[HN Gopher] How Huawei controls its employees in Europe
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How Huawei controls its employees in Europe
Author : imartin2k
Score : 220 points
Date : 2021-01-13 12:14 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (netzpolitik.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (netzpolitik.org)
| newbie578 wrote:
| I implore everyone to read the article. It is well documented and
| quite shocking.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| I have and you're right.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| I am pre-disposed to hate Huawei, but I didn't find the article
| compelling. Few of the sources were named with little
| justification for the anonymity. If they are ex-employee, what is
| the fear? Even about a court case, Huawei denies they were sued,
| yet the article doesn't address whether court records dispute
| that.
|
| As for the terrible working conditions, the article takes an
| absurdly long time to make a few tepid points. Chinese expats
| don't mingle with the locals. They are rotated if they do develop
| ties with the local population.
|
| The articles asserts that employees are handcuffed by payment in
| shares. When leaving the company, they must sell their shares.
| The articles says this robs them of their retirement. How? Must
| they be sold at a loss? When my employer matched my retirement
| contributions in shares, I was pissed that I _couldn't_ sell
| until I quit.
|
| Again, I would love to hate Huawei, but this article isn't doing
| it for me.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| As an ex-Cisco employee it is easy for me to hate Huawei, no
| need for an article. :)
|
| But seriously... Disrespecting the local culture as an expat
| has nothing but bad effects on the organization in the long
| term. Huawei will pay a price for this, in the long term.
| konschubert wrote:
| > They are rotated if they do develop ties with the local
| population.
|
| That's the killer for me. That's illegal.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Sure it's illegal, but meh. Quit or sue.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| It's only illegal when it's not the government doing it.
|
| Rotating duty to prevent sympathizing with the locals is
| standard procedure for law enforcement agencies above the
| municipal level.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| In the US State Department I'm not sure if it's explicitly
| given as official justification, but it's widely understood
| as the justification for the entire way things are
| organized.
|
| Is it illegal when it's not the government doing it though?
| In what country, what laws make it illegal?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > In what country, what laws make it illegal?
|
| I'm pretty sure it's not illegal in my country but I
| dunno about the person I was responding to. I was just
| pointing out that it's SOP in some industries.
| Sacho wrote:
| What law is this breaking?
| konschubert wrote:
| In Germany there is no at-will employment.
|
| Employers need a reason to fire employees.
|
| This prevents them from reaching into people's private
| lives, like Huawei is doing here.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Does "rotated" mean fired? I think they are talking about
| Chinese nationals reassigned back to China or other non-
| German countries, right? it might be illegal in Germany,
| Germany does have very strong labor protections! It's
| still not clear to me what law would make it illegal.
| rataata_jr wrote:
| Chinese company. Not surprised.
| f6v wrote:
| Out of interest, have you worked in Chinese companies before,
| or just doing racial judgement?
| zthrowaway wrote:
| People who work at Chinese companies such as TikTok speak
| about how differently they are treated if they are not
| Chinese, you can even see this all over Blind.
|
| You can judge a culture without looking at their race.
| johan_larson wrote:
| I worked for Huawei in Canada for a bit less than a year
| before I left, because my boss insisted on assigning me
| work I didn't believe I could deliver on.
|
| Of course I was only there for a short time, so I could be
| mistaken, but I did note that 75% of the employees in the
| lab (in Canada) were Chinese, as were seven of the eight
| first-level managers. That said, I never felt badly treated
| because of my ethnicity, and I never saw anyone else
| treated badly either. While it is possible things could
| have ended up this way for innocuous reasons, I would bet
| against it. I'm guessing some informal "good fit"
| discrimination is going on.
|
| There is also an awful lot of Chinese spoken at the
| company. They try to run their foreign operations in
| English, and I have to give them credit for putting some
| real effort into it. But given the distribution of their
| staff in Canada and even more so over in China, in practice
| things switch over to Chinese quite frequently. It makes
| sense that they do this, since some of the engineers in
| China struggle to communicate in English, but when it
| happens the non-Chinese are excluded. And it's hard to
| object when one is the only blue-eye among a dozen Chinese.
|
| Given what I saw, I would advise any non-Chinese engineer
| considering taking a job at Huawei to consider alternatives
| carefully, and absolutely not take the job if they do not
| speak Chinese and do not plan to learn it.
| ashneo76 wrote:
| Judging a company by its national ties and policies is not
| racial
| ohduran wrote:
| > They tell of a technology company that seems to see its
| employees first and foremost as raw materials from which it wants
| to forge its own success.
|
| How unlike any other company I know.
| jacknews wrote:
| OK, it's about coyotes, not wolves, and finacial innovation and
| organizations, not tech/business infiltrations, but:
|
| Too Clever By Half https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-
| half/
| gthtjtkt wrote:
| 9-9-6 schedule, "brainwashing" training, public humiliation for
| mistakes, automatic termination at age 50, penalties for
| integrating with EU culture. This isn't employment, it's slavery.
| Animats wrote:
| Sounds like IBM in the glory days of mainframes. Non-US
| operations were controlled by American IBM employees. No country
| outside the US made enough parts to make a full computer. IBM
| employees used to say the initials stood for "I've Been Moved".
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Both Apple and Huawei do R&D in Europe at a massive scale, hiring
| the top researchers and the best minds from universities,
| research labs and from the competition (Nokia, Ericsson, ARM,
| Imagination, even intelligence services) with top pay to boot.
|
| While Apple is nowhere near as evil as Huawei, it's sad when you
| think about it, that EUs best and brightest minds, educated with
| EU money are helping strengthen the Chinese and US tech titans
| instead of the domestic ones but Europe dug it's own grave here
| by not funding its domestic tech sector enough and sleeping at
| the wheel while US and China were stealing their lunch from
| underneath their nose.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Same in the US (Santa Clara CA, Plano TX, and Bridgetwater NJ)
| They are currently moving their US R&D to their Canada research
| centre due to sanctions.
|
| All international companies have R&D all around the world.
|
| ps. It's not stealing when you do R&D in foreign country.
| chmod775 wrote:
| >that EUs best and brightest minds, educated with EU money are
| helping strengthen the Chinese and US tech titans
|
| It goes farther than that. Universities in many EU countries
| are essentially free, _even for foreign students_.
|
| About 30% of students at my university in Berlin are foreign,
| coming from mostly Asian, Arabian, and American countries. And
| you know what? I wouldn't change a thing about it.
|
| This "us vs. them", or more accurately "US vs. them" attitude
| needs to stop.
| trinix912 wrote:
| > even for foreign students
|
| This is not completely true, it only applies to students from
| other EU/EEA countries. There are some exceptions for a few
| other european countries but apart from those, international
| students still have to pay the tuition.
| trumpeta wrote:
| correct, but the tuition is peanuts compared to US or in
| some cases places like India.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > This is not completely true, it only applies to students
| from other EU/EEA countries.
|
| This is incorrect (for Germany) unless you want to go to a
| university in Baden-Wurttemberg (one of the 16 states of
| Germany), which introduced tuition for international
| students in 2017.
|
| Everywhere else you will pay virtually the same fees[1] as
| a German national (<1k euro/year), except that you may be
| required to pay into a 'security fund' for international
| students if you have the means, which helps less-well-off
| international students or those who have fallen on hard
| times to pay those same fees.
|
| Take the TU Berlin as an example: https://www.tu.berlin/en/
| studying/studienorganisation/finanz...
|
| [1] Note that these fees are _not_ tuition. About half of
| them pays for a greatly discounted public transport ticket,
| the other half for an assortment of smaller things.
| vinay427 wrote:
| They did say there are a few exceptions. Most every
| country I looked at with the exception of (most of)
| Germany and one or two others had substantial tuition
| fees for non-EU/EEA/CH students that were on the order of
| my in-state university tuition in the US.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| In France they shot themselves in the foot because of, as
| often, grand principles:
|
| The government wanted to make foreign students (outside
| of EEA) in universities pay significant tuition fees but
| that was shot down as unconstitutional because the
| constitution states that public education has to be free
| for everyone and anyone...
