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Comment by Abishek_Muthian | Hacker News Reader

>This is due to the mentality of the population and the risk aversion of the investors

Can you please expand on those two points?

Swiss culture is all about safety, confidentiality and responsible spending of already earned money. Additionally, the prevailing business model is that of the Mittelstand small-to-medium enterprise. Small factories spread throughout the whole country, highly specialized in one thing (producing mostly bits of industrial equipment), co-dependent on other such companies to form the economic blood system of the country. A fascinatingly-organized society, nevertheless. From a Bulgarian who has been there for 1 year.

That makes sense, thanks. So there's no dearth of entrepreneurship in CH, but it's concentrated in SMEs focussed on machinery rather than say Internet startups.

In Germany, the southwest, especially Swabia, is more conservative than the north. More tidy-freaks, stingy pennypinchers, more-concerned-with-the-appearance holier-than-thou, "we have always done it like this" and "you didn't clean your sidewalk properly, I've found a leave". Maybe "Kehrwoche" and "schwäbische Hausfrau" will yield sone entertaining google results. Businesswise, it is the region of small to medium family businesses, where the father of course passes on a highly emphasized tradition to the eldest son.

Switzerland is like this, turned to eleven, plus a lot of nationalism and need to be separate from the bigger neighbours. You won't get money from a bank or investor down there unless you are solidly local, doing something they understand and looks like all the other medium family businesses making machines or parts down there.

Caveat: Of course this is full of personal impressions, stereotypes and things like that. And it is strictly a collection of more negative aspects, there is of course a positive side.

I have so many issues with this.

1. BW is governed by the greens. You know what counties get the highest CDU vote in elections? It's not in the south, it's in Niedersachsen (Cloppenburg etc.).

2. Switzerland has different cantons which are very different. I live in the French part where the average person speaks three languages and 40% are foreigners.

3. I can totally understand swiss' people wish to be separate, this has resulted in them having by FAR higher living standards than other Europeans. Salaries are TWICE as high while taxes are TWICE as low. I'm underestimating that by the way. In the meantime Europe has fucked themselves with the Euro and massive migration which has depressed wages, good luck dealing with that.

4. There is HUGE amounts of funding compared to Germany. I'm in the process of that right now and it's kind of insane how many different options are for getting 5-6 digit sums. Got approved for 100k last week and applying for more.

1. Nope, BW greens are not a counter for the population and businesses to behave in a conservative way. Also, BW greens are kind of special, Kretschmann and Palmer are seen as pariahs in the rest of the german green party. They aren't even very green, e.g. they are quite supportive of the local BW car industry which the rest of German greens wants to see gone yesterday.

2. Yes, the French and Italian speaking parts are quite different. But thats less than half of Switzerland, and the big spot everyone seems to be drawn to seems to be Zürich.

3. Yes, but that is just a reason, not a counterargument. Also, costs are TWICE as high in certain areas, i.e. personell and stuff that is not imported from the EU.

4. I don't know what you are doing, and of course I do wish you all the best. But beware and remember that the costs will be high. Switzerland is much more automated than the neighbours, because noone can afford hiring people.

Investors have very little risk appetite, enterprise makes big money, but innivation is usually pressured into low-cost as much as possible. It’s hard to find a developer job where you get decent pay and interesting work with a swiss company. Source, I’m a software developer since 20 years in Switzerand

>Investors have very little risk appetite

Are high profile investors in Swizterland interested only in retail investments?

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