[samatman]

The sum of these affordances adds up to a market for lemons.

A startup can hire Italians anywhere, certainly anywhere in EU, so the benefit of pair-for education doesn't require Italian jurisdiction.

Everything else sounds really handy if your company is destined for failure, since there are so many ways to get a bailout or take a "loan" with no interest which, hey, you also don't have to pay it back! That's a grant coupled to a later and optional donation, not a loan.

A full-time employer pays for their employee's health care, it doesn't matter if it comes out of taxes or not.

Business in Italy is too expensive, and bureaucracy too high, and you have done a fantastic job of explaining why that is while touting it as benefits!

If I looked into the relationship between nepotism and getting access to all this free money, would I be surprised? Bet I wouldn't be.

[miohtama]

> adds up to a market for lemons

I have witnessed this first hand in Finland where government grants can generate a lot of inflow for early startups. Because bureocrats cannot judge which companies should stay alive or not, everyone gets money resulting to zombie startups that have not managed to scale even after 10 years.

[hkt]

Isn't the whole point of venture capital that VCs also make poor judges of which companies will be successful? Remember the fact that most VC companies fail, and the unicorns pay for them. How is that different?

[miohtama]

VCs stop wasting money when the company is beyond salvation.

[dmitriid]

> fantastic job of explaining why that is while touting it as benefits

Because, as we all know, all businesses are IT startups that can afford to pay for comprehensive medical care, every employee of every company can afford the dissolution of a company (or just an emergency) etc.

[johnthewise]

One could argue that IT startups are all that matter.

[samatman]

One wouldn't even have to argue such a thing to limit the discussion in that way for an "Italian Y Combinator" article.

[dmitriid]

IT companies don't exist in a vacuum.

Also, there's a reason American IT companies frequently list medical insurance, parental leave, vacation tim as benefits. You know, things you don't even think about are listed as benefits.

Why would anyone want this insanity is beyond me.

[epolanski]

You kind of missed some of my crucial points: starting a business on low budget in Italy is possible. People with the right ideas and knowledge can start ventures easier than they would elsewhere in the world, especially silicon valley where you're much more dependent on (important) private capital.

In Italy, that's not really the case, between lower salaries, no interest loans and government funding we have had many great businesses growing out of people that would've had no chance of convincing venture capitalists.

And as I said, yes, it's true, Italy is not the best place to start a business, and yes, it's true that there are places where you can find some if not more of the same benefits with less of the drawbacks, but still you're severely underestimating the many benefits and convenience you can get in Italy where you can start businesses you would've never had the chance too in places where there is no public funding and help for aspiring entrepeneurs.

[samatman]

> People with the right ideas and knowledge can start ventures easier [in Italy than Silicon Valley]

Would you be so kind as to provide a metric, so I can demonstrate conclusively that this isn't true?

I'm basing this on intuition, which is in turn based on numerous Italian software developers I've met in California. Do they have the wrong ideas and knowledge?

Of course not, they went where they could run a business without interference.

[AlotOfReading]

Curiously, other people are always quick to point out how California is a very difficult place to operate a company in when the focus is on companies "fleeing" to low tax states like Texas.

I'd imagine it is easier to start a tech venture in the valley than Italy, but that's just because there's an established ecosystem for it and you're not blazing new ground. The various particularities of government are relatively insignificant in comparison. That's why you can have similarly vibrant startup scenes under political environments as different as the US, China, and Israel.

[onphonenow]

You can startup an AI automated car driving startup more easily in italy than you can in SV?

In SV you can get 10M+ in capital pretty easily - close relative with one prior startup did just that recently. It's VERY low overhead, you can hire (and fire) folks pretty simply. The due diligence on that $10M didn't even require audited financials or anything.

I don't know anywhere in italy even close to that.

[yakak]

The buying power of 10m in SV is equivalent to what, 2m in Italy?

There's definitely a lot of sweet VC money to collect with a business office in SV, but I have no idea why a large company investing a lot of its own money would choose to throw 4/5ths of it away.

[samatman]

Totally absurd claim without any basis in fact whatsoever!

Startup spend (should be) dominated by payroll, maybe server costs. This isn't 500% as expensive in California vs Italy, you made this up.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Well, in Italy a software dev would earn 1500€/month (anecdotal based on friends), so if you are talking about a software startup, it's not out of the blue. My salary (I'm italian living in Canada) is at least 5x what I would be making in Italy

[nickpp]

> People with the right ideas and knowledge can start ventures easier than they would elsewhere in the world, especially silicon valley

In reality they don't though. So why do you think that is?

[oneoff786]

That’s ok for a barebones entrepreneur. That’s not great for people who want to hire talented workers who want real comp.

[epolanski]

Everything's a trade off.

Also, many of those barebones entrepeneurs end up making money, differently from billion-dollar ventures that have yet to post a profit after a decade but can boast highly paid engineers behind very questionable quality overbloated software.

[hkt]

> A full-time employer pays for their employee's health care, it doesn't matter if it comes out of taxes or not.

The difference is that in countries with universal healthcare, everyone who works, companies, etc, pay for everyone's healthcare - an unmitigated social good that many in (say) America wish the US would learn from.