Spoke with dozens of young builders at @ETH_en during my few days in Zurich (here with @jjschnyder). High-level takeaways: 1) Strong pull towards the US (both in market and incorporation), but very few perceived paths on how to get there (hence YC is popular as a "straight shot" into the US ecosystem). Something we're also trying to address with our @EarthlingVC x @BoostVC $100k pitch competition 2) In Zurich (like the rest of northern Europe), there is a blind spot in understanding American startup culture. Very few understand that Americans pitch the dream, while they (Europeans) pitch reality. This leads to an overestimation of what's happening at American startups (e.g. I spoke to founders who think all these Twitter robotics demos are actually fully autonomous, and thus they're behind in Zurich — not true) 3) The consequence of 2) is that some founders feel they need to take idea queues from Silicon Valley. I disagree — keep ETH weird, it's what makes it special (independent thoughts + uniquely high technical aptitude ftw) 4) Incorporation is a big blocker for local founders — I learned on this trip that incorporation of a Swiss entity costs 20k - 100k CHF (!!). Delaware C-Corps are the way (we have Zurich-based portcos that started solely as C-Corps, and only added a Swiss subsidiary later).

Tack också @ArnoutDevos för att du organiserade samtalet på bilden ovan! Och en påminnelse, vi investerar $100k första checken in i ett fantastiskt team från ETH: