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The author has some very good points, but I think he's trying to find a simple explanation to a complicated problem. Of course there's no single reason for this

The author has some very good points, but I think he's trying to find a simple explanation to a complicated problem. Of course there's no single reason for this scale difference. If anything, Europeans appreciate cultural differences more than people from the US. What I think plays a big role is aggression. Startup founders in the US would do whatever it takes to succeed. Sometimes this leads to hard work (80+ hour weeks), other times to unfair play (Uber licensing and traditional taxis come to mind). Generally, in the US there's a "win by all means necessary" attitude, while Europeans prefer their work-life balance and don't "break the rules" too much. All this is based on personal experience and I have no data to back it up. That said, I see the same difference between northern and southern European nations. Southern ones are more carefree and want to relax. They even have words and concepts around this (think the Spanish siesta). It's part of culture which translates to work behavior. I think this difference in founders and employees might contribute more to the scale of startups than what the article talks about. I see value in both approaches.

edko 10y ago
The Spanish siesta is a break in the middle of the day because of the high heat. Spanish workers are the ones who, in average, work the longest hours in Europe (38 hours/week) after the Greek (42 h/w) and the Portuguese (39.3 h/w). Please stop the prejudice.
- 67726e 10y ago
  The US has high-heat and we don't have any concept of a siesta, so it's not wrong at all to say there are cultural differences.
  - edko 10y ago
    Of course there are cultural differences, but this has nothing to do with "work behavior". The average work hours in the US, for example, is 34.4 hours/week.
    - 67726e 10y ago
      Yes, and Spain's is only 32.48[0]. What is your point? [0] - http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/chart-work-week-oecd/ http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/chart-work-week-oecd/
      - edko 10y ago
        My source says 38 hours. My point is that saying that "Southern ones are more carefree and want to relax" is false and prejudiced.
        67726e 10y ago
        > My source says 38 hours. Care to cite your source then?
        stronglikedan 10y ago
        False? Maybe, maybe not - I have no idea. Prejudiced? Most certainly not.
        NetStrikeForce 10y ago
        If you don't know if it's false or not, you clearly don't have the data to judge it, hence you've got prejudices. Fun fact: Most Spaniards I've met in UK are shocked by the "calling off sick" (after a night out) and low effort culture they've found in Britain. I personally think that's not true either, but tells me more about Spaniards than anything. Truth is Spain is unproductive due to corruption. Also, you've got prejudices, like everyone else :-) P.S.: I'm Spaniard and I consider myself lazy, hence why I got in IT (earn more with less effort). I run away from manual labour :-)
        lowry 10y ago
        Just like saying that Walloon are dumber than Flemish.
      - dillonisacunt 10y ago
        It never fails to amaze me when American's are so comfortable to comment on other cultures they know little about when making criticism or analysis. Obviously there are cultural differences, however there isnt therefore an implication that Europeans somehow work less productively or even differently than those in the United States as some commenters seem to be suggesting. I guarantee that Spanish startups dont fail because they have siestas; language barriers, distribution issues and international laws will have so much more sway in success than any minor cultural difference such as how chilled out a group of people are. A food delivery start up starting in Texas can probably scale to surrounding states pretty easily compared to one starting in Spain and expanding into Belgium
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- raverbashing 10y ago
