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I'm a European (born and bred) who just renounced US citizenship (gained through parent) and I have to counter you. Yes Amsterdam is way better than any US city

I'm a European (born and bred) who just renounced US citizenship (gained through parent) and I have to counter you. Yes Amsterdam is way better than any US city but that has nothing to do with internet entrepreneurship. The EU, European governments and European culture in general do not support entrepreneurs. I bootstrapped a company in Berlin and all the government did was try find ways to shut us down. Our main competitor (Rocket Internet company) had the means to deal with this BS but as we were a small scrappy bootstrapped company we were treated like dirt. The Stripe story is very telling in this regard. Before moving to SV they tried to launch with Irish banks as partners and were laughed at for being naive children. No one is laughing anymore.

akvadrako 8y ago
That example isn’t very convincing. I’ve only seen 1 or so service use stripe and their transaction costs are very high. You can’t call it’s existence positive without evoking some cultural values. Plus, Europe is way ahead of the us in terms of banking convinence and efficiency.
- rorykoehler 8y ago
  Stripe is a multi-billion dollar company. It could have been Irish based for free. The Irish government spend billions to attract companies like Stripe. Also Stripe is a global brand now used by tens of thousands of businesses.
  - inflagranti 8y ago
    Wasn't Theranos multibillion valued at some point? Not trying to imply anything about Stripe being fraudulent, just evoking an extreme example of clear overvaluation to put such numbers into perspective. Stripe might also very well not have made much sense for Irish banks and a lot for US ones. Time will tell whether that was a mistake.
    - rorykoehler 8y ago
      Nonsense on all counts.
      - inflagranti 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos Ironically, your single statement was actually "nonsense on all accounts" as Theranos definitely was valued multiple billions at some point.
- orf 8y ago
  > Plus, Europe is way ahead of the us in terms of banking convinence and efficiency. I heard that just posting a picture of your credit card number somehow means you can get all your money stolen/cause bad things to happen. Is this true? How can this be a thing?

akvadrako 8y ago

That example isn’t very convincing. I’ve only seen 1 or so service use stripe and their transaction costs are very high. You can’t call it’s existence positive without evoking some cultural values. Plus, Europe is way ahead of the us in terms of banking convinence and efficiency.

rorykoehler 8y ago
Stripe is a multi-billion dollar company. It could have been Irish based for free. The Irish government spend billions to attract companies like Stripe. Also Stripe is a global brand now used by tens of thousands of businesses.
- inflagranti 8y ago
  Wasn't Theranos multibillion valued at some point? Not trying to imply anything about Stripe being fraudulent, just evoking an extreme example of clear overvaluation to put such numbers into perspective. Stripe might also very well not have made much sense for Irish banks and a lot for US ones. Time will tell whether that was a mistake.
  - rorykoehler 8y ago
    Nonsense on all counts.
    - inflagranti 8y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos Ironically, your single statement was actually "nonsense on all accounts" as Theranos definitely was valued multiple billions at some point.
orf 8y ago
> Plus, Europe is way ahead of the us in terms of banking convinence and efficiency. I heard that just posting a picture of your credit card number somehow means you can get all your money stolen/cause bad things to happen. Is this true? How can this be a thing?