It just boggles my mind why a young person (like the article author) would choose to think in such a lazy manner and beat that narrative to death -- corruption, local economy, the struggle to run legitimate business, etc.
With all due my respect and w/ the risk of being downvoted -- that is BS; and completely opposite of the SV mindset.
It just shows that the author haven't been exposed to the actual environment (i.e. not the university) in Bulgaria -- there are numerous large-scale companies w/ strong regional presence, as well various small outsourcing shops and at least 5 co-working spaces, where you can find lots of very capable people working in very healthy environments; anecdotally, for the last ~13 years I haven't heard even one founder/c-level exec of being asked to pay anything under the table.