US billionaire calls out Ireland as "no one wants to live here"

BorneTobyWilde

''Food is ****e'' from a lot of posters here.....

So you guys are force fed food not of your choice? I don't get it, ''Food is ****e'' More like you eat ****e food .

NSAman

I live in the US.

While I agree about the weather, I think we can ALL agree with the weather, His criticisms are not valid when it comes to food!

The Food in the states is utter SH!T!

There are of course good restaurants but the VAST majority are crap. Having brought some friends home a few years ago, they had heard the food was bad. Not one bad meal did we get, they were in love with the restaurants and takeaways we got.

I don't bother to go out here now. I cook at home. The quality of the food in relation to steak is excellent (still not as good as Irish Steak) YET.... every restaurant manages to ruin it.

OK New York is different. Great restaurants there. West Coast, some good food a lot of cooking by numbers places though.

As for unfriendliness... different strokes for different folks. Yes Irish people can be unfriendly, but my experience is the vast majority are not. Perhaps he is finding that the Irish do not bow and scrape to people because they have money???

monseiur

Sadly most of us here in Ireland have a stereotypical image of Americans - that they're loud, live on burgers / fast food, are overweight etc. etc.
Most here have no concept of how big America really is - a flight from Florida to Alaska takes over 9 hours, travelling by air to Hawaii from say New York would take roughly 10 to 12 hours without leaving American air space.
There are almost as many types of Americans as there are different races on the planet - after all the place was built by emigrants.
Every state is almost like an independent country under one federal flag.
California for example has a bigger population than the whole of Canada.
The reality is that Ireland is a tiny rain sodden rock jutting out of the north Atlantic and if a tsunami wiped us off the face off the earth in the morning it would not make an iota of difference to world's economy, climate, demography etc. etc.
In global terms, we don't really matter as much as we seem to imagine at times.
Since the great famine we have been exporting our best and brightest and it's effects are obvious and sometimes it takes an outsider to give us a wake up kick in the posterior.

NSAman

monseiur wrote: »

\
Since the great famine we have been exporting our best and brightest and it's effects are obvious and sometimes it takes an outsider to give us a wake up kick in the posterior.

The only posterior that needs kicking is some rich guy, who sounds completely like a jerk and who probably has everyone bowing and scraping to him.

Money does not mean class. This guy may have money but obviously has little class.

buried

monseiur wrote: »

Since the great famine we have been exporting our best and brightest and it's effects are obvious and sometimes it takes an outsider to give us a wake up kick in the posterior.

flol

lawred2

monseiur wrote: »

Sadly most of us here in Ireland have a stereotypical image of Americans - that they're loud, live on burgers / fast food, are overweight etc. etc.
Most here have no concept of how big America really is - a flight from Florida to Alaska takes over 9 hours, travelling by air to Hawaii from say New York would take roughly 10 to 12 hours without leaving American air space.
There are almost as many types of Americans as there are different races on the planet - after all the place was built by emigrants.
Every state is almost like an independent country under one federal flag.
California for example has a bigger population than the whole of Canada.
The reality is that Ireland is a tiny rain sodden rock jutting out of the north Atlantic and if a tsunami wiped us off the face off the earth in the morning it would not make an iota of difference to world's economy, climate, demography etc. etc.
In global terms, we don't really matter as much as we seem to imagine at times.
Since the great famine we have been exporting our best and brightest and it's effects are obvious and sometimes it takes an outsider to give us a wake up kick in the posterior.

That's one long string of falsehoods.

And a healthy dose of self loathing to boot.

Wibbs

buried wrote: »

flol

Indeed. As well as the "ah sure we're great" we also have a serious self confidence problem in the Irish psyche. Actually they're related. Hence some muppet wearing a cardigan(eh. no.) being critical has us flipping out on both sides. Yeah we're crap, how dare you say it sorta thing.

Of the guys I knew who like me left school in the 80's to bugger all jobs and left Ireland for greener pastures all but two of them came back when they could. The two who didn't, who both lived in the States for a good while are now in Europe and Australia respectively. All of them see our good and bad sides, but the ones who came back saw more of the former.

