[HN Gopher] AI startups in France
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AI startups in France
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 38 points
Date : 2023-11-11 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| FFP999 wrote:
| Trendy field is trendy. In other news, water wet.
| brugidou wrote:
| I think Paris has a very good pool of scientists/engineers
| specialized in AI, it's not just a trend. It's probably linked
| to the engineering schools ecosystem.
|
| It started with AdTech 15 years ago, then Google/Meta opening
| labs there.
| nerbert wrote:
| If you think Google and metal started that I've got a bridge
| to sell you. To world class engineers produced there just
| used to become expats or work for big industrial players.
| They now have a (small) playground with the French tech.
| throw4629294 wrote:
| I've worked with both extensively with both groups of French and
| German researchers at an English speaking lab and there were some
| noticeable oddities. The Germans never spoke German, even afaict
| in one-to-one conversations (say, at the desk next to me when
| debugging). The French were much more committed to their language
| and would speak French all the time, including in public slack
| channels and often at lunch if there was a large enough minority
| at the table.
| pil0u wrote:
| Et alors ? Quel est le rapport avec la choucroute ?
| polotics wrote:
| Sauerkraut toi meme, je trouve ce factoid assez interessant.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Je ne suis pas convaincu, j'ai plutot tendance a voir les
| Francais se taire en presence des non-francophones pour
| eviter le jugement des autres Francais aux alentours (qui
| se feront un plaisir de se gausser de votre accent ou de la
| moindre bevue).
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Language is not a neutral medium. Languages induce a
| different way of thinking, different ways of solving
| problems, different ways to approach interpersonal behavior.
| Some languages will have vocabulary that doesn't exist in
| others, producing original concepts. Same goes with grammar,
| where many languages have very subtle and specific ways of
| representing time, classification, or logic, for instance.
|
| You can read "Contre la Pensee Unique", of Claude Hagege
| (linguist at College de France) about it. He introduces the
| concept of "Galapagos effect", where linguistic differences
| with links and informational bridges lead to more innovation
| due to diversity of thoughts.
|
| As a sidenote, speaking in your native language is always
| easier than speaking in english or any other language. If
| your mother tongue happens to be a language very well suited
| for science and mathematics, like French is, why speak
| english? Especially with other french speakers.
| elvis10ten wrote:
| Related video which I just remembered:
| https://youtu.be/CmZdGo6b5yA?si=k67_azS5gwUvQJuq
|
| So it seems languages might not change how you think, but
| might be able to emphasize certain aspects of things like
| you allude to (I believe).
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| I was curious about this because it describes what I have
| always heard as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which has
| always been controversial and was out favor during the
| 1960s through 1980s. I looked up the Wikipedia article on
| linguistic relativity, which is apparently the proper name
| for it, and found that recent studies had actually
| confirmed the weak form of this hypothesis, that language
| can shape cognition. There is however evidence against the
| strong form of this hypothesis, which is that language can
| limit or preclude cognition.
|
| So I'm left to conclude that the parent post saying that
| thinking in a particular language could lead to insights
| that wouldn't happen with a native speaker of another
| language, is not wrong. However it would be wrong to think
| that the speaker of that other language could not
| understand that insight, once explained. (Which is not at
| all what the parent said; I'm just fleshing this out for my
| own understanding.)
| lift_up wrote:
| Ceci.
| Raed667 wrote:
| n'est pas une pipe.
| baby wrote:
| Le mec se plaint des gens qui parlent leur langues. Ok.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| "Je suis alle dans leur pays et vous savez quoi ! Ils
| parlaient leur langue entre eux - au lieu de parler ma
| langue a moi, comme des gens civilises !"
|
| Sacrebleu
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > The Germans never spoke German, even afaict in one-to-one
| conversations
|
| This is fairly standard etiquette everywhere I've been in
| Central and Northern Europe.
|
| The general idea is that it would be rude to have a one on one
| _next_ to you in a language that you might not understand.
|
| Also in general I think people that only speak one language
| always assume other people are bad mouthing when usually people
| are just talking about random trivialities or some work/life
| problems. So it's always safer to keep everything in English.
| gray_-_wolf wrote:
| I've just attended a conference in France this week, can
| confirm, seems pretty accurate.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| This cliche is not such a faux pas if you make an effort of
| comprehension, since half of English is just mispronounced
| French.
