Appsterdam: building a haven for app developers in Amsterdam
Mike Lee, formerly of Apple and Tapulous, has moved to Amsterdam and is looking to set up a new application development community. Lee left the US after he became disillusioned with how the country and the development community was headed. He was frustrated with not being able to afford heath insurance as a self-employed worker and was put off by the fast, money-focused lifestyle of Silicon Valley.
He chose Amsterdam for his new Appsterdam project after traveling the world looking at prospective cities. It has the right combination of affordability and is centrally located in Europe. Amsterdam, he notes, is already filled with creative and marketing people. He hopes to provide a pool of talented app developers. Lee already kicked off his Appsterdam project with a weekend of tours and has designated official hangouts where developers can collaborate. Local investor Floris van Alkemade is offering his support by establishing a seed fund that will provide investments of 10-50,000 EUR (US$14,000- $70,000) per company.
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Mike Lee, formerly of Apple and Tapulous, has moved to Amsterdam and is looking to set up a new application development community. Lee...
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Amsterdam is great. Hour flying to London, 2 hours Barcalona and doesn't cost much to fly.
Great Entrepreneurs (i.e. Twittercounter.com is founded by a Dutch Serial Entrepreneur)
Everyone speaks English in the Netherlands, so that shouldn't be a problem.
All the best to him.
@ Drew - Sub-par social skills?
Good thing you are awesome at that..... seriously where do I sign up for you to teach me how to interact...
Can't say that I blame him. I'm considering a similar move for similar reasons. Best of luck Mike Lee in your new endeavors and your new home.
June 28 2011 at 3:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replyyea really smart developers want to go to amsterdam were there already sub-par social skills will be strained further with a language barrier. ive been to a-dam, several times (army, stationed in germany) and it is a **** hole- good luck getting anyone to go there. also, a-dam is not centrally located whatsoever- it is is far north as you can go on mainland europe until you have to jump the pond to new scandinavia. this writer is a ******* idiot.
June 28 2011 at 11:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYou are one to comment about sub-par social skills with your foul language! And you should check a map every once in a while. Yes, Amsterdam is not dead center in Europe, but it isn't very far up north, either, about the same latitude as Birmingham, UK. And Scandinavia is part of Europe, too.
Oh, and btw, *everyone* in the Netherlands speaks English, so the language barrier is not too high, either.
Doesn't anybody read this stuff before publishing it? How is a person "frustrated with not being able to afford heath insurance as a self-employed worker" able to travel "the world looking at prospective cities?" This is utter BS. I am self employed, and can afford health insurance. I certainly cannot afford to travel the world.
June 28 2011 at 9:51 AM Report abuse Permalink +2 rate up rate down ReplyActually you don't know Mike Lee's health record or if he has family and if there are pre-existing health conditions that have increased what I believe you call co-pays or the actual premiums.
Unless you know all of that, you can't make a comment on his decision.
ACTUALLY i do know how much airfare is and room and board, so if he can afford to travel the world looking at prospective cities out of pocket, then he can damn sure afford insurance. also- if he had any type of serious condition then he would be medically grounded and unable to do all of that- DOLT!
June 28 2011 at 11:07 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down"Travel is expensive" is a myth. It costs you very little more (and sometimes less) to travel than it does to live somewhere. The keys are not to pay double rent (pay only where you are, not where you are AND an apartment or something back in your country), stay in a place long enough that you are paying rental rates instead of hotel rates, and amoritize your actual transit expenses over time (calculate what they cost you divided by days until next time). It really does cost just as much to be somewhere else as it does to be where you are (and if you're in SF, it will be cheaper most other places - including Tokyo.) -Trout
June 29 2011 at 3:26 AM Report abuse Permalink +1 rate up rate downNot so fast. I could buy a round trip ticket to Europe for what my monthly health care insurance premium costs. Twelve trips a year.
June 28 2011 at 12:13 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplySounds like a hippie commune from the '60s. Far out.
Good luck with that.
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