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Where in my original comment did you read that I have
| something against foreign students in europe?
| iorrus wrote:
| Will be very interesting to see how these two different
| ideologies play out over the coming years. According to the
| article Huawei favours ethnic Chinese over Europeans
| especially at management level and I've heard the same about
| TikTok so we have a great opportunity to watch how these
| competing visions play out
| hiram112 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| >> One ex-employee says there is effectively a glass ceiling
| for European workers.
|
| > About 30% of students at my university in Berlin are
| foreign, coming from mostly Asian, Arabian, and American
| countries... This "us vs. them", or more accurately "US vs.
| them" attitude needs to stop.
|
| Except they're not going to change. You (i.e. us) are just
| going to lose. How many European students are enrolled in
| elite institutions in China, India, Middle East, etc, at the
| host country's expense, who will then take coveted positions
| at foreign firms in those countries? 30%, lol?
|
| In the US, they created this backdoor "Opt" work visa (which
| they're desperately trying to expand) that allows hundreds of
| thousands of foreign students to stay in the US once studies
| are finished and compete for jobs. Oh, and they don't pay
| various retirement taxes, so companies get an immediate 15%
| incentive to hire them over American students.
|
| Only white Europeans and Americans are told they must bend
| over backwards to allow other cultures and ethnicities to
| advance while the rest of the world takes advantage of our
| self-inflicted stupidity and laughs at us while they surge
| past us.
|
| You've been indoctrinated by various interest groups, none of
| whom actually have your interests or those of your country in
| mind.
| chmod775 wrote:
| > You (i.e. us) are just going to lose.
|
| How? What is "their" end-game? At worst "they" cost us like
| 3,000 euro/semester in tuition, which is virtually nothing.
|
| At best the people that came here stay, adding skilled
| labor to our workforce.
|
| At the very least Germany gets a solid boost to foreign
| relations, established a foundation for international
| corporation in research, and educated a generation of
| people who have seen the other side of the pond, while
| remaining less ignorant ourselves. There's a reason Germany
| is diplomatically one of the best connected countries.
|
| You can hardly buy a measly frigate for your navy for what
| this costs us, and I know which is more useful for enacting
| meaningful change.
|
| Also, personally, I value the experience of interacting
| with students from other nationalities a lot.
|
| > In the US [...]
|
| And? This is not the US.
|
| > You've been indoctrinated
|
| Yeah, right.
| tchalla wrote:
| > Only white Europeans and Americans are told they must
| bend over backwards to allow other cultures and ethnicities
| to advance while the rest of the world takes advantage of
| our self-inflicted stupidity and laughs at us while they
| surge past us.
|
| I can understand your argument if you say education in
| Europe should be paid for some people as residents of the
| country pay taxes. You don't have to be vitriolic to make
| that point.
| eddieplan9 wrote:
| > In the US, they created this backdoor "Opt" work visa
| (which they're desperately trying to expand) that allows
| hundreds of thousands of foreign students to stay in the US
| once studies are finished and compete for jobs. Oh, and
| they don't pay various retirement taxes, so companies get
| an immediate 15% incentive to hire them over American
| students.
|
| First, OPT is not a visa. Optional Practical Training
| participants are mostly F-1 visa holders. Per IRS rules[1],
| the social security tax exemption "does not apply to
| F-1,J-1,M-1, or Q-1/Q-2 nonimmigrants who become resident
| aliens." And per IRS rules [2], you are considered a
| resident aliens if you pass the Substantial Presence Test
| [3], which states, "31 days during the current year, and
| 183 days during the 3-year period that includes the current
| year and the 2 years immediately before that." Now how many
| students can get an OPT job and still fail this test?
|
| The US immigration policy is not perfect and has holes. But
| attracting foreign talents to stay and work in the US is
| the baby, not the bath water.
|
| [1] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
| taxpayers/fore... [2]
| https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
| taxpayers/dete... [3]
| https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-
| taxpayers/subs...
| nisa wrote:
| > Europe dug it's own grave here by not funding its domestic
| tech sector enough and sleeping at the wheel while US and China
| were stealing their lunch from underneath their nose.
|
| IMHO it's not a failure of the technology skills but rather a
| huge failure of the elites and management (and how management
| is educated in European universities) - everything was sourced
| out and lot's of small companies died due to mismanagement -
| also instead of nurturing the highly educated former east-bloc
| countries they were crushed by neoliberal politics to avoid
| having more competition for western european firms. So the
| whole of eastern europe became a factory hall for management in
| the west.
| raverbashing wrote:
| I mostly agree, though to be honest several EU companies dug
| their own graves.
|
| How long since you've heard about anything relevant on the
| market from "Big German electronics manufacturer" (wink)? And
| from "Big Dutch electronics manufacturer" (though this one
| seems to be still around in some areas)?
|
| And if Huawei pays good salaries then other companies better
| get on with it, right? Competition is competition. Only
| management can give the direction, the focus and the urgency
| needed and the European companies were awful at it.
| jariel wrote:
| "Competition is competition."
|
| Not if you have a state-backed cultish operation leveraging
| hyper nationalism and breaking all of the rules.
|
| You can't compete with an entity that has unlimited cash, a
| massive spy apparatus behind it, access to financing from
| state owned banks that work with the central bank, where
| state banks print money to finance your customers, and
| completely asymmetric trade rules working in it's favour.
|
| "Don't worry, we can make that for 1/5th the cost that you
| do, thanks to our labour laws back home (!) and the fact our
| IP appeared magically on our desks. And you don't even need
| to pay that money now - pay it later - our friendly CCP bank
| back home will give you unlimited credit! I might disagree
| with what I am telling you and everything bout it, but I've
| been trained since youth to store those notions deep inside
| and to never really speak the truth".
| cambalache wrote:
| > Not if you have a state-backed cultish operation
| leveraging hyper nationalism and breaking all of the rules.
|
| OK, but enough about Apple.
| jariel wrote:
| Apple is owned or controlled by the US Government?
|
| Apple has the JP Morgan handing out cheap loans backed by
| the Fed to it's customers?
|
| Apple works in perfect sync with the US Government and
| execs 'disappear' when they don't?
|
| What happened when Jack Ma dared to disagree with Xi?
| mattkrause wrote:
| We just got a new 7T MRI from "Big German Electronics
| Manufacturer". The runner-up option was from Big Dutch
| manufacturer.
| yostrovs wrote:
| GE makes 7T MRI too and it's the only one cleared for
| clinical use in the US as far as I know:
| https://www.medgadget.com/2020/11/fda-clears-most-
| powerful-c...
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| That's great, but the problem is Apple makes x1000 more
| money selling phones than Siemens and Philips do selling
| MRI machines.
| mattkrause wrote:
| It's much closer than you'd think.
|
| Apple's 2020 revenue was ~$US 250B; Siemen's 2019 revenue
| was ~$US $100B.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| That's Siemens' global revenue including things like
| battleships and wind turbine farms.
| mattkrause wrote:
| ...and Apple's from music, apps, books, and PCs.
|
| My point is that these companies, while not as massively
| dominant as Apple, are still very relevant in their own
| markets. It's just that everyone wants a phone, while
| fewer people are on the hunt for heavy equipment.
|
| The part which I should have made more explicit is "Big
| American electric conglomerate" also sells MRI stuff, but
| my impression is that it's not often one of the front
| runners, so it's not as though European companies just
| can't compete.....
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| ASML, a Dutch semiconductor company, is a titan in the fab
| business. TSMC might be the world leader is chip fabrication,
| but the kit that _they_ use is Dutch-sourced.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| ASML gets mentioned so often as counter example to EU's
| downfall in tech that all it does it prove the point.
|
| One drop of water doesn't mean it's raining.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > One drop of water doesn't mean it's raining.
|
| The German Mittelstand is _famous_ for their "hidden
| champions" - in fact, 48% of small-ish "world market
| leaders" are German, while only 28 of the big "Top 500"
| are (per https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40796571).
|
| The problems with our Mittelstand are a) modern IT
| technologies (the amount of Mittelstand companies
| operating on fax-ed POs or with extremely shoddy IT
| setups is... mind blowing) and b) finding new and
| competent staff, given that many young people move to
| cities because the rural areas are unliveable.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| TBH, as a SW engineer who used to work in family owned
| Mittelstand companies, those places are the worst you can
| choose to work in and no wonder they can't find employees
| willing to work for them anymore. Good riddance!
| the-dude wrote:
| Philips has been actively retreating from the consumer market
| for years, focussing on the medical market.
| muro wrote:
| Hue is still around
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Hue is not a multi-billion industry though, there's no
| ridiculous growth or profit margins, and it's not (read:
| no longer) a unique product, with companies like ikea
| jumping on the same bandwagon.
| muro wrote:
| And they also do electric tooth brushes and air filters
| (or what the name is), both of which are possibly the
| best on market.
| adrianb wrote:
| Philips the company now only operates in the medical
| market, the lighting division is a spin-off that still
| uses the Philips brand:
|
| > In 2018, the independent Philips Lighting N.V. was
| renamed Signify N.V. However, it continues to produce and
| market Philips-branded products such as Philips Hue
| color-changing LED light bulbs
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philips
| throwaway9870 wrote:
| I used to work at a large US tech company known for making a
| lot of acquisitions. One time I was assisting with one and was
| having drinks with the VP coordinating a lot of this growth and
| he explained he would _never_ acquire a French company because
| of the labor laws. Now, he was a German, so take that with a
| grain of salt :) However, the key point here is the same story
| we see repeated all the time: simple things such as labor laws
| protecting employees can backfire in unexpected ways.
|
| I am not claiming I have the answer or the French laws are
| wrong, just presenting a data point. Nevertheless, this is HN,
| so I expect people how dumb I am and how I have no idea what I
| am talking about. Fire away.
