The French, with their 35-hour workweek and café culture, might be poised to attract the next great tech talent. Rand Hindi has the quintessential tech guru genesis story. He started coding at age 10 and built a social network by 14. After getting a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, the entrepreneur set his sights on Silicon Valley. But that’s where the narrative began to fray. Despite all the hype, the Bay Area, known for innovation, felt like a bust. “When you [speak] to people, everybody says they want to do something great,” Hindi says. “But what people really want is to work at Google or sell their company to Google.” So Hindi returned to his native France, started Snips, a company specializing in AI voice technology, and watched his company flourish from three employees in 2013 to 80 today. As a growing souring on Silicon Valley sinks in, young tech workers aren’t just leaving hot spots like San Francisco and New York, as OZY has previously reported. They are also leaving the country altogether. And while Asia’s — and in particular China’s — tech advances are drawing the world’s attention, it turns out that a growing number of startups are swooning for the City of Love. | 