| fkarg wrote:
| dozens. not hundreds? I'd be concerned
| willsmith72 wrote:
| It's really not a surprise, France has always been a leader in AI
| research and quality of education
| numbers_guy wrote:
| Are there any notable LLM efforts in German speaking Europe?
| timkam wrote:
| Aleph Alpha: https://aleph-alpha.com/, raised more than 500
| million USD:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-06/german-
| gi..., which makes it a notable effort, I suppose.
| numbers_guy wrote:
| Thanks. Looked into it, but they don't seem to be hiring
| MLEs/Researchers. Also it seems to be a very generic, "we
| give you the AI" business without a clear product or service.
| aborsy wrote:
| I sometimes wonder how companies survive in France in a difficult
| business environment!
|
| The labor laws alone is a major barrier!
| calamari4065 wrote:
| Have you considered that labor laws protect workers, and
| workers who are happy and feel safe and not exploited are more
| productive?
|
| It's entirely possible to run a business without exploiting
| your workers and trying to squeeze every red cent out of them.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "Have you considered that labor laws protect workers, and
| workers who are happy and feel safe and not exploited are
| more productive?"
|
| I remember reading an interview with Stephane Israel, the
| director of Arianespace, who complained that with a leisurely
| 35-hour workweek, they have no chance competing with
| workaholics at SpaceX.
|
| While it would be a much nicer world if you were right, I am
| not sure you are. East Asians work even more and they seem to
| be overtaking the Western Civilization lately.
| jackcosgrove wrote:
| > East Asians work even more and they seem to be overtaking
| the Western Civilization lately.
|
| I think East Asian working culture is pushing the limits of
| human physiology and psychology. I've seen documentaries on
| South Korean work culture, for example, where people
| consistently receive less sleep than is healthy because
| they work so much. To use the example of Korea again, their
| work culture is probably contributing to the low birthrate
| which is ultimately counterproductive.
|
| There's a vignette I've heard about a movie theater.
| Imagine someone in the front of the theater stands up to
| get a better view. The person behind them then needs to
| stand up to maintain the same view. Eventually everyone is
| standing up, with the same view as before and more
| uncomfortable than when they were sitting. It's an analogy
| for heavy work cultures, which can be counterproductive and
| unnecessary after a certain point.
|
| Could French work culture be more productive than American,
| or Korean, work culture? I don't know, but it's not simply
| a matter of measuring short term outputs and ignoring
| externalities such as rates of depression, alienation, poor
| health, or low birthrates.
| aborsy wrote:
| This is a simplistic view. The protective labor laws protect
| some workers, but can bring about a host of adverse effects.
| The good and bad are equally protected.
|
| For example, my work place in France was so toxic that over
| time I developed psychological problems, because the
| institution could not address the abuse, harassment,
| bullying, etc, since everyone had secure permanent contracts
| (CDI) strongly protected by unions and could afford arbitrary
| behavior. A lot of people didn't care doing their jobs
| properly, bringing about an environment with problems
| everywhere.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yes, hence why pushing for extreme protection against
| firings can be even worse than no protection at all
|
| Especially with no way to fire the person not even
| 'virtually'
| baby wrote:
| It's actually quite hard to find a stable job in France due
| to these laws: companies only give short term contracts and
| then rotate you out once they get in danger zone (you need to
| hire them full time now).
|
| Also my friends back in France are always in holidays.
| They're forced to take a full month in some positions like
| banking as they need to ensure continuity of business even
| when people are not there for extended periods of time. A
| friend of mine has 45 days off.
|
| Personally I think it's great but if you're in a competitive
| industry AND competing with the American Workaholics you
| don't have a single chance.
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| Everything you wrote is either lies, or very specific to an
| industry that I have never seen in the past 50 years. But I
| would say lies or FUD because it's ridiculous.
| genman wrote:
| Aw, poor Americans and their tiny 2 week long vacation. :)
| People in Europe will never understand this mindless
| slaving. ;)
| LelouBil wrote:
| Well, in france, rotating short term contacts for a long
| term position is illegal.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Safer individually, but the whole ship goes down together.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| Having run a business in France for 16 years (with employees),
| I do not consider the labor laws to be such a barrier.
|
| I think if you ask many SMBs owners in France, we'd gripe more
| about the tax system (which got slightly less opaque since RSI
| was finally shut down, but no less onerous) or the paperwork.
|
| Allowing people who dedicate their workweek to your business,
| to have social benefits, free healthcare, retirement benefits
| and unemployment money if they get fired seems like a fair deal
| to me.