| iorrus wrote:
| This doesn't seem like a bad thing at all, allows the french
| company to further develop independently while still being
| locally owned... maybe bad for the owners but not necessarily
| for French society
| throwaway9870 wrote:
| It is a big handicap building a small company in tech
| knowing the largest company in the space which does a large
| number of acquisitions will probably not be interested in
| you despite how good your work is.
| iorrus wrote:
| Depends if your goal is to sell ASAP. I know that in my
| part of Europe the government agencies that support small
| businesses with grants etc _hate_ when they sell to
| foreign competitors as most likely outcome is IP transfer
| and breakup of a potential competitor. If these policies
| select for those unwilling to do this that's fine as far
| as they're concerned.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| While it's true that French labor laws are expensive and
| constraining, the same is true of German laws.
| kazen44 wrote:
| you can also do this argument to other way. american labour
| law is a joke, and outside of the 1% circles on HN, workers
| in the US have terrible working conditions for a western,
| developed nation.
|
| also, a cultural thing I don't see talked about much on HN
| is that many Europeans are critical of capitalism and are
| far more class conscious then most Americans (from my
| personal experience).
| oauea wrote:
| How is that a backfire? Sounds like the employees were
| sufficiently protected from a company that clearly had no
| intention of following said law.
| throwaway9870 wrote:
| The company is a multi-billion dollar company that
| absolutely follows all employment laws. They just didn't
| want to deal with the French laws.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| And yet Apple, Microsoft, SAP and Facebook have offices
| in Paris.
|
| What's up with that then?
|
| This shows that even giant US and German companies can
| work with French labor laws just fine otherwise they
| wouldn't be there.
|
| So, to me, this whole current push in the west to drive
| down labor laws in the sake of _" staying competitive"_
| is just a big globalization scam on the working class and
| a backtrack of all the quality of life progress made from
| years of struggle by previous generations.
|
| Good for France for not giving in!
| volkl48 wrote:
| What are the size of those offices? (I don't know the
| answer to this question).
|
| Every multinational company of a sufficient size is going
| to have "an office" in a major developed country.
|
| The question to me is whether or not that office is
| employing more than the minimum required for the company
| to sell products in that country. If your "office" is
| just local sales and support, some lawyers for local
| legal issues, etc, I don't think that's a strong case.
|
| Do they do substantial R&D there? Are there new products
| that come out developed by "Microsoft Paris"? Etc.
| oauea wrote:
| So they didn't want to follow French law. Sounds like a
| bullet dodged for the French employees who are protected
| by those laws.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Not sure if the brightest minds end up at Huawei, because while
| the pay might be good, bright people might know that they need
| to expect different standards. Some do it for the money for a
| few years of course.
|
| Often when we talk about tech, we talk about pop-tech. Aside
| from social media, chip giants like Intel or TSMC are the
| topic. The machines they use are build in the Netherlands by a
| company very few people know by name. Sure, the chip design is
| perhaps the essence, but I believe that US companies are just
| good at marketing, Chinas companies are good at scale.
|
| Europe has many world market leader in the middle class. It is
| a misconception that you end up with a business titan in such a
| position.
|
| It doesn't generate press, but I believe this is a far better
| foundation for an economy compared to having some superstars.
|
| Although the US has certainly a lot of really good high tech.
| For example Texas Instruments has incredible tech just in their
| drawers, but they generate comparatively few headlines.
| RGamma wrote:
| You'd hope "European top minds" would have different things on
| their mind than mere money. (have given up hope for our US
| friends)
|
| Virtually none of the discoveries that fundamentally changed
| the world were _driven_ by thoughts about that mindnumbing
| thing. It really kills ingenuity and curiosity
| calgoo wrote:
| Well, if you have to worry about money every month because
| you are living month to month, then yes money is important.
| This is the situation in many EU countries.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| There you are, dreaming of this awesome new thing that will
| be amazeballs while eating ramen in your shitty flat. Then
| someone comes and offers you a ton of money to go think about
| some other stuff for a few years. You figure you can always
| come back to thinking about the awesome thing, but a few
| years of eating decent food and living in decent housing
| would be nice.
| RGamma wrote:
| This sound like you're living in a not-so-developed (part
| of the) country though? Sorry if that's the case, but from
| my experience living in Germany you can easily afford
| decent food (in fact there's little bad food, except the
| artificial American stuff) and housing while going to uni
| for free (you might even apply for BaFoG and stipends).
| This would especially apply to you as a bright person.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| I wasn't really talking about me, more about a
| hypothetical researcher and the decision they might have
| to make when faced with this
| chrisseaton wrote:
| But North American companies in my experience also give you
| more freedom and resources and scope to work on your ideas,
| and better work-life balance while you do it. It's not just
| the money.
| sofixa wrote:
| > But North American companies in my experience also give
| you more freedom and resources and scope to work on your
| ideas, and better work-life balance while you do it
|
| Any source on that? That's literally the first time i'm
| hearing anyone say North American companies provide better
| work-life balance than European ones. OECD average work
| week disagrees with you, i'm not aware of other sources on
| the subject.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > OECD average work week disagrees with you
|
| Right but we're talking about a single specific industry
| that's not the norm.
|
| My North American company gives me as much time off as I
| ask for, they shut down for two weeks over the new year,
| they don't care what hours I work, and they give extended
| sabbaticals after a few years. In the office they have
| incredible standard of food and drinks and the off-sites
| are awesome.
|
| My friends at British companies have to be at their desk
| at 0830, get 28 days holiday and not an hour more, have
| to take a sad sandwich to work because nothing is
| provided, and the off-sites are depressing.
|
| The biggest difference: North American companies are
| happy for you to work from home. This has given me
| thousands of hours back with my family, and saved me
| hundreds of thousands of pounds in housing costs. My
| friends at British companies all have to go into an
| office. (Pre-pandemic.)
|
| If you're a supermarket shelf-stacker I'm sure work-life
| and benefits are better in the UK than in the US... but
| we're not talking about shelf-stackers we're talking
| about tech companies.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Do you work for a FAANG? As the US companies I worked for
| in europe had none of those benefits so I think you're
| part of the top percentile of privileged tech workers,
| not the norm for US companies operating in EU.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Do you work for a FAANG?
|
| No I've never worked for a FAANG.
| sofixa wrote:
| Anecdata. I work in France, and pre-pandemic everyone
| could work remotely, and we had full remote people as
| well. Lunches are sacred, and going to lunch with
| colleagues to a restaurant ( every day) for at least an
| hour is the norm, even if some people prefer to bring
| their own food and eat at the office.
|
| I start and end work whenever i want ( i try to make the
| required 35 hours weekly but don't keep rigorous track).
|
| I get 35 days paid vacation, can take sabaticals of up to
| a year, renewable for one more year, and if i start a
| business i can take a year off work ( salary and position
| are kept) to see if it works. There's paid maternal and
| paternal leave. I can't be fired tomorrow unless for a
| big error on my part. If i get called outside of office
| hours, i get paid extra (double extra on Sundays or
| holidays). ( That's labour law)
|
| See why you can't make huge blatant overgeneralisations?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > See why you can't make huge blatant
| overgeneralisations?
|
| I think you've (deliberately) overlooked where I clearly
| said it was one experience:
|
| > in my experience ... My North American company ... My
| friends at British companies ...
|
| If you don't want to hear people sharing their individual
| lived experiences what's the point in joining a
| discussion? Why are people like this on this forum?
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Counterpoint, it's almost the reverse in my experience. I
| worked for two years for a medium-sized Seattle-based
| tech company in their London office, and the last 12
| months in a British tech company. The American company
| had way more bureaucracy and rules around stuff than the
| UK company. The UK company paid way better, had a barista
| on-staff, much more up-to-date tech, and less work hours
| to boot.
| bratbag wrote:
| The work-life balance of software engineers in North
| America is terrible compared to that in the UK.
|
| 40 hours is the normal maximum here. Weekends are clear. At
| least 4 weeks paid holiday that you must take (I get 6).
|
| I've only just recently broken 6 figures in the UK and
| though I would have been there years ago in the US, there
| is no way I would trade in my free time for that extra
| cash.
| newbie578 wrote:
| I didn't know this, it is quite sad in fact if true. Do you
| have some more info?
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| Why is it sad? Global market at work.
| pas wrote:
| Why would this be sad? Comparative advantages are useful.
|
| If they are doing something we don't like, we have to address
| that. (Eg. child labor, unsafe work conditions, carbon tariff
| if they don't have a carbon tax.) In itself there's
| absolutely no problem with having an R&D hub in the EU for a
| US or Chinese company.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| In almost every EU tech hub you will find a Huawei lab and
| usually a stone throw way from their major western
| competition (Nokia, Ericsson, ARM, Imagination) and in Paris,
| Apple hires cryptographers from ANSSI, the French National
| Cybersecurity Agency (France's NSA) to work on their DRM and
| Apple Pay.
| intev wrote:
| Can you elaborate on "Europe dug it's own grave here"?
