The Silicon Valley of Transylvania
techcrunch.comThis is a nice summary of what's going on - to get to the gist of it, Romania has great technical talent, coming out of decent technical schools.
What severely lacks in Romania, in my view:
a). the business environment; the internal demand isn't enough to support starting and growing business on the local market; building products for external markets from get-go is difficult. This leads to:
b). the business talent; the number of big companies (in the sense of growing into an international market) founded in Romania and managed by Romanian business people can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Leading to:
c). the product talent; since there is no big demand for products in the local market, there is no way to grow local product designers - the people that can and want to design and build a product just find it easier to emigrate, depleting the already small pool of available talent.
All of this leads to companies coming into the country just for technical talent, which is easily employed as outsourcing contractors, and keep the self-perpetuating circle of the tech scene being driven by outsourcing. And this effect is also visible at startup level, where the Romanian-funded startups often have the headquarters, and product designers in US or Canada, and the technical talent in Bucharest or Cluj.
I have no idea how to fix this problem, of even if it is a problem in the first place - I feel that as the local economy matures, niches for specific targeted products will appear, facilitating the development of locally-designed products built by local companies. But starting startups based in Romania targeting foreign markets is still an uphill battle versus companies local to those foreign markets.
Very good points! c) goes hand in hand with two other things: many managers are former programmers with little or no appreciation for good product and good UX. And second, romanian designers are still pretty much artists, drawing candy stuff. I know some very good designers with good UX skills, but they are a minority.
Only where you have good managers, good devs, and good designers thinking solely about the people using the product, you'll have a community that gives birth to real software professionals. We're still in the age of Angular v React, Dawn of Outsourcing.
A savvy product person (maybe with a foreign network) could see this as a massive opportunity. Eastern Europeans are lauded for their technical ability, and have been for some time.
I'm an American who used to work for a British company and we did exactly this. I spent a good year and a half building teams in Cluj to very good success. The developers in Cluj were top notch and most all worked for US/EU based firms (Westinghouse, Nokia, Betfair, etc were some of the biggest there). I don't think I interfaced or saw any companies focusing on building software specifically for the Romanian market...the country still has ways to go in physical infrastructure before it can adopt technical infrastructure.
Since I'm from that part of the world and traveling a lot there, here is my take on this:
- All eastern European countries have a great talent but that talent is created during socialist area (free education, focus on math, etc.). However, quality of new talent is not so great. If somebody is good, they go to work in Germany / Austria / Switzerland.
- Work and business habits are terrible. It seems like they always try to scam you.
- Society really looks down on entrepreneurship. To be honest, societies in Montenegro, Hercegovina, Romania and Albania are a little more open to entrepreneurship than others but..
- Laws are very unfriendly for small business / entrepreneurship. Basically, one needs to break the law in order to run the business.
In short, I'm not so optimistic :(
For multinational companies, Belarus has been a solid country for sourcing technical talent. (Some work remote while others get visas... being flexible as an employer retains the best people longer.)
I worked +10 years in Redmond, WA as a microsoftie and came back to Romania in 2012. Since March 2016 I quit Microsoft and focused 100% on my startup, DBHistory.com. I now rent space and work at a local tech incubator www.techhub.com. I wanted to start with this to to put my opinion in perspective. While the article is bubble-gum and is clear PR, the point it makes is a valid one. Compared even to US, today Romania has a very active entrepreneurship mindset. Small businesses are created all the time, some thrive, some go under. Despite the locals skepticism, I see the economy here as effervescent, with a growth rate still north of 3% (for Europe, this is not bad). The overwhelming majority of this entrepreneurship is not in IT.
But this article is specific to IT, and I do not see the Romanian IT anywhere near its potential. This is because the local IT is almost entirely focused on outsourcing, not on original development. Big companies have significant presence here (Electronic Arts, Adobe, Intel, Microsoft each have ~200,300 dev offices here, although not everything is core R&D ). Original Romania IT has a very strong presence in anti-virus (for some reason it seems a lot of local IT youth are experts on exploits...). Many young IT Romanians choose to go abroad (in Microsoft Romanians are the 4th largest foreign community, after Indians/Chinese/Russians).
Since I've returned I've been approached several times by US/Western Europe based entrepreneurs who desired to move development to Romania and open office here, solely for cost reasons. Purely for outsourcing, this is my 2c:
- Romania has significant talent pool
- EU membership (with all tax/export/legislation alignment that entails)
- Good spoken English is pretty much universal, German/French are common
- Political stability (governing parties rotated power several times in past 20 years, peacefully)
- Cost is higher than one would expect. Bucharest/Cluj/Timisoara all have high cost (office) and salaries are higher than some neighbors. If the outsourcing decision is purely cost driven then Ukraine has a better deal for you, with a similar talent pool.