  It would be good if Spain could get in with the 20th century and use air-conditioning (but yes, it's a cultural thing)
  - edko 10y ago
    It may be true, but infrastructure has nothing to do with work ethics.
  - adlpz 10y ago
    Spaniard here. Generalising a bit, _all_ offices here have air conditioning, and _nobody_ does the siesta thing.
    - collyw 10y ago
      A lot of smaller shops do siesta hours closing from 2 - 4 or 4.30.
  - NetStrikeForce 10y ago
    There's air conditioned everywhere, not sure which Spain you've visited really. On the other hand, it doesn't have to be ON all the time at like 19 degrees Celsius like in the US, where I carry a jacket around to put it on only when I'm inside a building :-)
- jahewson 10y ago
  While the Spanish work day is longer, it's not necessarily more productive. Long lunch breaks and the fact that the country uses the wrong time zone (enforced by Franco, no less) make the Spanish a sleep-deprived people: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21704816-and-knackered-it-out-sync-sun http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21704816-and-knackered-...
- JohnStrange 10y ago
  I have something to say about that. I live in Portugal as a foreigner and the working hours mean nothing. People are making coffee breaks all day long and the amount of sloppiness and incompetence can often be mind-boggling. As an example, my German girlfriend works in a dental laboratory and her Portuguese colleague would not possibly understand why it's not common practice in a German laboratory to watch Youtube videos on your cell phone while working. He really, honestly didn't believe it when she told him that German bosses don't appreciate that. To be fair, salaries in Portugal are ridiculous, I have no idea how people get along with 600 Euro/m, 800 Euro/m tops, when at least in Lisbon rents are high. Some hard working people seem to literally live off toasted bread and coffee. This is disguised by the average salary of 1000 Euro/m after taxes, because the gap between rich and poor is very high. I myself work at university, and I can attest that what takes 1 day at maximum anywhere in Northern Europe is projected to take 1-3 weeks here. I have a colleague who surfs on the Net the whole day and gets paid for it -- again, extremely bad payment, though. So no, mere presence does not count and work hours don't count either. For Portugal, I blame the bosses, though, who seem to be universally incompetent assholes and reliably manage to create a catastrophic working atmosphere. Sorry if I've offended some Portuguese, but that's my impression of the work ethics here after nearly a decade of living here. It has its advantages but productivity is not one of them.
  - wott 10y ago
    Bah, I could tell the exact same stories about middle Europe and northern Europe.
  - marknutter 10y ago
    > it's not common practice in a German laboratory to watch Youtube videos on your cell phone while working Boy have I got news for you...
  - devuo 10y ago
    You have not offended this Portuguese. However, if one was to go exclusively by your account, one would come out with the understanding that is a country of incompetent slackers, and I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. I do however concede that most of management in here is fairly amateurish and incompetent.
creshal 10y ago
> If anything, Europeans appreciate cultural differences more than people from the US. Maybe a bit too much. Sitting in Austria I've less worries about getting customers from Texas (US is US) than about getting customers from France (oh god, the language barrier, the red tape, …) or Poland (I don't even know who to hire for translations!). And it really bogs you down. The US is one unified market, for software vendors at least. The biggest single-language market in Europe is Germany (coincidentally? its economic powerhouse), but tapping in Germany + Austria + Switzerland already means dealing with two currencies and three different legislations. And everything past it will have diminishing returns. Another language, another set of red tape to deal with, for a handful million potential customers… Why even bother? US startups won't have to deal with any of that until they want to expand internationally, and even then they can skip half the pain (l10n) if they focus on other English-speaking markets. > Sometimes this leads to hard work (80+ hour weeks), other times to unfair play (Uber licensing and traditional taxis come to mind) That's a bit naïve, European businesses have no problems with fighting dirty (we invented cartels, dammit, and 80 years later people still think light bulbs only last 1000 hours!), and entrepreneurs will bust their asses either way. It just doesn't get them as far.