Bobeagleburger

People are free to leave the country if they don't like it

Mad_maxx

SmokyMo wrote: »

True but nothing in comparison to US.

" nothing in comparison to U.S " applies to every country

85603

American lecturing on food.

Maybe we need to add more rehydrated fructose syrup.

NSAman

NSAman wrote: »

The only posterior that needs kicking is some rich guy, who sounds completely like a jerk and who probably has everyone bowing and scraping to him.

Money does not mean class. This guy may have money but obviously has little class.

Jaysis, he's entitled to his opinion!
Why so defensive?

ShatterAlan

The guy's gripe about the food is weird.


I lived in NY and never once did I get a decent salad in 7 years. I've never seen Cos lettuce in the US, just tasteless, watery iceberg lettuce. Combine that with tasteless GM tomatoes, onions, chick peas, slather the lot in sugar-laden 1000 island dressing and that's the best you get.
There are some great restaurants in NY......I love NY chinese food. But maybe it's laced with MSG. I also have a soft spot for those obnoxious, oversized deli hero sandwiches...but they cater more to gluttony than to taste-buds. As I mentioned in a previous post the staples in the US are awful. Bread, butter, milk, eggs, cheese, fruit, veg, it's all very poor quality or chemically/hormone enhanced or ruined with pesticides.



As for "friendliness".....he probably bases this on the fact that he went to a restaurant and the waitress didn't beam like a jester and blow smoke up his arse at every opportunity just to fish for tips. Like wise he probably went into a pub and did the usual "My grandfather was from County GAL-way" and got the piss taken out of him and he didn't like it.


His comments about the weather are childish too. It's all a matter of opinion and it's all relative.


Is the weather in the US great? Well what are we talking about here. I had many American ask me about the weather in Ireland and I told them that in winter it doesn't really drop below the mid 30's (F) and in summer it rarely gets much higher than about 75...normally high 60's and it rains generally once a week on average. And they exclaimed "Wow, so that's just perfect then" Go figure.


Where would you rather be in winter? Ireland or Alaska/Minnesota? Where would you rather be in July/August? Wicklow or Arizona?

saabsaab

NSAman wrote: »

I live in the US.

While I agree about the weather, I think we can ALL agree with the weather, His criticisms are not valid when it comes to food!

The Food in the states is utter SH!T!

There are of course good restaurants but the VAST majority are crap. Having brought some friends home a few years ago, they had heard the food was bad. Not one bad meal did we get, they were in love with the restaurants and takeaways we got.

I don't bother to go out here now. I cook at home. The quality of the food in relation to steak is excellent (still not as good as Irish Steak) YET.... every restaurant manages to ruin it.

OK New York is different. Great restaurants there. West Coast, some good food a lot of cooking by numbers places though.

As for unfriendliness... different strokes for different folks. Yes Irish people can be unfriendly, but my experience is the vast majority are not. Perhaps he is finding that the Irish do not bow and scrape to people because they have money???

There is a strong (sometimes too strong) rebellious streak in irish people. No deference to authority or those calling the shots, afraid to be seen as licking up.

NSAman

bubblypop wrote: »

Jaysis, he's entitled to his opinion!
Why so defensive?

Not defensive at all.

I know his type, have way too much experience with them.

It's obvious that he has little class!

It’s pretty funny that the start of his rant was about the massive amount of bureaucracy they’ve encountered after investing a lot in Portugal and that it’s only behind Brazil with the amount of bureaucracy in his opinion.

So it seems like Paddy may have sold him a pup with the stories of the golden deals he got off the Portuguese govt for moving the Web summit there. At least Ireland is a very good place to do business whatever the man with the big chip on his shoulder may think.

Hyperbollix

saabsaab

Maybe he went into one of them pubs where they all went quiet and turned around to stare daggers at him?

buried

saabsaab wrote: »

Maybe he went into one of them pubs where they all went quiet and turned around to stare daggers at him?