But I would like to see a lot more IT original development coming out from Romania. The article gives some examples, like LiveRail, but overall I see a lot more outsourcing done here than original development. I'm glad projects like cloudhero.io originate here.
Hey, you can register your startup with RomanianStartups.com :). It's free.
Thanks, I will
Like other eastern european countries, Romanians suffer greatly with poor branding and "western-centrism".
While in Germany, I watched clear demonstrations of discrimination towards Romanians in a tech startup. They really had to prove themselves. Although extremelly talented, "jokes" would always fly around the "gypsy stereotype".
That being said, as a startup founder, I'd assume it'd be much harder to raise money from an UK VC firm.
Yup. One person's stupidity is another wise, entrepreneur's money-making opportunity... hire LGBTQ, disabled, ex-cons, neurodiversity, anyone whom typical businesses "reject," not just for PR reasons but to win bigger with untapped capabilities others cannot see or manage.
"the local higher education system is plagued by corruption" "Education is underfunded and affected by a profound brain drain." (notalaser)
This is so true, sadly! I can imagine the reason Tech Crunch is trying to light the stage in rose colors but it's good to keep your expectations realistic. Don't get me wrong, the Romanian higher education was very self-exigent and managed to spit out high quality specialists for quite a while even after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The good teachers however, were being hunted like crazy. Only in those several years of my Computer Engineering study I've had to witness the departure of half of the professor assistants that were teaching me at one point or another. The good half. On graduation only a small minority of my fellow student colleagues enjoyed meaningful support from their mentors. For most of us the mentorship was only a protocolar procedure, and the quality of our licence projects were being dictated only by our auto-didactic abilities - very far from what I heard University to be once upon a time!
I am from Cluj, Romania and I am a developer for some years now. I really know how things are in the IT sector in Cluj and I really know how my country stacks up against others. The article is not accurate and highlights mostly positive aspects.
The programmers are decent and hard working, but nothing spectacular going on. They might not be your first pick when you want innovation. We are mostly self-taught ( thanks DoD for the Internet), and contrast the poor courses that are held at the Romanian universities. There are programmers that range from mediocre to good. Comparing to colleagues from London, or the US, we are not as good. They know more things and are more specialized. They work at a faster pace and work on hard problems. We make decent work though, but nothing mind blowing. If you want guys that can innovate, better look elsewhere like: the US, UK, Finland, Holland and other Nordic countries.
Here is the factual truth about Romania. It is a country of huge contrast. It has really good results in math and compute science Olympiads, but it is at the very bottom at math performance for the population at large. See PISA test results. 40 % of Romanians do not know basic and simple concepts from math. 40 % also are functional illiterates. This is much worse than the US. At the peak level We seem to be very good at IT, yet there is virtually not an algorithm or an innovation that bears a Romanian's name. You learn about Dijkstra, Turing, Fermat and Leibniz, but not Popescu or Iliescu. You hear about how good we are, but no Romanian University is within the top 500 at the computer science section. There is a lot of impostors in our universities and plagiarism is high. The dean of the Technical University of Cluj plagiarized courses from Berkeley and presents them as his own.
Romania has one of the largest internet speed, but only half of the country is connected. And within those that do use it, the vast majority are on Facebook and Youtube. Telekom just published that Romania has the poorest internet usage when it comes to business related activity.
Half of the population still lives in the rural areas, and the conditions are horrible. Over half of Romanian schools do not have running tap water or a decent toilet with flushing water. Mostly are again in the rural areas. But also in the surrounding regions of Cluj, and other major cities, there are entire neighborhoods that do not have access to the sewage network. And they are part of the city of Cluj, not other entities.
Romania is featured as a poor country by World Vision, which needs western support. It is listed among Albania, Georgia and a host of African countries. The orphanage footage of Romania in the 90' comes to mind.
And the list shocking contrast goes on and on.
> You learn about Dijkstra, Turing, Fermat and Leibniz, but not Popescu or Iliescu
Andrei Alexandrescu pops into my head and I'm sure I could find a few more if I thought about it.
> And within those that do use it, the vast majority are on Facebook and Youtube
As opposed to the west where everyone is using the Internet for maximizing their productivity.
