evasion using international ports to hoard wealth is a thing, because other countries don't have any will to disallow that when they can earn free tax money from companies trying to evade their duties.
It is a race to the bottom with tax schemes, not the fault of Sweden to try to uphold its values and ways of living. So far it has worked pretty well, tell me more how it can be improved because as a country of 10m people I'd say it is pretty impressive.
Even more if your whining about taxes is so real, then you should come teach the Swedish government how to do it right and better because we are losing a lot of money it seems...