Yeah and then he went on to do the typical yank manoeuvre of only buying half a glass of seven up for himself and the troupe he was with and they all sit in the place huddled around it for five hours.

saabsaab

buried wrote: »

Yeah and then he went on to do the typical yank manoeuvre of only buying half a glass of seven up for himself and the troupe he was with and they all sit in the place huddled around it for five hours.

I saw a pub in Killarney throw a group of Germans out for drinking too slow!

AutoTuning

I’ve seen this in French vs American interactions in customer service:

If you go into say a shop, hotel or restaurant in France and are all smiles, call the person you’re dealing with Madame / Monsieur, make small talk, be polite, treat them like a human doing a job that you appreciate, listen to their advice and assume they know something and so on, you’ll get on brilliantly and will be breezing your way around Paris thinking everyone’s and life in general is marvellous.

If you go in with the customer is always right attitude, demanding attention & expecting the “staff” to jump to your every whim, your dinner will likely be served with a thud and you’ll get rude and grumpy responses, if you’re lucky. They absolutely will not chase tips or grovel.

Ireland is probably closer to the French model, as is most is Europe in my experience. You reap what you sow!

There’s a significant difference in culture in that area.

saabsaab wrote: »

I saw a pub in Killarney throw a group of Germans out for drinking too slow!

I’ve had that in Seattle too. Got fairly unceremoniously moved to an awful table next to the toilets because I had “only” ordered a coffee and a snack and was taking my time.

runawaybishop

Whyever is he so negative about Ireland?

Recent employee feedback about Cloudflare on aggregation sites such as Glassdoor show negative remarks posted about international senior management, describing it as a “toxic” place to work.

Oh right, he's a cnut and doesn't like being called out on it. It's just his way of getting back at those uppity employees who dared to criticise him and his sycophant senior management team.

The food is an odd one for me seeing as it’s coming from an American. The weather and unfriendliness can’t be argued with.

For Forks Sake

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

The food is an odd one for me seeing as it’s coming from an American. The weather and unfriendliness can’t be argued with.

The dense hoore complains about the weather, yet it's our climate that makes an ideal location for (his) datacentres. Idiot.

For Forks Sake

Re. Paddy Cosgrove, there are many, many reasons to dislike the man, but we'll go with one of the more recent incidents, where he falsely and repeatedly claimed that four nurses had died, which was a complete falsehood.

The c*nt that cried wolf.

IAMAMORON

I think if they could at least make more off an effort to ditch the Champions League coverage midweek.

I respect that the BBC is out of our hands for the time being.

It is paralysing the entire nation.

For Forks Sake

For Forks Sake wrote: »

The dense hoore complains about the weather, yet it's our climate that makes an ideal location for (his) datacentres. Idiot.

Ideal weather for a data center doesn’t make it ideal weather for living in.

For Forks Sake

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

Ideal weather for a data center doesn’t make it ideal weather for living in.

Apart from having datacentres here, do Cloudflare even have any operations or offices in this country?

https://www.glassdoor.ie/Location/All-Cloudflare-Office-Locations-E430862.htm

Seamai

I have in laws in Florida so we visit there regularly, I can honestly say that there is nothing in there that would want to make me live there, or any other part of the country for that matter, so I'm not overly offended by his comments.

buried

ReginaldSmythV wrote: »

Ideal weather for a data center doesn’t make it ideal weather for living in.

Its grand weather for living in Reg. Bit of rain and wind in the winter, sure what about it? Did these Silicon Valley dolls never hear of a coat or jacket? You'd think that some lad who has the term 'cloud' in his company name, he would be actually aware to what a real 'cloud' is capable of.

buried

buried wrote: »

Its grand weather for living in Reg. Bit of rain and wind in the winter, sure what about it? Did these Silicon Valley dolls never hear of a coat or jacket? You'd think that some lad who has the term 'cloud' in his company name, he would be actually aware to what a real 'cloud' is capable of.

It’s far from grand. It’s been miserable for months.