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Comment by vovavili | Hacker News Reader

Not surprising. All the Yandex people that moved over to here to the Netherlands that I know of are astounded about the insane difference in the tax burden between what they had in Russia and what they have in Western Europe (when their 5 year tax discount ends, that is). If the government takes the bulk of your income after a certain point, there isn't really that big of a push to create ground-breaking technology.

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> If the government takes the bulk of your income after a certain point, there isn't really that big of a push to create ground-breaking technology.

I'm skeptical that high taxes is a large reason to lose to California of all places. Maybe in some important sense CA has "earned" that via talent and funding density while NL hasn't (from the perspective of a company, to be clear)

NL is a corporate tax haven in Europe(and also compared to California), that's why almost all US and foreign companies have their corporate HQs there, Dublin or Luxembourg.

Companies go there because taxes are low for them, not necessarily for their employees(ignoring the NL 5 year tax break for foreigners). It's kinda like the US Delaware of Europe.

We also have much nicer societies than Russia. It's a dictatorship ffs.

And yes having nice things cost money. And a safety net is important.

I would never want to live in America even if I got 3x my wage. Nor Russia of course but that's a foregone conclusion.

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