[SR2Z]

I think that folks overseas aren't as capable of communicating with Americans as other Americans are. I think that American tech companies would prefer a motivated at-will employee at 3x the cost of an unfirable European with a statutory month off every year. I think that none of this will magically make it easier to raise money outside the US.

There are obviously plenty of brilliant people outside the US. Unfortunately, intelligence is not the only factor that revenue per employee emerges from - or else the US would not dominate the tech sector and it would be uncommon to find remote-first companies based entirely in the US.

[thefz]

> I think that folks overseas aren't as capable of communicating with Americans as other Americans are

I speak Italian, English and French. I speak English to you because it's the only language you know. We are not the same.

> I think that American tech companies would prefer a motivated at-will employee at 3x the cost of an unfirable European with a statutory month off every year.

We work to live, not the opposite. Again, we are not the same.

[AnimalMuppet]

Fair enough, on both points. And yet, a tech company in the US may prefer someone who is US-style rather than Europe-style on the second point.

[SR2Z]

> I speak Italian, English and French. I speak English to you because it's the only language you know. We are not the same.

I have worked with overseas coworkers who spoke English. You're right, it's not always the same as having native fluency.

> We work to live, not the opposite. Again, we are not the same.

You're making my point for me - offshoring work fails for cultural reasons, not because overseas workers are dumb. Making work remote is not gonna change the cultural factors.

Also a very funny take because if you have ever visited the Bay Area, you can't throw a rock without hitting someone who struck it rich and retired at 30.

[thefz]

> Also a very funny take because if you have ever visited the Bay Area, you can't throw a rock without hitting someone who struck it rich and retired at 30.

What does it have to do with companies looking for "motivated" americans? Also

> if you have ever visited the Bay Area

Nah, thanks.

[SR2Z]

Congrats! You like where you live.

[benterix]

> an unfirable European

This is not true - most American companies hire contractors, usually through a local intermediary.

> with a statutory month off every year.

This is something work pondering about, really. Take step back, look at your life, and think a bit about this point, no matter if you're blue- or white-collar worker.

[SR2Z]

> This is not true - most American companies hire contractors, usually through a local intermediary.

Do you have a source for this? I would expect EU rules around classifying contractors to be much stricter than what we have in the US.

> This is something work pondering about, really. Take step back, look at your life, and think a bit about this point, no matter if you're blue- or white-collar worker.

Yes, I have taken a look at my life and thought about this point.

I enjoy work. I enjoy building things that are useful to society and I enjoy getting paid a lot of money to do it.

I'm not even gonna pretend that I don't take long vacations. Lots of places I've worked have had unlimited PTO, despite no legal requirement for it.

But the smaller and earlier-stage places I've worked? No, people didn't take vacations there. The company could not afford it, and when employees are shareholders they generally love maximizing shareholder value.

[disgruntledphd2]

> I think that folks overseas aren't as capable of communicating with Americans as other Americans are.

This is sortof absurd on the face of it. For context, I'm a European who's been working for US based companies for well over a decade now, and rarely do I have communications issues (and they're generally with non-native English speakers, mostly Europeans living in the US).

> I think that American tech companies would prefer a motivated at-will employee at 3x the cost of an unfirable European with a statutory month off every year.

It's important to note that not all Europeans are unfireable. In fact, none of them are, it's just that you need to 1) give a verbal warning, 2) give a written warning and 3) fire them if things don't improve. Granted, you can't fire them for not laughing at your jokes but the same sort of process gets followed in California where most US tech companies are headquatered.

> I think that none of this will magically make it easier to raise money outside the US.

This is the actual reason. There's so much capital available in the US that it sucks in a lot of ambitious people.

> There are obviously plenty of brilliant people outside the US. Unfortunately, intelligence is not the only factor that revenue per employee emerges from - or else the US would not dominate the tech sector and it would be uncommon to find remote-first companies based entirely in the US.

In fact, it's normally easier to get a better person outside the US, as they have less options at big-tech level wages. The US dominates the tech sector because of availablity of capital, not availability of talent.

[oblio]

Yeah, the magical American is the reason for US tech dominance. There's a reason why the biggest software companies come from big countries:

1. large internal markets provide more funding and more competition at the start

2. which leads to better product-market fit

3. which leads to more dominance as the natural software monopolies happen

4. which leads to easier taking over of smaller foreign markets

Biggest software companies? American and Chinese. Also Indian ones are starting to rise, too.

In comparison Europe is super fractured. Ignoring big US companies, the average French person buys stuff from a totally different website than the average German, for almost category you can imagine.

[eska]

In order to fire a German employee outside of their multiple month trial period they have to commit a crime or willfully ignore instructions, or the company must be in financial trouble due to outside circumstances. Underperforming is not a legal reason to fire somebody.

[disgruntledphd2]

> In order to fire a German employee outside of their multiple month trial period they have to commit a crime or willfully ignore instructions, or the company must be in financial trouble due to outside circumstances. Underperforming is not a legal reason to fire somebody.

Do you have a source for this claim? I'm not an expert in German employment law but would love to learn more.

[disgruntledphd2]

A quick Google produces this: https://boundlesshq.com/guides/germany/end-of-employment/

The only thing that seems different from Ireland (where I live) is the Works Council hearing part.

[oblio]

My guess is, the employer just needs to do the legwork of documenting the performance issues.

[eska]

No, the employer would have to provide training and show that the employee is willfully not participating. That’s legally challenging for non-trivial stuff.

[SR2Z]

> This is sortof absurd on the face of it. For context, I'm a European who's been working for US based companies for well over a decade now, and rarely do I have communications issues (and they're generally with non-native English speakers, mostly Europeans living in the US).

You might have excellent fluency, but my experience is that it varies a lot depending on the person.

> Granted, you can't fire them for not laughing at your jokes but the same sort of process gets followed in California where most US tech companies are headquatered.

I think this is underselling the degree of employment protection in Europe, but I will freely admit I'm not an expert.

> In fact, it's normally easier to get a better person outside the US, as they have less options at big-tech level wages. The US dominates the tech sector because of availablity of capital, not availability of talent.

But "better person" here doesn't mean smarter - it means a more effective employee. Working in a very different timezone, language barriers, and culture differences make that an uphill battle, which is why offshoring hasn't exploded.

[disgruntledphd2]

I'm a native English speaker, for what it's worth. There are about 80mn or so of us in Europe.

I think the issue around employment protection is that the US laws are crazy bad, so any level of employment protection seems weird. Ireland and the UK (weirdly the places where you have lots of native English speakers) have pretty employer friendly laws for Europe.

Western Europe generally has a bunch more protections for permanent employees so maybe that's what you mean? Note that employment laws are almost entirely national, but the EU sets a floor.

Timezones definitely make a big difference, but again the cultural differences between Ireland and the UK and the typical coastal US tech companies are wildly oversold.