- gjolund 10y ago
  Isn't this the reason the EU exists?
  - creshal 10y ago
    Oh, it's definitely helping, no doubt. But it can't just wish away language barriers and sovereign nation states.
    - erichocean 10y ago
      > But it can't just wish away language barriers and sovereign nation states. It's telling you think that's the goal of the EU (especially the "sovereign nation states" part). And people wonder why Brexit happened…
advertising 10y ago
An interesting thing I found out from getting to know a Swedish family living in Mexico was they make a conscious effort in their society to not be too good or better than everyone else. People strive to be a B versus an A. Not every single person subcribes to that thinking but I've rarely met a Swedish person that didn't seem to be fairly happy.
sytse 10y ago
We moved GitLab from the Netherlands to San Francisco. Some things I noticed: 1. In the US we got to see more other startups that were going really fast and that pushed us to go faster ourselves, Y-Combinator helped with this. 2. It was easier to find people that are experienced with modern sales and marketing practices in the US. 3. Customers in the US like to buy from a US company (and pay by check, these took 2 months and cost $70 to cash in the Netherlands). 4. On average companies in the US adopts newer technology sooner. 5. There was better advice and investment available in the US, Y-Combinator helped with this. 6. In the US there are much more success stories, this raised our ambitions. I know many impressive startups and incubators in the Netherlands (shoutout to Adyen, 3ax Cycling, AppSignal, and Utrecht Inc.) and we have some awesome Dutch customers. The above examples and talking about the statistical average, there are awesome organizations and people everywhere.
- Dutchie 10y ago
  Wouldn't it be enough to set up a postal box office in the USA to create a US 'presence' for many saas companies based in Europe? Provided, of course, that you are available during US office hours for email and phone support?
  - sytse 10y ago
    You still have to pick an entity to bill from. If that is a foreign entity the US customers need a special form from you to do business with you https://www.irs.gov/uac/form-w-8ben-certificate-of-foreign-status-of-beneficial-owner-for-united-states-tax-withholding https://www.irs.gov/uac/form-w-8ben-certificate-of-foreign-s... And having a postal box office doesn't solve cashing a foreign check in the Netherlands. So as a first step I recommend incorporating a US entity (Inc. in Delaware), setting up the PO box (we used Earth Class Mail), and getting a bank account (heard good things about first republic bank).
- erichocean 10y ago
  > Y-Combinator Nitpick: it's Y Combinator (no hyphen).
NetStrikeForce 10y ago
If only English had a word for siesta like, don't know, nap? I would use nap in the same sentences as siesta and I always considered them equivalent. The cultural thing with siesta is that after midday and for a few hours it's pretty much suicide to go outside, less do work under the sun, hence why in agricultural towns is common to work from 5 or 6 am until noon-ish then go to have lunch and sleep a while until it's safe to go outside and start with your social life. In the cities that schedule doesn't exist, but some traditions remain like shops closed from 2pm to 5pm or businesses closed the whole month of August. In any case, these are also disappearing due to big chains taking over the high street, who have enough money to invest in several store clerks to cover 10am-10pm (yup, that's the typical mall schedule in Spain).