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Look at what EU "tech" companies pay vs what FAANG/Huawei
| pays.
|
| A friend finished his PhD in ML and ended up taking a job at
| a FAANG in the EU as the tech companies from Germany and
| France were only willing to pay half of that.
|
| You can't be at the top if you treat your SW devs and
| researchers as an IT cost center.
| bogantech wrote:
| They pay worse than even non-FAANG tech companies in
| Australia too
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I did think of working for a FAANG, but they don't really
| do much in my corner of Europe (there's a group working on
| Docs and similar in Germany but I don't want to move to
| Germany), and they are scary in that they seem to aim for
| the university high-achievers. I don't want to have to
| learn leetcode for a job interview, knowing full well that
| leetcode is not the day job there either.
|
| Plus I like being (or ok, feeling) productive, instead of
| spending 99% of my time on politics, analysis and waiting
| for small code changes.
| smueller1234 wrote:
| You seem to have looked at Google specifically (mention
| of Docs). Google has substantial engineering presence in
| several european countries. Just a few cities/countries
| off the top of my head in no specific order: Munich,
| Zurich, London, Dublin, Warsaw. There's others, IIRC a
| bit on Stockholm for example, but I think those I named
| after among the larger presences. Anyway. Not just
| Germany.
|
| There's also SRE, which has a slightly different twang on
| how we spend our time and then interview makeup.
|
| For what it's worth, I'm not a computer science grad at
| all and I'm doing just fine at Google. Got hired as a
| senior manager, though, so YMMV.
|
| Not trying to convince you of anything, just trying to be
| helpful. :)
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Out of curiosity what education/career path did you
| follow to get to your current position?
| langitbiru wrote:
| I think you can replace EU with "the rest of the world". In
| Asia, we are also jealous of Silicon Valley.
|
| Obligatory article: https://alexdanco.com/2021/01/11/why-
| the-canadian-tech-scene...
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Well I'm sure it's possible to attract really good folks
| at low salaries even in SEA/Japan/SK/Taiwan/India/etc. if
| folks are compensated with significant ownership stakes
| instead.
|
| It's about what the business owners are willing to do.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Why doesn't Canada simply... compete?
|
| Honestly, bragging your engineers are worth 50K less
| while pitching for HQ2 won't stop their brain drain.
| moonbug wrote:
| there's more to a job than the salary.
| _hao wrote:
| There is, but it's the main consideration to be honest...
| f6v wrote:
| An important mission or great workplace culture don't pay
| for mortgage.
| acatton wrote:
| But even if you accept the paycut, it's not like the
| workplace culture is great:
| https://www.npr.org/2019/12/20/790101370/french-telecom-
| comp...
| sofixa wrote:
| One case at a shitty former-public-becoming-private
| company. Not really applicable everywhere.
| ftoscano wrote:
| Yes, there is more than just the salary. Except that, in
| Europe, most (if not all) forms of "equity" are
| proportional: your title, your salary, your ability to
| decide, etc.
|
| It becomes an equivalence:
|
| * Since you decide nothing, therefore your salary is low.
|
| * Since your salary is low, you therefore decide nothing.
|
| This stems fundamentally from a (backward?) European
| strict view of companies, regardless of how
| hierarchical/flat their structure may be. And that view
| is that the corporate environment is split into two
| groups:
|
| * Managers: they decide;
|
| * Workers: they do work.
|
| This split may have made sense in the Industrial
| Revolution era but it has shown it's age in this day and
| age. And yet the model (and the perception, and the
| values) persist.
|
| If you, as a knowledge worker, ever make the mistake of
| "getting down and get things done" you will have chosen
| your side.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Except that, in Europe, most (if not all) forms of
| "equity" are proportional: your title, your salary, your
| ability to decide, etc.
|
| It's funny that you completely missed the point ( i think
| the other person is making). What about time off?
| Pension? Parental leave? Medical costs? Way of life ( as
| in, work stops at 6pm or 7pm or whatever, and then it's
| your free time; weekends are usually off limits; you
| don't have to own a car and waste hours in traffic
| depending on where you live, etc.)
|
| Furthermore, the rest of what you said is painting
| hundreds of thousands of business across more than 30
| countries with the same brush. I work in a European
| company, and it's nothing like that. You shouldn't
| generalise like that.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > What about time off? Pension? Parental leave? Medical
| costs?
|
| For top engineers, that's not really a concern in
| America.
| kazen44 wrote:
| which is not the argument I think is important. I want
| healthcare for those around me aswell! why is this
| healthcare not an option for those in society who are
| less able to work or are good at jobs which are not
| engineering/high paying?
|
| art and education is a good example of this. without
| either, a society is reduced to nothing. why do these not
| deserve proper healthcare? because the free market has
| decided they are not worth it?
| andi999 wrote:
| But this goes hand in hand. If the salary is very high,
| management will try not to waste your potential. If low
| they might not care.
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| All of the downvotes are saying a lot about HN, lol.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Right - I also want my work to be interesting and
| impactful, my colleagues to be motivated and talented, to
| get generous time off, etc... and guess what even in
| Europe the North American companies do better at all
| these aspects as well!
| intev wrote:
| Oh wow, I didn't realize there's such a huge discrepancy in
| salary.
| csunbird wrote:
| Yup. The average salary for a junior (e.g. with 1 to 3
| years experienced) developer is around 45-50k Euro gross.
| You can get very exceptional and very experienced
| engineers for 90-100k Euro gross annually.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Why not simply come to SV?
| kazen44 wrote:
| because leaving behind the people and community around me
| is not worth the money and work/life balance?
|
| also, the US has a political and social problem which
| make it a place I would not want to live.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| It's not that easy.
|
| Even if you already work for a US company, and that
| company is willing to sponsor you, and you win the visa
| lottery, it can take years to move to the US, and many
| years after that to get a green card. And at any point
| something could go wrong, your company screws up
| paperwork or something, and you get sent back to the
| start.
| rapsey wrote:
| To be fair funding options for US companies compared to EU
| ones is absurd. US tech is swimming in money compared to EU
| tech.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| which is what the thread is about - US tech is swimming
| in money partly because the US supported their tech
| industry to the point where it became a big monster
| swimming in money, at which point the brains in EU drain
| off to the money oceans of the US.
| passivate wrote:
| I wonder how much of the easy access to credit in the US
| is simply the strength of the dollar - we keep printing
| more $$ but the dollar doesn't devalue as much. Add to
| the fact that our poor interest rates on savings accounts
| makes private equity investments the only means to
| increase wealth.
| rapsey wrote:
| The joys of being a reserve currency.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| EU investors are way too conservative.
| throwarayes wrote:
| Historically, US has been a large homogeneous market, compared
| to Europe where there's been more separation between French,
| German, Spanish, UK, markets. This really changes how the
| market works in Europe. You can simply make one product in the
| US and be successful marketing to 330 million people.
|
| In Europe, however, you find There's well established brands in
| each country. Perhaps only in the last 1-2 decades have brands
| like Easy jet been able to penetrate across Europe to a certain
| pan-Europe generation. Even there people want to do business in
| their own native languages and cultures quite often
| chrisseaton wrote:
| As a British person, I'm very happy working for North American
| companies, but it's a bit of a shame that I have to do that to
| find interesting and reasonably paid work with pleasant
| conditions. I wish we could generate our own companies with the
| initiative and ambition of those in North American to do
| meaningful computer science work. Nobody seems to even be
| trying.
|
| (Don't try to suggest ARM is an option - their pay is really
| uncompetitive.)
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _Don 't try to suggest ARM is an option - their pay is
| really uncompetitive._
|
| Off-topic but: Is that so? For some reason I always thought
| they were on par with the American high-paying companies.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I'm probably exaggerating in my memory, but I think I
| recall seeing an internship offer from ARM that was the
| same _daily_ rate as Oracle were offering _hourly_.
| consp wrote:
| It's not just ARM, many European companies don't pay well.
| Especially for engineers and developers.
|
| In Europe you have to be management to get payed anything
| substantial. Though most management is still doing the jobs
| which any engineer could combine with their work and probably
| do equally well or better.
| dsnr wrote:
| > many European companies don't pay well. Especially for
| engineers and developers.
|
| You have to take into account the fact that in Europe the
| state takes a big chunk of your gross salary (probably
| around 50%) in form of social contributions and other
| taxes, to cover things like healthcare, unemployment,
| pension, welfare, parental leave and so on. In the US you
| have to cover these things yourself most of the time.
|
| So while most people praise the European system they would
| like at the same time to earn as much as their US
| counterparts, which is unrealistic tbh. As the saying goes,
| "you can't have your cake and..."