> There is a lot of impostors in our universities and plagiarism is high. The dean of the Technical University of Cluj plagiarized courses from Berkeley and presents them as his own.
That is true, I've also been at UT, hehe.
Overall I kinda agree with you though. We are poor and the government won't or can't help us increase innovation rate. The talent is here though, anyone looking to create products does have a good opportunity if they choose to start a business here. In the process the native folk might learn a thing or two about what it takes to create a product and sell it.
Yes, there are a few, like Alexandrescu or Mihai Pătrașcu. Don't get me wrong. They are exceptionally smart and hard working. I admire them. But their success, like that of most who participate in Olympiads, is the result of their exceptional hard work and that of a handful of dedicated teachers. It is not the merit of the education system. But you should also know that there are hundreds other like Pătrașcu, from all over the globe. We don't stand out from the crowd. And another thing. I know a single example of a person in Romania who grew up in Romania and became recognized for his work in Romania. Almost all of them had to flew to other universities in the West and there they managed to make great contributions. That is a great contrast as well. The educational environment is so corrupt and unfair that people of genuine value just don't want to work there. Most of them that stay are opportunists. Not all of them, but well over 80%.
:)), yes about the internet usage. The vast majority of people in the west also use it for Facebook or Youtube. Don't get me wrong; I doubt people in Holland skip Facebook and study Dijkstra work :) But a disproportionately higher number of people from those countries use the Internet for more noble purposes. Not just entertainment. As for companies there are a number of statistics that show how they use it for increased productivity. And Romania, as in most statistics, sits at the bottom.
But fair points, nonetheless.
"but no Romanian University is within the top 500 at the computer science section"
http://news.ubbcluj.ro/noutati/universitatea-babes-bolyai-%E...
As most people who live there, you have an insider's perspective and you tend to overestimate how other places are doing.
Cluj and Bucharest are islands in that country, in terms of economic growth.
The biggest strength of the IT sector in Cluj is its drive and motivation. These things take time but there is no reason to deny that there is potential.
Comparing such a small city like Cluj to London and cities in the US is not very fair.
You can certainly find very talented people in Cluj who could work on startups, however this is clearly not the majority. Like everywhere.
Yes, you made some fair points on some items.
I mentioned that no university is in top 500 at COMPUTER SCIENCE. And they are not. Babes is ranked higher since a professor published some articles but on math, and not CS. And it was done in partnership with some Saudi University. But as for CS, there is no university in the 500 rank. That is a bit of paradox right there.
Yes, comparing Cluj or Bucharest with London is not fair. But comparing Bucharest with Helsinki is. Bucharest has a higher population, and thus has more potential. But Helsinki clearly outperforms Bucharest, be it in universities, companies or projects.
And for the other points, I agree with you.
Thanks for you commentz, Balazs.
I'm from Cluj! :) I'm working on We Heart Swift - a site dedicated to Swift - over 50.000 people visit it every month. Our main product teaches you how to code in one month. Its similar to codecademy but in the form of mac app https://www.weheartswift.com/swift-programming-scratch-100-e...
I'm from Romania and i run a product business in the western part of the country (Oradea). The article is a pr piece, but one that the .ro tech industry deserves. There's definitely good momentum and we need to use it. The biggest long term risk imho is the outsourcing industry and it's effects.
We started out in outsourcing too but shifted to product in 2008 and managed to build a profitable business selling globally. I'm seeing more and more people interested in making the shift or jumping right into product, however we lack good product managers, marketing and funding. Overall i'm optimistic and i think we have lots to show if we focus our energies in the right direction.
> The labor market research firm Brainspotting reports that Romania, with just 20 million people, ranks in the top 10 globally in number of certified IT specialists
What exactly is a "certified IT specialist"?
Presumably someone who has a BS in Computer Science or related field.
No, in this context it means Microsoft/Cisco etc certifications. Unfortunately people with these tend to be worse than the people without them so I'm not sure why this is even brought up.
I wish people would stop using that phrasing: "The Silicon Valley of" whatever.
In light of the actions of the US over the last decade regarding interception of communication, undermining of encryption, intellectual property laws, and promiscuous prosecutions, I don't see any way for it to be the next hotbed of technological innovation.
anecdote: my SaaS has about 50 customers, 2 of which are from Romania. That's quite a high representation!
Looks like Techcrunch needs new opportunities to empty founders pockets with its "conferences", Romania here they come ...
This is so bubble-written it's not funny.