edko 10y ago

The Spanish siesta is a break in the middle of the day because of the high heat. Spanish workers are the ones who, in average, work the longest hours in Europe (38 hours/week) after the Greek (42 h/w) and the Portuguese (39.3 h/w). Please stop the prejudice.

67726e 10y ago
The US has high-heat and we don't have any concept of a siesta, so it's not wrong at all to say there are cultural differences.
- edko 10y ago
  Of course there are cultural differences, but this has nothing to do with "work behavior". The average work hours in the US, for example, is 34.4 hours/week.
  - 67726e 10y ago
    Yes, and Spain's is only 32.48[0]. What is your point? [0] - http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/chart-work-week-oecd/ http://fortune.com/2015/11/11/chart-work-week-oecd/
    - edko 10y ago
      My source says 38 hours. My point is that saying that "Southern ones are more carefree and want to relax" is false and prejudiced.
      - 67726e 10y ago
        > My source says 38 hours. Care to cite your source then?
      - stronglikedan 10y ago
        False? Maybe, maybe not - I have no idea. Prejudiced? Most certainly not.
        NetStrikeForce 10y ago
        If you don't know if it's false or not, you clearly don't have the data to judge it, hence you've got prejudices. Fun fact: Most Spaniards I've met in UK are shocked by the "calling off sick" (after a night out) and low effort culture they've found in Britain. I personally think that's not true either, but tells me more about Spaniards than anything. Truth is Spain is unproductive due to corruption. Also, you've got prejudices, like everyone else :-) P.S.: I'm Spaniard and I consider myself lazy, hence why I got in IT (earn more with less effort). I run away from manual labour :-)
      - lowry 10y ago
        Just like saying that Walloon are dumber than Flemish.
    - dillonisacunt 10y ago
      It never fails to amaze me when American's are so comfortable to comment on other cultures they know little about when making criticism or analysis. Obviously there are cultural differences, however there isnt therefore an implication that Europeans somehow work less productively or even differently than those in the United States as some commenters seem to be suggesting. I guarantee that Spanish startups dont fail because they have siestas; language barriers, distribution issues and international laws will have so much more sway in success than any minor cultural difference such as how chilled out a group of people are. A food delivery start up starting in Texas can probably scale to surrounding states pretty easily compared to one starting in Spain and expanding into Belgium
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
raverbashing 10y ago
It would be good if Spain could get in with the 20th century and use air-conditioning (but yes, it's a cultural thing)
- edko 10y ago
  It may be true, but infrastructure has nothing to do with work ethics.
- adlpz 10y ago
  Spaniard here. Generalising a bit, _all_ offices here have air conditioning, and _nobody_ does the siesta thing.
  - collyw 10y ago
    A lot of smaller shops do siesta hours closing from 2 - 4 or 4.30.
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  There's air conditioned everywhere, not sure which Spain you've visited really. On the other hand, it doesn't have to be ON all the time at like 19 degrees Celsius like in the US, where I carry a jacket around to put it on only when I'm inside a building :-)
jahewson 10y ago
While the Spanish work day is longer, it's not necessarily more productive. Long lunch breaks and the fact that the country uses the wrong time zone (enforced by Franco, no less) make the Spanish a sleep-deprived people: http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21704816-and-knackered-it-out-sync-sun http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21704816-and-knackered-...
JohnStrange 10y ago
I have something to say about that. I live in Portugal as a foreigner and the working hours mean nothing. People are making coffee breaks all day long and the amount of sloppiness and incompetence can often be mind-boggling. As an example, my German girlfriend works in a dental laboratory and her Portuguese colleague would not possibly understand why it's not common practice in a German laboratory to watch Youtube videos on your cell phone while working. He really, honestly didn't believe it when she told him that German bosses don't appreciate that. To be fair, salaries in Portugal are ridiculous, I have no idea how people get along with 600 Euro/m, 800 Euro/m tops, when at least in Lisbon rents are high. Some hard working people seem to literally live off toasted bread and coffee. This is disguised by the average salary of 1000 Euro/m after taxes, because the gap between rich and poor is very high. I myself work at university, and I can attest that what takes 1 day at maximum anywhere in Northern Europe is projected to take 1-3 weeks here. I have a colleague who surfs on the Net the whole day and gets paid for it -- again, extremely bad payment, though. So no, mere presence does not count and work hours don't count either. For Portugal, I blame the bosses, though, who seem to be universally incompetent assholes and reliably manage to create a catastrophic working atmosphere. Sorry if I've offended some Portuguese, but that's my impression of the work ethics here after nearly a decade of living here. It has its advantages but productivity is not one of them.
- wott 10y ago
  Bah, I could tell the exact same stories about middle Europe and northern Europe.
- marknutter 10y ago
  > it's not common practice in a German laboratory to watch Youtube videos on your cell phone while working Boy have I got news for you...
- devuo 10y ago
  You have not offended this Portuguese. However, if one was to go exclusively by your account, one would come out with the understanding that is a country of incompetent slackers, and I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. I do however concede that most of management in here is fairly amateurish and incompetent.