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding - we mean 'many European
| companies don't pay as well as North American companies
| even when they are also employing you in Europe'. So that
| tax is the same and you can directly compare and it is
| egregious.
| dsnr wrote:
| Yeah, misunderstood that.
| wil421 wrote:
| That doesn't cover the difference. In the US the pay for
| a median software engineer is slightly above $100k. In
| the UK, Germany, and France it is half that and most
| likely less than half for the UK and France.
| tchalla wrote:
| > hough most management is still doing the jobs which any
| engineer could combine with their work and probably do
| equally well or better.
|
| If engineers could do it better, why don't they?
| oytis wrote:
| Because they like engineering?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| If you won't volunteer to do a job then don't criticise
| those who do.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Europe dug its own grave here by not funding its domestic
| tech sector enough
|
| Is the argument that (one of):
|
| - the EU budget should be expanded to directly subsidise tech
| companies, or take equity ownership in companies, using
| taxpayer money
|
| - individual EU companies should do the same sort of state
| capitalism, using taxpayer money, and probably violating EU
| rules on state aid
|
| - EU investment funds should deliberately select less
| profitable investments for nationalist reasons
|
| - the small group of hyper-wealthy globalised investors such as
| Softbank (Japan) that currently hand out ridiculous sums to SV
| companies should hand them out to EU companies instead, because
| .. reasons
|
| I have very ambivalent views about this myself, but if you want
| EU state capitalism to compete with Chinese state capitalism
| then please say so and we can gang up on the doctrinaire free
| market lot.
|
| The UK is very odd sometimes; I have a half-SV-salary and it
| puts me in the 97%ile of UK pay. The only people who seem to be
| well paid are footballers and company directors, yet London
| house prices are set by the marginal oligarch.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| And finance people. Like, when I worked for a FAANG we found
| it hard to get senior people as the company wouldn't
| benchmark against finance companies, thus no-one would work
| for them.
|
| Additionally, the late hours necessary in a satellite office
| don't map well to senior+ people, as they will often have
| families and children.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Hah, my first job out of uni had this problem.
|
| We were the UK office of a medium-sized Seattle-
| headquartered tech company. One of our department heads got
| a job at a fintech not long after I left, and gradually
| poached the rest of his team. Despite the salary raise
| being like 70%, the company refused to benchmark against
| them, because the were Central London, and we were Outer
| London.
|
| I ended up jumping ship a couple of years later to that
| fintech, that 70% raise was lovely.
| anovikov wrote:
| It's not about funding, it's about culture. In Europe, no good
| developer wants to work at a startup - they want to work in a
| large century-old semi-government company which provides long
| paid vacations, slow work pace and work-life balance. No one
| wants to fund a startup either. Almost no way to exit. And
| whole "industry disruption" thing is even inappropriate to talk
| about - you are supposed to go with the flow and play by the
| numerous formal and informal rules and uphold hierarchy.
| rutthenut wrote:
| On what do you base this statement?
|
| >> they want to work in a large century-old semi-government
| company
| nisa wrote:
| The reason is also pretty simple: Most german startups I've
| seen were some more or less (mostly less) good ideas from
| rich economics students - and they are looking for developers
| that are badly paid, get little benefits and have to work out
| all the issues - as a thank you, they get nothing in return
| if they are sold or die.
|
| Additionally it's extremely hard to get funding - there are
| some programs like EXIST - www.exist.de but this is also
| shaped pretty much for economics students and offers little
| help for a technical startup.
| anovikov wrote:
| It is commonly accepted that it is business people who
| build businesses, and technical people are replaceable and
| should be hired as cheaply and easy to dump as possible,
| and not approached seriously. Sometimes literally lowest
| bidder gets the job. Same thing in Russia. In almost every
| startup i saw here in Cy started by Russians, founders have
| no idea how to code. They mostly siphon off cash from
| someone rich and dumb enough. Naturally technical part
| doesn't matter all that much to them.
| jacknews wrote:
| "founders have no idea how to code. They mostly siphon
| off cash from someone rich and dumb enough. "
|
| This seem to be common model worldwide.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| I can promise you this doesn't hold across at least some of
| "Europe". Take where I work, London, for example. The stuff
| places like the BBC and GDS (Government Digital Service) are
| doing are pretty cool, but companies like Monzo, DeepMind and
| Revolut are the ones people talk about, plus the financial
| giants like JP Morgan and Bloomberg.
| oytis wrote:
| > Europe dug it's own grave here by not funding its domestic
| tech sector enough
|
| But nobody was funding Apple. U.S. just created the environment
| where tech business can thrive and let the competition do the
| rest. EU market on the contrary is still controlled by century-
| old companies.
|
| From my (not that long) experience with German tech job market,
| I've got an impression that US-based companies normally have
| better (more open, more inclusive, more developer-centric)
| culture and better compensation.
| WhoCaresLies wrote:
| Apple is state funded, they pay close to no tax and they get
| ton of contracts from governments, just like Tesla, it is
| alive thanks to funding from the US government
|
| Similar stuff with China
| ginko wrote:
| >But nobody was funding Apple. U.S. just created the
| environment where tech business can thrive and let the
| competition do the rest. EU market on the contrary is still
| controlled by century-old companies.
|
| The US tech sector is essentially pegged by the petrodollar.
| Countries have to use the dollar to sell oil and then invest
| their excess dollars in the US economy.
| oytis wrote:
| What about Chinese tech sector? Yes, there is a lot of
| protectionism exercised by the Chinese government, but
| still Huawei and other big players are not funded by the
| government, they have to compete really hard to survive.
| dewey wrote:
| > Tens of billions of dollars in financial assistance
| from the Chinese government helped fuel Huawei
| Technologies Co.'s rise to the top of global
| telecommunications, a scale of support that in key
| measures dwarfed what its closest tech rivals got from
| their governments.
|
| Are you sure? One of the bigger reasons why Huawei is
| having troubles with rolling out it's hardware (routes,
| 5G) in Europe and US is how entangled they are with the
| government.
|
| Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-support-
| helped-fuel-huawe...
| creato wrote:
| Huawei got its start by blatantly stealing IP from Cisco
| and other companies, which is essentially a large subsidy
| of R&D. That strategy was only possible because the
| Chinese government shielded them from legal problems.
|
| In other words, the Chinese government effectively forced
| Huawei's competitors to give them a large subsidy.
| [deleted]
| Bayart wrote:
| > but still Huawei and other big players are not funded
| by the government
|
| Is that a joke ? Huawei is probably the Chinese tech
| company with the most government involvement. They're a
| strategic company propped-up as a point of national
| policy.
| powerapple wrote:
| Actually the most government funded companies are those
| companies are failing, state-owned enterprises, which
| employ many low-skilled people. Meng tried to sell Huawei
| to Motorola for $7.5billion. The deal didn't go through
| because CEO change in Motorola. Of course, Chinese
| government would be a client for Huawei as well as
| Microsoft and many other companies. Also government owned
| funds would invest in commercial entities to make money.
| I have not done full research on Huawei, so I cannot say
| there is no money invested in Huawei.
|
| If you are worrying about Chinese government controlling
| the company, actually in China, the government does not
| need to fund a company to do that. For example, the
| poverty elimination program was set out by the
| government, all major companies would be encouraged to
| participate. If you are 'encouraged' by the government in
| anywhere around the world, you would participate for a
| better relationship with the government.
| ginko wrote:
| >but still Huawei and other big players are not funded by
| the government
|
| What makes you think that?
| oytis wrote:
| Uhm... Because China needs tech sector as money source,
| not a money sink maybe? So it is implausible they would
| spend money on a tech company. I'm not aware of any facts
| in favor of the contrary.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Don't they already have a huge money source of being the
| world's factory?
| ginko wrote:
| As far as I can tell the Chinese government primarily
| sees becoming the technological leader mainly as a
| strategic goal and not as money source. Not in the short
| term at least.
| xanax wrote:
| Yes. The influence they would have if the large parts of
| the world depended on them for internet and
| communications is insane.
| anovikov wrote:
| LOL Huawei's ownership is concealed in a zillion ways,
| but it is an open secret that it's owned by the CCP
| itself, not even the government.
| oytis wrote:
| OK, maybe I'm ill-informed on this issue. So Europe's
| problem is that we've got neither petrodollars nor CCP?
| totalZero wrote:
| That only applies to petroleum producers, and they could
| alternatively use those dollars to buy other resources or
| currencies -- or hold the dollars in reserve.
|
| The US tech sector is supported by the Western world's
| extremely broad IP protections. In my mind, that's the
| number-one way in which US tech benefits from the US
| government.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That's pretty much it. There was talk of an EU-wide and
| -funded cloud provider or social network or something like
| that to gain more independence from US based companies, but
| right away there was squabbling with various countries
| arguing about what slice of the cake they should get and what
| part of the work they should be doing. That's just not going
| to work.
|
| For innovation in Europe, we need a ton of independent money.
| woile wrote:
| I've been using scaleway, for a small project I started a
| few months ago[0]. It's similar to Digital Ocean, and it
| works quite well (no downtime so far, been using it for 2
| months). The datacenters are in Europe. Any opinions about
| it?
|
| [0] shameless plug: keat.app
| eythian wrote:
| I use them for some personal stuff. No real issues. I do
| also have one of their baremetal systems (through
| online.net or something) which I'm considering moving
| away from because it's quite slow, but excluding that
| they seem good. I also use TransIP, similar reviews.
| robin_reala wrote:
| GAIA-X, if anyone's wondering: https://www.data-
| infrastructure.eu/GAIAX/Navigation/EN/Home/...
