People tend to underestimate Europe and the EU. When asked what the world's leading financial power is almost half of people say the USA. The USA is third, with

People tend to underestimate Europe and the EU. When asked what the world's leading financial power is almost half of people say the USA. The USA is third, with China first and the EU second. The EU's share of the world's GDP is shrinking because the rest of the world, especially the developing world, is catching up, which is a good thing. What people think depends upon perspective. US tech companies are in the news more but there are unicorns and big tech companies in Europe, some of which I couldn't tell you what they do. As well as many large older IT companies there are also big new tech companies like Spotify, ASOS, Just Eat, skyscanner, Deliveroo. All big, all tech, all headquartered or started in the EU recently. This is also ignoring the current shift to offshoring development to Europe. Eastern Europe is getting the lion's share of that but the western side is home to a lot of big divisions of international companies. It does like you have the tech blinkers on, which happens to a lot of people working in tech. "Tech is the future and tech is everything." People tend to forget that the traditional industries are massive (the biggest companies in the world by revenue aren't tech companies) and they tend to play a larger role in a country's economy that tech does. These are companies that build their own towns if they need to and cause massive effects when they move. Manufacturing is huge and ultimately everything tech uses is a product of manufacturing. Foxconn is as much a manufacturer as a tech company. The biggest companies working on self driving cars are the traditional car manufacturers, including European giants Volkswagen and Daimler. Other players like Uber use other people's cars. And when these cars go on sale half or more of the profit will be to the company that makes the metal. Finally, a large part of Trump's promises were to bring back these old industries to the US because they're the industries that create long term jobs and transform towns.