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Well, this exists in most of Western Europe right? They do have entrepreneurs (and I'm not talking solely VC-funded startups here) but I've read that at times t

Well, this exists in most of Western Europe right? They do have entrepreneurs (and I'm not talking solely VC-funded startups here) but I've read that at times there's some cultural issues with 'going above your station' (thinking maybe Scandinavia). Maybe some of our European founders could detail that a bit more.

henrikeh 9y ago
Dane here, but I have literally no idea what you mean by 'going above your station'.
- JBlue42 9y ago
  Tall poppy syndrome, being moderate (lagom in Sweden?). Basically, things people have said on here or I've heard elsewhere that the cultural psyche is a bit different than the more individualistic American one, at least in terms of business. That sort of thing is what I was getting at.
- dagw 9y ago
  Not following Janteloven basically. Although I agree that that was more of thing a generation ago.
- joncrane 9y ago
  He means the Law of Jante type of thing.
koonsolo 9y ago
Here in Belgium, it's not so much an issue of 'going above your station' (=doing things you don't seem qualified for?). The potential failure is more of an issue. People don't want to look stupid. The "What will the neighbors think?" question is asked a lot in peoples minds.
- JBlue42 9y ago
  I really need to excise that from my comments. I didn't have the right language to express what I was going for. What you're saying is what I was trying to get at. So, in Belgium, despite knowing that you could fail and that wouldn't be completely detrimental to your financial life, you're saying that there's an aversion to risking it with a startup due to social consequences?
lucideer 9y ago
It does exist in some of northern Europe, though I think "most of western Europe", while somewhat better off than the US in this regard, have very much been moving in the direction of the US over the past few decades. In terms of different outcomes as a result, I have absolutely zero hard data on it, but my intuition would be as follows: Rags-to-successful-job-creating-entrepeneur stories are a lot more common, and by that metric success rates are higher, but rags-to-riches is still relatively rare by simple virtue of the fact that greater success != rich because success rates and broader competition mean very big wins are rarer in general. Market regulation also affects this somewhat: it's harder to dominate. Extra disclaimer: the above is intuition, would love to see actual data, whether it contradicts or correlates.
- JBlue42 9y ago
  This is more what I was aiming at. Sorry for my poor phrasing before. Maybe replying on HN after some whisky isn't the best idea. I tried to look up some of the past HN comments and the like I was looking at. While many complained about some missing SV style elements (missing VC, tougher working regulations) there were also mentions of different ways of doing things such as risk aversion or the style of business being more consensus-based (Sweden). Here in the US, when thinking of dominate European innovative companies, I guess Skype (pre-acquisition), SAP, and even toss in IKEA would be ones that dominated (or in Skype's case, created) their markets. Anyway, this was all speculative off the dawhizkid's premise of 'would a solid safety net create more entrepreneurs?' and, given we have good examples of that in Europe, I thought it worth taking a shot at.

henrikeh 9y ago

Dane here, but I have literally no idea what you mean by 'going above your station'.

JBlue42 9y ago
Tall poppy syndrome, being moderate (lagom in Sweden?). Basically, things people have said on here or I've heard elsewhere that the cultural psyche is a bit different than the more individualistic American one, at least in terms of business. That sort of thing is what I was getting at.
dagw 9y ago
Not following Janteloven basically. Although I agree that that was more of thing a generation ago.
joncrane 9y ago
He means the Law of Jante type of thing.

koonsolo 9y ago

Here in Belgium, it's not so much an issue of 'going above your station' (=doing things you don't seem qualified for?). The potential failure is more of an issue. People don't want to look stupid. The "What will the neighbors think?" question is asked a lot in peoples minds.

JBlue42 9y ago
I really need to excise that from my comments. I didn't have the right language to express what I was going for. What you're saying is what I was trying to get at. So, in Belgium, despite knowing that you could fail and that wouldn't be completely detrimental to your financial life, you're saying that there's an aversion to risking it with a startup due to social consequences?

lucideer 9y ago

It does exist in some of northern Europe, though I think "most of western Europe", while somewhat better off than the US in this regard, have very much been moving in the direction of the US over the past few decades. In terms of different outcomes as a result, I have absolutely zero hard data on it, but my intuition would be as follows: Rags-to-successful-job-creating-entrepeneur stories are a lot more common, and by that metric success rates are higher, but rags-to-riches is still relatively rare by simple virtue of the fact that greater success != rich because success rates and broader competition mean very big wins are rarer in general. Market regulation also affects this somewhat: it's harder to dominate. Extra disclaimer: the above is intuition, would love to see actual data, whether it contradicts or correlates.

JBlue42 9y ago
This is more what I was aiming at. Sorry for my poor phrasing before. Maybe replying on HN after some whisky isn't the best idea. I tried to look up some of the past HN comments and the like I was looking at. While many complained about some missing SV style elements (missing VC, tougher working regulations) there were also mentions of different ways of doing things such as risk aversion or the style of business being more consensus-based (Sweden). Here in the US, when thinking of dominate European innovative companies, I guess Skype (pre-acquisition), SAP, and even toss in IKEA would be ones that dominated (or in Skype's case, created) their markets. Anyway, this was all speculative off the dawhizkid's premise of 'would a solid safety net create more entrepreneurs?' and, given we have good examples of that in Europe, I thought it worth taking a shot at.