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > right away there was squabbling with various countries
| arguing about what slice of the cake they should get and
| what part of the work they should be doing
|
| That's just like the NASA SLS project. One of the project's
| key selling point was that there were work items performed
| in each of the 50 states.
|
| Even if, through a miracle, the EU countries could agree,
| how exactly would they expect to hire engineers that could
| double their income overnight by going to FAANG?
| Dig1t wrote:
| The compensation difference is ridiculous. You can make
| literally triple the total-comp in California, with lower
| taxes, in a very similar cost-of-living environment.
| oytis wrote:
| That too, but I was referring to the compensation US-based
| companies offer in EU as opposed to local employers.
| p_l wrote:
| There was a lot of government money, directly or indirectly,
| involved in keeping Apple afloat and before that, bringing
| noticeable revenue. Then there's more state rather than
| federal, if you care about the difference, money from school
| systems hooked onto Apple II, which made it so that it was
| produced up to early 1990s.
|
| Similarly a non-trivial point in financial history of Sun was
| contracts that indirectly depended on NSA.
|
| Then you have third-order money flows, where lots of govt
| money flew into various projects, which enriched people
| enough that they could buy Apple products.
|
| I'd argue that the biggest difference is that the government
| money was very free flowing, and often goal-oriented and who
| actually got it was a detail that wasn't even taken into
| account unless you failed to deliver. Meanwhile a lot of EU
| funding grants, depending on country, involves a lot of
| paperwork instead of just govt buying from you.
| oytis wrote:
| > I'd argue that the biggest difference is that the
| government money was very free flowing, and often goal-
| oriented and who actually got it was a detail that wasn't
| even taken into account unless you failed to deliver.
| Meanwhile a lot of EU funding grants, depending on country,
| involves a lot of paperwork instead of just govt buying
| from you.
|
| That's an interesting point. I believe this paperwork is
| there to prevent corruption somehow. Yet, from the
| unshakeable position and government ties of the old
| industry one might conclude that the result was exactly the
| opposite.
| throwaway_dcnt wrote:
| The purpose is not to avoid corruption, it is to have the
| ability to plausibly deny ts existence by having paper
| trail of a faux-fair process that was followed.
| jariel wrote:
| This is valid, but in reality Apple wins because they are
| fundamentally better managed in most ways that most
| European companies, point blank.
|
| That's a hard pill to swallow because it doesn't boil down
| to simple things like R&D spending by sector.
|
| Also, it means there's not that much the state apparatus
| can necessarily do.
|
| It's a fantastical misunderstanding of markets to suggest
| that 'government does stuff and then we win'. Obviously
| government is very important in systematic ways, and even
| more so in direct ways to help nations get over their
| limited size to do things like 'Airbus'.
|
| And while Steve Jobs probably would not have thrived in
| Europe, he did however in the US and there isn't quite a
| corollary in Europe.
|
| There are so many factors.
|
| And most paradoxically - many of the factors that hinder
| Europe from expansion, have benefits in the other
| direction. German culture is much more formal, the gears
| run pretty well there, but they also are more resistant to
| change. Attitudes towards work/live balance means a high
| standard of living, and that's worth something of course.
|
| Etc.
|
| One thing worth nothing that nobody seems to talk about so
| I tend to highlight it, is the media participation in
| industry. In the US, CNN will talk about 'RobinHood' and
| 'Bumble' and 'Tesla' _endlessly_. The amount of free PR and
| narrative building is incalculable.
|
| Most of the rest of the world is not like that.
|
| How do you compete as a little European entity that nobody
| talks about, when CNN is giving millions of 'free
| impressions daily' to your competitors?
|
| As one of many differentiation.
|
| Of course, in China, you have a managed economy in which
| the winners are effectively chosen, and the state backs
| them.
|
| Normally - this does not work.
|
| But when you have a nation that is 'behind' typically you
| an have some central planners make rational investments in
| 'infrastructure' and specific industry. Much like the post-
| war planning of Korea and Japan. After a while, the
| marginal returns to 'low hanging fruit' dissapears.
|
| China continues with that approach into the high tech
| world. While they build 'highways' (much like US strategic
| investment in the highway system in the 1950's) - they're
| also building out consumer payments (Ali), taxi services
| (DiDi), networking (Huawei) etc. - in a quasi capitalist
| way - things which, in the Western world we opted to have
| done in private markets.
| galuggus wrote:
| China has intense competition within a company. Many
| teams all working on the same problem and all competing.
|
| Usually in a given sector their are three champion
| companies who fiercely compete with each other. Eg China
| telecom unicom and mobile
|
| Or tencent Ali (and now) bytedance
| p_l wrote:
| Frankly, the biggest difference between USA and Europe is
| that USA is comparably homogenous market, especially in
| high-tech, whereas EU even with common market isn't.
|
| It also means that Micheal Dell starting a company
| building computers in garage from parts, like _many many
| companies in just in Poland, let alone EU_ , he had ready
| made, near-zero extra cost, market of 235 million people
| that spoke effectively the same language, required no
| export declarations, and had nation-wide ways to market.
|
| This is a real differentiator.
|
| BTW, China is internally very very competitive, though it
| appears they put focus on smaller companies than big
| american style corps (even though they have such as well,
| obviously)
| majormajor wrote:
| Government subsidy / R&D spending would help with all of
| that. Less efficiently run? Ok, that extra money gives
| you more resources to try to make up for it. Take some
| extra moonshots. Give things longer runways.
|
| Foreign companies hiring people away? Now you can pay
| more to compete.
|
| Less well publicized? Buy yourself some attention just
| like US companies do.
|
| You aren't trying to build the most immediately efficient
| company with the subsidies, but you're trying to keep
| local competition in the market, and be less at the whim
| of external companies.
| jariel wrote:
| Money is not usually the problem so 'subsidy' is not it.
|
| A good example is that European companies are not
| interested in dealing with little startups that are not
| powerful. They like to deal with 'big brands'. They are
| unable to make institutional decisions based on more
| calculated merit, and instead go the safe route.
|
| Entrepreneurs taking smaller risks.
|
| Entrepreneurs not understanding how the VC cycle works.
|
| A lack of proper exits.
|
| The list is long.
|
| Europe has plenty of money and 'competent, regular
| professional managers' but a dirth of the kind of focus
| required to make big plays.
|
| I don't know what the answer is.
| simonh wrote:
| Educational use of the Apple II wasn't about policy though,
| it was just that the Apple II was already incredibly
| popular and had lots of software (Visicalc for example, the
| first spreadsheet) available. It's commercial success drove
| educational adoption not the other way round.
|
| Conversely the BBC Micro was picked as a winner by the BBC
| back when it's predecessor systems were also-rans. This
| drove educational purchases, and ultimately led to ARM.
|
| Honestly the main thing that drove the US tech sector was
| the invention of the integrated circuit, and massive scale.
| Europe back then was still very balkanised, the EEC (which
| became the EU) was only just getting going.
|
| Fully agree with your last point, Europe was and still is
| much more bureaucratic.
| p_l wrote:
| My last point was explicitly also about how it enabled
| your first paragraph. Apple II at the time wasn't cheap,
| nor were other computers. Government grants for computers
| in education created a market that could be then targeted
| by Apple (and anyone who thinks Apple didn't dedicate
| serious resources into capturing that market is _naive_
| at best)
| lokar wrote:
| But the goal of the government funding was not to
| subsidise or support use tech companies. It was to
| improve education.
| SllX wrote:
| This has been a long comment chain to say American
| governments bought computers to use them for their work.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| This is however a key thing that the US is doing better
| than the EU.
|
| US - I help you by buying your product EU - I will buy
| the product of your foreign competitor, but you can apply
| for a research grant, that only pays for half of your
| investment and comes with bureaucratic overhead that cost
| more than we pay you
| SllX wrote:
| I agree, and I wish this particular comment of yours were
| further up the chain.
| [deleted]
| johbjo wrote:
| Apple and Huawei are very recent phenomenons in Europe.
|
| GSM, and today's mobile networks, are essentially products
| of subsidized European national telcoms.
|
| The problem is rather that Europeans have historically been
| ineffective or slow at understanding end-user "cultural"
| products. American pop culture still dominates, while
| locals usually seem like poor imitations.
|
| But the value produced by FANGs is essentially cultural,
| rather than technological or industrial. This thinking is
| suspicious and foreign to European engineers. Boomer
| engineers and industrialists really struggle to grasp this
| and it's still a point of contention even though few know
| how to articulate it.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| Value produced by Google? How about value drained by
| Google, esp. privacy and advertising.
|
| About the only value produced by Google being Google Docs
| and Android. Well, and the rare FLOSS improvements
| related to these.
|
| Facebook? Similar. Taking over culture is not value. We
| had better services at around time it was created, but
| the huge money combined with network effects did the
| number on them.
|
| Netflix, well. Let's say we had VoD services before them,
| some even better. Their major cultural win is making
| exclusive series with the huge money they got invested.
