I didn't leave France, I moved to the US

I not only moved to NYC, I most definitely, very emphatically left France. That country is doomed, the culture there is viciously opposed to success and ambition.

Is it actually true that &quot;a developer in France will basically cost you half the price of a US one&quot;? I have always been under the impression that labor was a lot more expensive in Europe (and particularly France) because of high taxes and a large amount of social&#x2F;welfare contributions.<p>This is not to say that there aren&#x27;t good reasons for having these contributions or that workers in one place or the other are necessarily better &quot;value&quot;, but I have never heard anybody argue that labor in Europe is significantly cheaper.

It&#x27;s really hard (if possible) to make such comparison. I studied and worked in France. Now I live in the US. In some respect it&#x27;s not fair to compare &quot;US&quot; to &quot;France&quot; as a country. US has many technology poles and most of the time feels like a group of countries sharing the same language and currency.

Are french developers really better than US ones though? We have EPITA, EPITECH, and the recent 42. But besides that I feel like the CS formation of our universities is very poor... I know a lot of people who&#x27;ve done&#x2F;are doing CS in university, and their level is pretty low I would say. But maybe I tend to overestimate the US coders&#x27; level...

I dream of a system that allows me to swap my citizenship with a similarly qualified EU Citizen that wants to come to the US.

Amen to that. I&#x27;m trying to do the same move, and I hate it when people say &quot;ah, you too want to leave France&quot;.<p>There are so many things coming into play in the decision to move to another country - most of the time it&#x27;s in no way a rejection of one&#x27;s own.

&quot;Tax cuts for startups are real, and it means a developer in France will basically cost you half the price of a US one, and there is good chance he’ll be better :) &quot;<p>In the last paragraph the author stated that France had it&#x27;s share of problems, but then it states that their developers are &quot;better.&quot; Really? Who has had a huge respectable dominance in the IT world in the last few decades? How much have the French contributed to that?<p>Lastly the article goes to claim that &quot;the us is in a downfall and France will lead the way.&quot;<p>Next they&#x27;ll tell me that they&#x27;re going to take over the startup scene in Berlin.

&gt; Tax cuts for startups are real, and it means a developer in France will basically cost you half the price of a US one, and there is good chance he’ll be better :)<p>I think the author meant to use a ;)

Always interested in the factors being optimized when making these decisions. I would think that for people engaging in an inherently risky endeavor such as entrepreneurship, the most important goal would be to hedge against failure.<p>France, and the EU in general, have some of the best social safety nets in the developed world. What exactly does moving to the USA accomplish in 2014? The EU has no shortage of educated engineers or professionals. Is the potential tax savings of incorporating in the US worth the visa and immigration hurdles, lack of consistent healthcare, lack of social safety net and much lower quality of life (vicious judicial systems, abnormal incarceration rates, high crime rates, militarized police, draconian drug laws, etc.)?<p>It is always better to assess a situation rationally, rather than impulsively pack everything in a suitcase after reading a Paul Graham essay. Unlike most of his readers, PG is a Harvard grad and a US citizen.

Is there any guide about how to leave your country and achive your dreams?

Crazy or what?<p>&quot;... written recently about French entrepreneurs leaving France because it was a terrible place to start and grow a business but ...... if your users, partners and possible future investors are here, you have to consider having at least a foot here.&quot;<p>And why do you think that is the case Einstein? The reason your users, partners and future investors are not in France is that France is no longer competitive.