Stock options are viral ingredient needed to spark startup culture
The Australian government's restrictive stock options regime has stifled entrepreneurship, but Atlassian could be the ecosystem's saviour.
From boom to bust, from unconference to BarCamp and beyond, Mahesh Sharma tracks the fortunes of Australia's startup community.
Australian-born, Bangalore-based Mahesh Sharma is ZDNet's India correspondent.
The Australian government's restrictive stock options regime has stifled entrepreneurship, but Atlassian could be the ecosystem's saviour.
A world without stock options is a world without semiconductor chips, personal computers, video games, and the Internet.
Lawyers said the government overreacted with its stock options laws in 2009, which have created a unique local market for creative tax structures.
The unions heavily lobbied their former member Treasurer Wayne Swan to relax changes to the employee share schemes that crippled businesses and startups.
Treasurer Wayne Swan's whirlwind AU$200m tax grab has sent corporations and startups into a spin, viewed as a lopsided struggle to equitably share the spoils of business growth with the workers responsible.
As Australian software champion, Atlassian, is expected to list on the Nasdaq later this year, are employee stock options a viable option for other Aussie startups?
Venture-capital executives have downplayed a 9 percent increase in the number of deals this year, which the industry body trumpets as a sign of success.
Can a startup ecosystem be viable if only one gender is represented?
Sydney has been crowned Australia's startup capital by a new report compiled by stakeholders from the country's biggest city.
Apple and Android fanboys steadfastly hold their ground in the debate over whose operating reigns supreme, but they may not have a leg to stand on after two defectors changed sides.