|
| Amazon has one improvement in their sales systems with
| the remote warehouses. Plus AWS.
|
| Apple at least designs phones.
|
| All of the companies benefited hugely from big cash
| investment, somehow EU companies don't get these. It's
| not a matter of culture either, there's plenty enough
| startups around. But US money is always more and bigger.
| johbjo wrote:
| Somehow, we need the mindsets of Zara and H&M inside VW,
| Mercedes etc.
|
| These have been different universes.
| creato wrote:
| You're really taking a lot for granted. I think not
| seeing and understanding that is a reflection of the
| larger problem you are complaining about.
| soco wrote:
| Maybe I'm reading is wrong, but I couldn't imagine
| European engineers == boomers.
| johbjo wrote:
| I'm probably using boomer to refer generally to "stale
| mindsets".
|
| But the current state is the result of sequences of
| decisions made in the preceding twenty years. Until it
| was literally demonstrated by Apple, they entirely
| dismissed the idea that most value in phones would be
| generated through an open ecosystem.
|
| There are plenty of people with stale mindsets in the
| European industrial giants struggling to grasp how
| electrification and AI will affect their legacies.
| p_l wrote:
| I've been there when first EU deployments of iPhones (3G)
| happened. The only more closed ecosystem was that of
| cheap value phones that didn't even have J2ME, and that
| one was still more free on few axes.
|
| It took at least two generations of apple products IIRC
| to shed american closed ecosystem approach which was
| rightly seen as total shit - but that knowledge didn't
| percolate much outside the very small group that had
| iPhones or worked in telecom high enough to know details
| of how sausage was made.
|
| There are many things to talk about what Apple did
| differently, but "open" was not it. Arguably the bigger
| issue was how due to how Microsoft and Nokia dropped the
| ball on system software (which resulted in certain lock-
| step issues with hw), allowing reasonably cheap chance
| for Apple to appear as huge jump (arguably, UX-wise it
| was big change, but being used to smartphones I found
| early iPhone very, very clumsy)
| wil421 wrote:
| Do you have any actual sources about the government keeping
| apple afloat? Or are you saying since they had educational
| contracts they were being kept afloat?
|
| Does Airbus have government contracts? Does Ericsson or
| Nokia? Do you believe European governments contracts with
| these companies are keeping them afloat?
| the-dude wrote:
| Airbus does have defense contracts.
| p_l wrote:
| Apple's federal sales division was one of the strongest
| sources of revenue during Apple's lowest points, thanks
| to very good integrated sales & support team that kept
| islands of Macs in various governmental locations, often
| doing specialised tasks as graphics/audio workstations
| and the like.
|
| But to get those contracts there had to be appropriate
| spending by government, and that's what I meant in my
| comment.
| iorrus wrote:
| Airbus planes used to be given away almost for free, it's
| first few decades it was entirely state funded.
| Shadonototro wrote:
| Apple is state funded, they pay close to no tax and they get
| ton of contracts from governments, just like Tesla, it is
| alive thanks to funding from the US government
|
| Similar stuff with China!
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| > _But nobody was funding Apple. U.S. just created the
| environment where tech business can thrive and let the
| competition do the rest._
|
| The US government has always been quite involved in the rise
| of their tech sector, from funding to being a customer. If
| you look into the history of Silicon Valley, for example, you
| find, as often in the US, the role of the military behind
| early technological developments and geographical location.
|
| A recent example is also SpaceX. It would not exist without
| decades of government funding for space and without contracts
| to supply NASA.
|
| So, yes the US created and maintained a good environment but
| they did help much more than that.
| xanax wrote:
| ^this
|
| It's usually been in the government's best interest to fund
| and lend a hand to companies like these. SpaceX can't exist
| without government funding for the time being and probably
| quite a bit of time in the future. When they do manage to
| get people to mars it will be even more so in the
| government's interest to fund them.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| > SpaceX can't exist without government funding for the
| time being and probably quite a bit of time in the
| future.
|
| Considering NASA just had huge budget increases in the
| last few years, I would say your comment is spot on.
| Clearly the government is allocating more money back into
| NASA and space exploration so instead of working
| together, SpaceX will probably hard pressed to get the
| amount of funding they need from the government now:
|
| _The President 's Budget Request (PBR) for NASA was
| released on 11 March 2019, and originally proposed
| $21.019 billion for fiscal year 2020. A supplemental
| request was released in May 2019 that proposed an
| additional $1.6 billion to support an acceleration of the
| lunar landing goal to 2024. All numbers for the PBR
| listed on this page include the supplemental request._
|
| _- $546.5 million for the Mars Exploration Program, of
| which $278 million is for the Mars 2020 rover and $109
| million is to begin formulation of the next mission in a
| Mars Sample Return campaign._
|
| _- Moves the launch date of the Europa Clipper mission
| from the late-2020s to 2023, and proposes using a
| commercial rocket instead of an SLS for launch._
|
| _- Walks back the proposal to transition the ISS to
| commercial operations by 2025: "By 2025, the Budget
| envisions commercial capabilities on the International
| Space Station as well as new commercial facilities and
| platforms to continue the American presence in Earth
| orbit."_
|
| _- Increases funding for technology development through
| the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, "which aims to
| spur the creation of novel technologies needed for lunar
| surface exploration and accelerate the technology
| readiness of key systems and components."_
|
| _- NASA is proposing "increasing facility maintenance
| activities at all Centers to reduce risk to missions.
| Increased funding will help reduce the significant
| backlog of facility maintenance projects and
| requirements."_
|
| _- Proposes $1 billion for a Human Lunar Landing System
| "to enable NASA to begin supporting the development of
| commercial human lunar landing systems. This acquisition
| strategy will allow NASA to purchase an integrated
| commercial lunar lander that will transport astronauts
| from lunar orbit to the lunar surface and back."_
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| Why doesn't Europe simply... compete?
|
| Buy tech instead of offering endless (paperwork intensive)
| subsidies. Harmonize markets so you can just sell everywhere
| without having to fund the local civil servant union by filling
| the new-and-special-snowflake paperwork for every country you
| want to sell to.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Europe is pretty corrupt in this regard. What you suggest
| would have to be approved by the very same people that
| massively benefit from this fragmentation and endless debates
| on every topic where everybody roots only for
| themselves/their benefactor/their country.
|
| Not going to happen, however sad it makes me as european. EU
| is good for quite a few things, but this ain't one of them.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Could you elaborate more on your "this is because Europe is
| corrupt" claim? I like to think European politics is not
| much more flawed than American politics, and would like to
| see such a claim backed up with some actual evidence.
|
| I personally like to think Europe is very different from
| the US culturally, in that the countries themselves are
| much less aligned than the US states are. I would never
| consider corruption to be the cause of this, as much as
| it's mostly about the egos of the individual countries and
| citizens.
| modo_mario wrote:
| >Buy tech instead of offering endless (paperwork intensive)
| subsidies.
|
| Which would be gov competition which in the current status
| quo of EU governance is a big nono. The US cares a bit less
| about that and it's companies got the clout, the money and
| keep buying out EU ones in new markets or existing ones.
| China obviously cares even less and will straight up do what
| you said.
|
| What Europe needs is a lot of different changes, it needs to
| ramp up it's market unification and notably some
| protectionism to let it's local companies mature and prevent
| even mature ones from being Nokia'd or the like.
|
| >Harmonize markets so you can just sell everywhere without
| having to fund the local civil servant union by filling the
| new-and-special-snowflake paperwork for every country you
| want to sell to.
|
| That's something the EU is very slowly doing.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > That's something the EU is very slowly doing.
|
| The slower they do it the bigger the gap will be!
| sangnoir wrote:
| Nokia, Siemens and Alcatel were trail-blazing European
| companies: they went toe-to-toe with Motorola and... I was
| going to say Nortel, but they were Canadian. Nokia (handset
| division) and Alcatel were bought-out by American companies (or
| merged). The EU let American money buy-out their crown jewels.
| lokar wrote:
| They were in serious decline by the time of the buyout.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > One ex-employee says there is effectively a glass ceiling for
| European workers. ,,When you walk through the corridors, it is
| very obvious that 99.9 per cent of the management is Chinese."
|
| FWIW, this is the case in American companies in Europe too.
| People with US roots progress up the organisation faster, and
| nearly all the top spots are occupied by people with an american
| accent...
| thotsBgone wrote:
| This can partly be self-selection. I knew someone who chose to
| work at Huawei because they were learning Chinese and
| considered moving to China. Someone like that is a lot more
| likely to want to work for Huawei than someone who intends to
| stay right where they are and learn no Chinese.
| notdang wrote:
| By Mexican law, the companies should share a part of profit
| with employees. In the Mexican Huawei all the upper management
| is Chinese and are employed by a different company than the
| rest. Guess which company has profit and shares with its
| employess?
| blackrock wrote:
| I don't have a stake in this argument here.
|
| But, how do you feel about American or European companies,
| where their senior management are all white men?
