Liberty, equality, technology: France is finally poised to become a tech power |
Posted: July 16, 2018 |
Once America had an unassailable advantage, an economic flywheel that spun off innovation and Fortune 500 companies like a perpetual-motion machine. Bring in the best, brightest, and most driven from around the world; educate them or their children at its universities; then watch them start companies, succeed wildly, give back to their alma maters, and recruit new talent as the virtuous cycle began again. It hardly mattered whether these immigrants came in as students (think Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and Steve Jobs’ father Abdul Fattah Jandali) or with their families (Sergey Brin and Jerry Yang) or as refugees (eg Alexis Ohanian’s father’s family) or as undocumented immigrants (eg Ohanian’s mother.) Meanwhile, the UK, thanks to its Commonwealth connections and universities like Oxbridge and Imperial College, did much the same on a smaller scale. It was a self-sustaining wealth-generation and nation-strengthening machine of gigantic proportions, and it would take colossal idiocy to want to interfere with it. free classified sites list in australia without registration , online classifieds nyc , new york post classifieds , online advertising in bangladesh , free advertising sites in sri lanka , adpost philippines , advertisement in the philippines , buy and sell business philippines , buy and sell classified ads philippines , buy and sell ph , buy and sell philippines , buy and sell websites philippines , cebu classified ads , classified ads philippines newspaper , filipino classified ads , free ad sites philippines , free classified ads online philippines , free classified ads philippines , free online posting sites philippines , job search philippines , jobs in philippines , manila classified ads , online classified ads philippines , online classifieds philippines , philippine advertisements , philippines classified ads buy sell , philippines classifieds , property finder philippines , property philippines, sulit buy and sell , free classified ads in ukraine , post rental ads for free in singapore , Enter Brexit. Enter Donald Trump. Enter their implicit and explicit rejections of immigration, including serious barriers to and discouragement of legal and skilled immigration, such as H-1B visa holders and international students — along with the general sense of “you’re not welcome here” that they’re clearly doing their damnedest to convey. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, that other great immigrant nation, France, has been working overtime for the last four years to open both its economy and its borders to tech startups. I was skeptical of these efforts a couple of years ago, but two days ago I sat down with former Cisco CEO John Chambers and Accel partner Joe Schoendorf to talk tech in France, and they’ve convinced me that under President Macron, “everything has changed.” classified ad site in kuwait , post free ads no registration required , post free classified ads in united kingdom , free classified sites in uk , uk free classified sites list without registration , post free classified ads in england , post free classified ads in philippines , post free classified ads in saudi arabia , saudi arabia classified ads buy and sell , free ad posting sites in usa , place free classified ads , sites to place free classified ads , list of free classified websites for ad posting without registration , classified sites list without login and registration , post house for rent free , free advertising websites in uae , dubai free classifieds sites , top 10 classified sites in uae , free classified ads sites list in uae , post free classified ads in united arab emirates , post free classified ads in ghanalist of online shopping sites in ghana , free classified ads site list in australia , australian free classified ads online , top 10 classified sites in australia , It’s not just that Macron’s reforms have made it far easier to hire and fire in France, making labor costs far more understandable and predictable — although this is a huge deal and a major sea-change. It’s not just that France is offering easy-to-access French Tech visas to founders, employees, and investors alike, so that it’s never been easier for techies to live and work in France — which, as a former Paris resident myself, I can tell you is pretty great. It’s not just access to a sizable pool of relatively inexpensive engineers. It’s not just openness across academia as well as the private sector (41% of France’s 75,000 Ph.D students are not French.) It’s not just Paris beginning to surpassLondon in investor interest generally, not just in technology. list of classified sites in europe , germany classifieds site , free job posting sites in germany , germany auto classifieds , sweden classified site , most popular classified sites in canada , free classified sites list in canada without registration , post free classified ads in brazil , post free classified ads in switzerland , post free classified ads in kuwait , where to advertise for free , how to advertise online for free , post free classified ads in USA without registration , free classified ads sites in USA , advertise my business for free , free business advertising sites , Advertise Your Business For Free , free business advertising online free classified site for any country , free classified websites list for ad posting , classified advertisements website , free posting ads websites list , free internet advertising sites , free classifieds ads online , Post Free Classified ads online , Free Indian Classified Websites list Free Classified Ads Sites Worldwide , post free ads on google , Best Sites To Post Ads For Free , Free Ad Placement Sites , where can i place an ad for free , free classified posting sites , free classified ads portals , top 10 free classified ad sites , most popular free ad posting sites , top 10 advertising websites , free ads online classifieds websites It’s also the transformation of the French population as well as the government. 50% of French youth aged 18-24, and 70% of students at the École Polytechnique, France’s flagship technical university, want to go work for startups rather than enterprises — and their ambitions are now European and/or global, not merely French. There’s strength in depth there, too; Chambers compares the raw engineering talent at the Polytechnique to that at Stanford, and France is one Fields Medal away from overtaking the USA in total numbers won. I can aver that all this is a massive change from when I lived in France a decade ago. Schoendorf says he can think of only one comparable example of a major developed democracy changing so much, in such a short time, as France over the last four years: the UK under Thatcher. Regardless of whether you lionize or demonize Thatcher, that gives you an idea of the scale of the transformation. (And it’s nationwide: 75% of France’s members of parliament are new, and there are twice as many women as ever before.) I don’t want to pretend that Silicon Valley is at risk of being supplanted by the Île-de-France. The Valley is and will remain the sun at the center of tech’s solar system. But France has now graduated from “asteroid” to “planet,” and is well on its way to “gas giant.” Not least because of its spectacular timing: inviting immigrants just as the US and UK are in the midst of the spectacularly stupid process of dissuading them, and just as the Valley has gotten so expensive, courtesy of NIMBY housing paralysis, that leaders there are looking for any way to diversify to other locales. All this is beginning to have a measurable effect. There were 274 French companies at the latest CES, up from 13 less than a decade ago. There were more than 700 VC investments in French tech companies last year, which rivals the UK, and more than 50 had American VC involvement. Also, I don’t want to put too much weight on anecdotal data, but two serious, impressive tech people I know have, independently, moved from America to Paris in the last few months. My chief complaint two years ago was that the French government wanted startups to make their big enterprises better and more competitive, rather than wanting startups to become their big enterprises. That has changed. As Schoendorf says, “Macron sees the world’s five most valuable companies, all tech companies on the West Coast of America, and thinks: we need one of those.” Pascal Cagni, chairman of Business France, has a more accessible intermediary goal: a French “NATU”, meaning Netflix / AirBNB / Tesla / Uber. And he’s right. France’s transformation into Europe’s primary technology power is real and ongoing, among all of government, academia, big business, and startups; but what they really need is a big hit and a cohort of successful entrepreneurs, a French equivalent of what the PayPal Mafia became. (Xavier Niel is having an enormous effect — see Ecole 42 and Station F, “the world’s largest startup facility” in southeast Paris — but he can’t do it alone.) If and when that happens, though, France will lead Europe for the foreseeable future … and help lead the globe, too.
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