Romania is a country where a large chunk of the populace get around by cart and donkey, where post-communist corruption is rife, where decades on they still can't decide what to do with the half built palace that occupies half of Bucharest, where gangsters run most of the hospitality industry and god knows what else.
It's a chicken and egg problem, of course, as enterprise will bring wealth (in theory) which in turn will solve some of Romania's more immediate woes, but it's still a tiny tiny niche in a very poor country.
Their only saving psychological grace is that Moldova are next door, and they make anyone look rich.
Edit: on a Re-read, this comes across as horribly negative. I'm a big fan of Romania and its prospects - what I failed to mention is that I met a lot of intelligent, interesting and passionate younger people - and they will be the ones that drag Romania solidly into a functioning state - but the reality is that there's a lot of work to do.
I live in Romania.
For potential readers: this comment's content is a gross overstatement and does not reflect reality.
For example, over 50% of the population lives in an urban environment (see the CIA Romania Factbook which is very up to date). Even so, it would be wrong to assume that just because some of the country's citizens live in the countryside, they 'get around by cart and donkey'. Also, for the sake of accuracy, where such transportation is used, horses would be much more common as opposed to donkeys.
As for the 'half built palace that occupies half of Bucharest', I presume you're referring to the Palace of the Parliament, with an area of 365000 m2. The urban area of Bucharest occupies 228 km2, or 228000000 m2, significantly more than the area of the building you mentioned.
Edit: I double checked some data in regards to the Palace of the Parliament, the FLOOR AREA is indeed 365000 m2, but since the building has multiple floors, the actual occupied area is smaller. Check the Technical Details on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament
To be fair, I was last there six years ago, spent most of my time travelling through the the countryside, a few weeks in Cluj, visited friends in Sibiu, and got robbed when I went through Bucharest on my way to Moldova.
So yes, my view is far less accurate than yours, as it's from about six weeks six years ago - but the only place I saw comparable levels of overt corruption was Kyrgyzstan, and I've visited most of the ex-ussr and associated states. This is no judgment on the Romanian or Kyrgyz peoples - this is a sad fact of life after economic oppression - corruption becomes a way of life.
I'm sorry for your personal experience, but you should be able to realize that traumatic personal experiences can cloud your opinion about a very complex topic such as a whole country.
I visited the US and I wasn't really impressed, for example. But I wouldn't judge the US based on just what I saw in a couple of weeks, considering what I've read and seen about it.
Oh, and regarding corruption: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Anticorruption_Dire...
Oh, I don't have a dim view of Romania though, I loved my time there, I fell in love with Sibiu - actually, a big chunk of what I said/think comes from a buddy from Cluj who I've known 25 years or so - and I hadn't heard about the anticorruption initiative, that's good news.
I had a knife stuck in my back at a cafe and had my camera stolen, and the police officer I found then took my passport and wanted (and got) a bribe to return it. Not a unique experience, I've been held up and hijacked variously around the planet, but it did go to reinforce the Cluj guy's "don't bother with Bucharest, you'll get mugged" anecdotes!
Oh, and driving around rural Romania on single track roads, I guess the donkey carts kinda stick out, as you get a nice long view of the back of them! Selection bias...
Anyway, cheers for the education.
Sorry for that :(
Romania actually has a lower crime rate than the US, so you were unlucky.
The cop part is what they're working on with the whole anti corruption initiative.
That would heavily depend on what type of crime you're talking about.
For example, corruption is a very serious form of crime. Romania ranks #58 (below Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Croatia, and Greece) on Transparency International's corruption index, compared to the US at #16.
With Romania having such extreme corruption, how can you be certain its crime stats are worth taking seriously? How under-reported is crime - rape, theft, violent crime etc - likely to be in a nation with corruption problems that are that bad? From other countries with even worse corruption (eg Venezuela or Brazil), what we do know is that there tends to be a direct correlation - for extremely obvious reasons - between high levels of corruption and poor crime reporting.
I'm not sure that the police reward system is based on crime stats over here. I.e. the police chief gets more money if he reports fewer crimes. Considering the way people in our public sector think, it's more likely that the police chief would want to report more crimes, since he can hire more people, get more resources and likely more bribes.