creshal 10y ago

> If anything, Europeans appreciate cultural differences more than people from the US. Maybe a bit too much. Sitting in Austria I've less worries about getting customers from Texas (US is US) than about getting customers from France (oh god, the language barrier, the red tape, …) or Poland (I don't even know who to hire for translations!). And it really bogs you down. The US is one unified market, for software vendors at least. The biggest single-language market in Europe is Germany (coincidentally? its economic powerhouse), but tapping in Germany + Austria + Switzerland already means dealing with two currencies and three different legislations. And everything past it will have diminishing returns. Another language, another set of red tape to deal with, for a handful million potential customers… Why even bother? US startups won't have to deal with any of that until they want to expand internationally, and even then they can skip half the pain (l10n) if they focus on other English-speaking markets. > Sometimes this leads to hard work (80+ hour weeks), other times to unfair play (Uber licensing and traditional taxis come to mind) That's a bit naïve, European businesses have no problems with fighting dirty (we invented cartels, dammit, and 80 years later people still think light bulbs only last 1000 hours!), and entrepreneurs will bust their asses either way. It just doesn't get them as far.

gjolund 10y ago
Isn't this the reason the EU exists?
- creshal 10y ago
  Oh, it's definitely helping, no doubt. But it can't just wish away language barriers and sovereign nation states.
  - erichocean 10y ago
    > But it can't just wish away language barriers and sovereign nation states. It's telling you think that's the goal of the EU (especially the "sovereign nation states" part). And people wonder why Brexit happened…

advertising 10y ago

An interesting thing I found out from getting to know a Swedish family living in Mexico was they make a conscious effort in their society to not be too good or better than everyone else. People strive to be a B versus an A. Not every single person subcribes to that thinking but I've rarely met a Swedish person that didn't seem to be fairly happy.

sytse 10y ago

We moved GitLab from the Netherlands to San Francisco. Some things I noticed: 1. In the US we got to see more other startups that were going really fast and that pushed us to go faster ourselves, Y-Combinator helped with this. 2. It was easier to find people that are experienced with modern sales and marketing practices in the US. 3. Customers in the US like to buy from a US company (and pay by check, these took 2 months and cost $70 to cash in the Netherlands). 4. On average companies in the US adopts newer technology sooner. 5. There was better advice and investment available in the US, Y-Combinator helped with this. 6. In the US there are much more success stories, this raised our ambitions. I know many impressive startups and incubators in the Netherlands (shoutout to Adyen, 3ax Cycling, AppSignal, and Utrecht Inc.) and we have some awesome Dutch customers. The above examples and talking about the statistical average, there are awesome organizations and people everywhere.

Dutchie 10y ago
Wouldn't it be enough to set up a postal box office in the USA to create a US 'presence' for many saas companies based in Europe? Provided, of course, that you are available during US office hours for email and phone support?
- sytse 10y ago
  You still have to pick an entity to bill from. If that is a foreign entity the US customers need a special form from you to do business with you https://www.irs.gov/uac/form-w-8ben-certificate-of-foreign-status-of-beneficial-owner-for-united-states-tax-withholding https://www.irs.gov/uac/form-w-8ben-certificate-of-foreign-s... And having a postal box office doesn't solve cashing a foreign check in the Netherlands. So as a first step I recommend incorporating a US entity (Inc. in Delaware), setting up the PO box (we used Earth Class Mail), and getting a bank account (heard good things about first republic bank).
erichocean 10y ago
> Y-Combinator Nitpick: it's Y Combinator (no hyphen).

NetStrikeForce 10y ago

If only English had a word for siesta like, don't know, nap? I would use nap in the same sentences as siesta and I always considered them equivalent. The cultural thing with siesta is that after midday and for a few hours it's pretty much suicide to go outside, less do work under the sun, hence why in agricultural towns is common to work from 5 or 6 am until noon-ish then go to have lunch and sleep a while until it's safe to go outside and start with your social life. In the cities that schedule doesn't exist, but some traditions remain like shops closed from 2pm to 5pm or businesses closed the whole month of August. In any case, these are also disappearing due to big chains taking over the high street, who have enough money to invest in several store clerks to cover 10am-10pm (yup, that's the typical mall schedule in Spain).