|
| Especially if you consider that even taking into account those
| "extra costs", total comp seems to me to still be lower than
| what you'd have to pay a US employee for the same job
| bertil wrote:
| Labor laws are seen as a plus by many people, even in a hot
| market like AI.
|
| - Candidates know they won't be showered with praise and sign-
| on bonuses here and now but ignored and thrown out the back
| after the first review cycle. If anything happens to them
| (let's say, a bouldering accident), they know they'll be given
| time, care, and consideration. They know they'll have weekends
| off to train bouldering, too. If you know people won't fire you
| on a whim, you know they'll hire responsibly, invest in you,
| and encourage lateral moves when your path isn't leading
| anywhere.
|
| - Employers might want to look very attractive, but that coffee
| machine, that micro-kitchen is no guarantee--not anymore after
| the last two years. It's nice to promise the best private
| health plan: I got one through a big tech company. Never needed
| it. But I've heard from people who did that it's nowhere near
| what a patient would want. After that, I remember asking a
| small start-up in the UK if they offered anything similar. That
| was stupid: they could never afford anything like it. And they
| were puzzled... Every resident has access to the NHS, by law.
| They didn't list that as a benefit because they thought they
| were competing with local companies. They hired a lot of
| Americans, and every one of them could not stop talking about
| how much better the care was.
|
| Now that I mention it, it's suspicious that all of them needed
| medical care as soon as they arrived...
|
| It goes beyond that: a society with a strong safety net is
| better off. Countries with strong social nets have safer
| streets. Many candidates might be males over-estimating their
| ability to get out ahead in a street fight and be indifferent
| to high crime rates, but some have partners that might not care
| for headlines like "Mugging capital of the world" and "Precinct
| ran out of rape kits". I like knowing that my loved ones don't
| do "active shooter drills" routinely.
|
| Personally, I left a job that was really great for several
| reasons. A big one was that, during my 5-minute walking commute
| (in the Northern Quarter in Manchester, UK), I had to walk past
| 50 or so people standing unconscious, wobbling, clearly high on
| "spice" (a cluster of synthetic "zombie" drugs so destructive
| and violent, the only survivor on record testified one should
| never try it and do something "chill, like heroin," instead).
| I'd much rather live in a country where I know the emergency
| psychiatry and addiction programs are publicly financed, free
| for patients, and well-staffed. But that's because my partner
| is the one working there, so I'm biased.
|
| Experiences like that, seeing human lives wasting on the
| pavement daily, might seem extreme and definitely foreign to
| people from, say, San Francisco. Still, if you know about human
| tragedy directly, you prefer to live somewhere that addresses
| that.
| lucubratory wrote:
| This is a really helpful and comprehensive breakdown of the
| drawbacks. I'm not in the US, Australia, but on HN it's easy
| to view the US as some quality of life haven for SWEs without
| a countervailing opinion. Not helped by American nationalists
| who insist the country is the best on Earth.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Something going on
| fmajid wrote:
| France has very strong mathematics education. It's estimated
| fully a quarter of all "quants' (mathematical finance
| specialists) worldwide are French.
| wendyshu wrote:
| Are you sure? http://www.imo-
| official.org/country_team_r.aspx?code=FRA
| loandbehold wrote:
| IMO shows more which countries have programs to train top
| math schoolchildren to win in IMO. That's very different than
| producing professional mathematicians, which is more about
| universities and graduate schools.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| "It is estimated." Doesn't specify by whom nor if its even
| accurate. Kind of like "We are reporting that ...".
| aborsy wrote:
| In France, good students go to "classes prepas" for 2-3
| years. It's a period sort of between high school and
| university. I'm not sure if students are eligible to
| participate in IMO in this period. Perhaps someone else could
| clarify.
|
| Regardless, France has a strong math culture. This is clearly
| seen in Fields Medals.
| alpark3 wrote:
| It's true at last anecdotally. Related, there's a running joke
| in some subset of the industry about the types of exotic
| derivatives that are so complex and esoteric "only french
| banks" trade them.
| FranklinMaillot wrote:
| No mention of Scikit-learn or Hugging Face also created by French
| people.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Vive Le France!
| mrangle wrote:
| France's math culture is a facet of its rigorous education
| system. Which in contrast to other western nations that will
| remain unnamed, doesn't easily award advancement through it.
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