And my anecdotal evidence says that Romania is truly a safe country. I probably know 1000+ Romanians and I know 1 that has been robbed while being threatened with a knife and several that have had things stolen from them. This feeling of safety is one of the few things that's reported constantly by people I know, either in rural areas or in urban areas: violence is not wide spread. We even have a proverb that says: "mamaliga explodeaza greu" ("it takes a long tine for mamaliga to explode": mamaliga is a local dish, a sort of corn porridge; the meaning of the expression is that we don't get aggravated quickly; we do talk a lot, curse and threaten and whatever but we tend to not actually fight that much... maybe we're cowards :) ). Most people over here would find the US gung-ho mentality quite threatening ("don't take my guns", "stand your ground").
What does happen constantly, and what the agency I posted above tries to fight, is wide spread practice of asking for bribes for any kind of service performed by a public servant. Which has a huge negative impact on small businesses, especially.
Interesting point you make re: small businesses - my friend runs a web development shop, and he was telling me about how they keep accounts, and "accounts", because declaring a profit is a good way to ensure a tax inspector will arrive and won't leave until you bribe him to go away.
Interestingly, this phenomenon isn't limited to Romania - a Latvian friend running a furniture company does the same thing for the same reason - for the first two years of his business he filed genuine books - the first year, they came asking for a bribe, he refused - the second year, they raided him and took all the machine tools - so now he just "makes a loss" every year and they don't bother him.
Similarly, a Lithuanian friend who used to run a telco found himself stuck in the middle of a lover's quarrel between the state telecoms regulator and another telco who had paid a bribe to win a tender, which he then bid for and made things awkward.
Corruption is no joke - I think many underestimate the chilling effect it has on everything from civil liberties to tourism to business to tax revenue collection - if your tax collectors are corrupt, you are well and truly on the road to hell.
Re: Romania feeling safe, you're right - which is in no small part why my experience in Bucharest was such a shock - it was at total odds with the Romania I'd experienced up to that point.
They've started sending doctors, cops, clerks, etc. to jail for taking bribes. They're encouraging people to organize stings when asked for money. It is a struggle but things are actually changing.
You have to remember that Romania wasn't all that "clean" even before Communists came and Communism is basically "the state as a criminal organization". Old habits die hard.
You visited the US and "weren't impressed"? Where did you visit exactlY? Its a very large country with over 200 milion people. What weren't you impressed with? What was lacking? Also where are you from thats more impressive?
> You visited the US and "weren't impressed"?
Yes.
> Where did you visit exactly?
San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle. I plan on visiting New York this year or maybe next year.
> Its a very large country with over 200 million people.
I think it's over 300 million now :)
> What weren't you impressed with?
Well... homeless people. The fact that cities don't seem to be very "walkable" (and from what I've read SF is one of the best US cities in this regard). Food in supermarkets. Various other minor aspects.
> What was lacking?
I wouldn't say "lacking". Instead I'd say that I like other things more.
> Also where are you from that's more impressive?
I'm from Romania (not hard to guess, considering the topic). It's not "impressive" either.
What I find "impressive" instead is Germany.
And you seem to be bothered by a part of my previous comment. So I'll repost another part which you might have missed:
> But I wouldn't judge the US based on just what I saw in a couple of weeks, considering what I've read and seen about it.
Ha, yeah that was a typo : ) I think its closer to 330 million these days.
The homeless problem in SF is really terrible and particularly glaring. Homelessness in general is a problem in many major cities in US however the intensity of it in SF is not not at all representative of the rest of the US.
I'm not impressed by either SF or San Jose either, but I wouldn't say the US doesn't impress me. The North East Corridor of the US is very different from the places you visited as is the South, the Midwest etc.
You don't need to defend it, you know. That was the point the poster was making - that just because he had a subpar experience he shouldn't judge the whole country by it.
The US is very much like 5 to 12 different countries pretending to be one.
Personally, I'd classify the culturally distinct areas as Pacific Coast, Big West, Mormonland, Deep South, Mid-Atlantic, North Mexico, Eastern Megalopolis (Washington DC to Boston), Middle Neutralia, Flori-duh (aka Murica's Glans), and Cajun Country.
Having visited most at least once, and lived in three for at least a year, each are impressive in different ways. It isn't always a positive impression.
It is unbelivable how much the society changed in the last 6 years; ouvert corruption is still visible in Romania, but now there is a growing social stigma associated with it, as it should be in a western-type civilization. The gap in mentality is still there, because it isn't easy to eradicate 50 years of bad influence (communism, I'm looking at you!). But the gap is closing, and now it is common to see cabinet-level people ending up in prison, sending strong messages throughout the society.
Can you give some examples of corruption that actually hindered you? I consider corruption to be a minor-to-non-existent problem for areas like IT/tech here.