|
| And where Asian-American men, of say Chinese descent, feel that
| they will never be allowed into the higher ranks of upper
| management.
|
| I think these folks also feel marginalized, and are restricted
| by glass ceilings too.
|
| Some of the more resourceful ones, strike out on their own, and
| start their own companies. But those are few and far in
| between.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| It's the same case with big German companies (Siemens, Bosch,
| BMW, Porsche, etc.). Senior management positions are only
| awarded to ethnic Germans so it's quite ironic to hear them
| complain when they get the same treatment at foreign companies.
|
| This mentality is somewhat changing, but very slowly and white
| westerns are still prioritized. You won't see any Indians run
| German auto companies any time soon like you see them running
| major US tech companies.
| luckylion wrote:
| > Siemens, Bosch, BMW, Porsche
|
| Let's see.
|
| Siemens USA: CEO Barbara Humpton, not German.
|
| Bosch USA: Mike Mansuetti, not German.
|
| BMW USA: President Bernhard Kuhnt (sounds German), but top
| leadership team includes lots of Non-Germans: Shaun Bugbee,
| Lisa Errion Saums, Adam Sykes, Howard S. Harris, Adam
| McNeill, Michael Peyton, Trudy Hardy
|
| Porsche USA: CEO Kjell Gruner (German), but top leadership
| includes mostly names that are not German: Joe Lawrence,
| Thierry Kartochian, George Feygin, Angus Fitton, Glenn Garde,
| Pedro Mota, Scott Codute, Trevor Arthur, John Cappella.
|
| I guess you either don't know or you do know but spread
| misinformation on purpose.
| orange_tee wrote:
| He was talking about places in Germany.
| wil421 wrote:
| Siemens CEO: Joe Kaeser
|
| Bosch CEO: Volkmar Denner
|
| BMW CEO: Harald Krueger
|
| Porsche CEO: Oliver Blume
|
| All German. I always thought of the CEOs of foreign
| branches were usually more "marketing" CEOs than actual run
| the core business CEOs. They are the face for the regional
| dealers and suppliers to meet in the respective regions.
| luckylion wrote:
| Right, but that's not the point of either the article nor
| the comment that ChuckNorris89 replied to, the article is
| about a Chinese company in Europe/Germany, and the
| comment was about US companies in Europe. The only
| equivalent then is German companies in the US.
|
| It's expected to have leadership in the domestic branch
| of any large corporation to be mostly from that country:
| few Americans emigrate to Germany for work, expecting the
| ~100k US-citizens in Germany to contain the CEOs of major
| companies among ~80m people (mostly German) seems
| ridiculous just looking at statistics.
| Geminidog wrote:
| Yeah all white. No Asians.
| luckylion wrote:
| The easiest way to harvest downvotes: expose a comforting
| lie people want to believe. God, HN really has become
| reddit.
| yc-kraln wrote:
| I can pick four DAX companies with non-German CEOs
|
| Daimler... Ola is Swedish Adidas... Kasper is Danish
| Beiersdorf... Stefan is Belgian Linde... Aldo is Italian
|
| I think you're drawing conclusions where there are none to be
| drawn
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > This mentality is somewhat changing, but very slowly and
| white westerns are still prioritized.
| cooervo wrote:
| True, I used to work in Germany and all my managers/bosses
| were white german males.
|
| Two exception 1 from USA and another from balkans.
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| To lead in Germany you have to know German - the people who
| don't will have problems (Cryan did at DB, as did Jennifer
| Morgan at SAP). And there are few foreign managers in these
| companies willing to learn German to a good enough standard
| - unlike in English or American companies.
| f6v wrote:
| > They tell of a technology company that seems to see its
| employees first and foremost as raw materials from which it wants
| to forge its own success.
|
| Oh no, just like most of the companies out there. I get it,
| Huawei might not be an ideal workplace. But the article is riding
| the China hate train.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It's "fashionable" to hit Huawei and China, but more broadly this
| is East Asian culture. In many Japanese and Korean companies the
| reality is quite similar to what is described in this article
| (which is quite lopsided).
|
| As China continues to open to the world, and Chinese go study
| abroad, I think that Chinese companies will slowly become more
| mindful of these issues.
| shard wrote:
| Yes. At Samsung, you see many of the same things: militaristic
| culture, long work hours, senior execs in overseas branches
| almost all Korean, important information passed on during
| company dinners, people switching to Korean during meetings and
| in emails due to poor English skills, glass ceiling for non-
| Koreans, people not promoted to exec levels retiring at 50 due
| to "up-or-out" culture.
| someperson wrote:
| I generally agree, but Japan generally has a management culture
| where age above all else traditionally determines seniority.
|
| The forced retirement thing described in the article is nearly
| identical though.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Are we sure it's not actually a type of military endeavour?
|
| Or is this just culturally how workers are generally treated in
| China?
|
| Is there any hope for worker rights in China?
|
| Has there actually been some conscious decision to treat industry
| as a type of warfare? After all, the lack of manufacturing
| competitiveness in the United States is actually considered by
| some to be a security issue.
| john2010 wrote:
| Not sure why these EU/Germans want to work there? Why not leave
| this job?
| dilyevsky wrote:
| I visited huawei engineering offices in shenzhen about ten years
| ago for some due diligence work and it was hilarious to what
| length they went to protect their ip. They didn't even have
| inter-building network not to mention internet anywhere on the
| premises
| usrusr wrote:
| Pretty much in line with how late 20th century cyberpunk dystopia
| was painting the spirit of the supranational Corp. Just with a
| bit of a colonialist element that wasn't much in the focus of
| those writers. But not ruled out either:
|
| In those dystopias the "supranational" was rarely meant to imply
| some cosmopolitan post-national qualities, just lack of being
| bound by local laws. A "Chinese West India Company" under an
| unspecified amount of CCP influence would fit right in.
| [deleted]
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| The only thing of concern is their treatment of 50+ year old
| employees. Everything else seems in line with how I understand
| Chinese companies to behave towards their employees.
| cthaeh wrote:
| I worked at Huawei as intern 2 years ago. Honestly, they seemed
| like just any other tech company- chill, interesting work with
| nice people. They even had a month where they doubled everyone's
| salaries randomly- as a thank you for working hard.
|
| At the same time I did see the "shadow government" but would like
| to clarify that it seemed to me to progress beyond a team leader
| you had to be fluent in mandarin, not necessariy be Chinese.
| Which makes sense considering that yes, upper managements English
| is usually poor.
| someperson wrote:
| For a great documentary on the clash between American work
| culture and Chinese work culture, I recommend the 2019
| documentary "American Factory".
| IOT_Apprentice wrote:
| I find it disturbing that the focus of the article is on the wolf
| culture of Huawei, and the discussion here ignores that and veers
| off into nonsense about Apple. I've worked with former Americans
| who worked for Huawei here in the US, they confirm this behavior.
|
| Huawei also filed patents around facial identification of
| Uyghurs, who are of course being held in concentration camps.
|
| But go ahead talk about R&D investment in Europe and ignore the
| behavior of the firm.
| blackrock wrote:
| Don't American companies have facial recognition software to
| identify brown people, or black people, or Asian people?
|
| I've been seeing this lately. But I fail to see why China or
| Huawei is getting hit by it.
|
| Unless it's just blind hatred by the HNers here about anything
| and everything China related.
|
| I'm sure the FBI is employing facial recognition software that
| delineates between black vs. white people too.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > European employees rarely find out what is really going on in
| the company during the day at work, says a former German
| employee. However, Chinese colleagues occasionally ask in the
| evening if they want to have dinner together. ,,After a few
| beers, you find out what is going on in the company and what is
| not." Yet many Western employees did not want to get involved and
| preferred to go home.
|
| That sounds pretty familiar to me from ordinary very large US
| companies, no? Maybe German companies are less dysfuntional.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| In the UK the post-work beers is where you find out the juicy
| stuff. Hell, I got my last job thanks to a chat in a beer
| garden.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| As I think about it more, I'm really kind of astounded this
| is being made as an accusation about Huawei specifically
| being nefarious.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Huawei by virtue of being Chinese is definitely sexist against
| men letting women retire 5 years earlier.
|
| They are also clearly ageist as they make sure some employees
| earn way too much so that they retire early in their 40s. From
| the article:
|
| "The retirement age in China is 60 for men and 55 for women. At
| Huawei, however, according to our sources, it is common to end
| one's career already in one's mid-40s. When long-serving Chinese
| managers reach this age, they often cash out the value of their
| company shares and effectively retire."
|
| -
|
| It is great to see the funders of this journalism are against
| this ageism in tech and include the likes of the McArthur
| foundation and Soros affiliates.
|
| Great that the article highlighted some potential management
| glass ceilings for Europeans in the Chinese company. The Chinese
| should learn from the lack of glass ceilings to non-Europeans in
| European companies. Or how egalitarian and meritocratic they are
| in hiring and don't even care about formal diplomas or your
| ethnic background.
|
| It baffles me why any (western) European would move to the US and
| leave behind such great meritocratic European tech companies.
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