The main problem to me is the lack of entrepreneurship and the fact that there are lots of "stealth-startups" in Romania that will probably not even be incorporated in Romania ever, so they'll never show up on the radar as "Romanian startups", they will simply "pack up the whole team and move" abroad after the first big foreign investor spots them and invests/acquires with a "relocation requirement".
There are also entrepreneurs that run their companies disguised as outsourcing-shops while the real startup is actually the outsourcing-shop's client registered somewhere like USA-Delaware/Hongkong/whatever because it leads to better perspective from the customers. Of course, this is also a short term arrangement before the team of the company is swallowed by a bigger fish.
There is a lot going on, but int this part of the world very few of what's happening actually shows up on the radar as what it is.
Also... coming back to corruption, imho the greatest problem is lack of entrepreneurial spirit because the society and education actively discourages smart people from becoming entrepreneurs... so they end up engineers, doctors etc. ...or emigrate. Corruption really makes little difference because real innovation doesn't happen while working on projects for the state anyway. I think that a certain level of corruption can even help economic growth if used selectively - ie a bribe that sabotages a bigger international corporation from getting a contract for a state-financed development project in favor of a local startup (where, for example, one of the investors happens to be a local senator or whatever... probably not the best example but to get the point across) can actually result in more money funneling back into the local economy and fueling its growth... Everything can be a double edged sword in the bigger economic game.
The American obsession with corruption in other countries is imho more out of fear of being out-maneuvered by foreign local businessmen in the international economic game when it comes to uderhanded tactics :) (see http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/... for context)
It's easy to acquire a skewed impression of any country as a foreign visitor, so I completely empathize with you. Unfortunately getting mugged/robbed would be possible anywhere in the world, even in the poshest of places. As for the status on corruption, there's active progress being made, as an example, see an older article on the subject http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/opinion/romanias-anti-corr...
Romania I think is a good case study in a country that has a oppressive regime that gets removed, suddenly gets given loads of money to improve itself (EU in this case) and then corruption sets in. Loads of examples, in both Eastern Europe, Russia itself and Africa.
It has shown in the last couple of years that the people might be trying to change that with the way that it got rid of its previous president but it is a long process to change peoples mindsets.
This is an exaggeration.
1. Only a tiny chunk of the population "get around by cart and donkey" and that's mostly in rural areas. Romania has around 314 cars per 1000 inhabitants. For comparison the UK has 519, Sweden 520, Mexico 275, Brazil 249, Ukraine 220, Moldova 156 and China 128. [1]
2. Corruption is one of the most discussed topics in Romania, but in my opinion it is over-rated. There is virtually no violent corruption, most of the existing corruption has to do government contracts or bribing of government officials.
3. Yeah, the Palace of the Parliament sucks. But it's one of the biggest tourist attractions right now in Bucharest.
4. "gangsters run most of the hospitality industry" - actually most of it is run by large foreign companies or small "mom and pop" entrepreneurs.
No, Romania is not building the next "Silicon Valley", but it does have a vibrant IT community that is increasingly involved in creating technology startups and is developing in the right direction.
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...
There are two sides to every coin. I think both Techcrunch and your assessments are valid. It would not be hard to paint the USA as a totalitarian state run by organized crime and where half of the people live under some acceptable standard of living.
How else would you paint it?
Man, so much angst. Did you read the whole article?
> Still, as many have noted, Romania has some big hurdles to overcome to truly become a tech hub.
> Access to capital is slim. The risk-taking culture is nascent.
> The government bureaucracy is strong and legislation that supports startups is lacking.
> Yet every shift has to begin somewhere, and from what we see, there’s one afoot in Romania.
They admit that not everything is perfect in the friendly article.
I think you are right that the article is a bit "bubble-written". But I think your comment is a lot further from the truth than the article. The biggest asset that Romania has is its talent pool. I am fairly convinced that Romania will follow Estonia's economic trajectory. The starting conditions are quite similar.
> very poor country.
One upside, from an outsider point-of-view, is that an apartment in Bucharest goes for about the same amount as a downpayment for an apartment in London.
For that reason alone, I can imagine some Europeans (especially Londoners) would seriously consider giving up their 400 sqft place and going to Romania to own three large apartments.
Or at least I would.
Yeah renting good apartments and houses is really cheap. But imho try to avoid Bucharest, which is the London of Romania, that is, a bit of an overcrowded shithole. Any other major city is better (except maybe Iasi :D)...
Dude, are you from Hungary ? :)
Please, don't do this!
When have you last been in Romania?