6 ms·

Maybe the EU and European countries could've fostered an environment where tech companies could've been successful as well?

mtgx 8y ago
Maybe if the EU adopted China's model of tricking U.S. giants to come there for the "huge market," then steal/coerce giving away their tech to the local small companies that can become billion-dollar giants a few years later, and then kicking the big U.S. companies out of the country or making it almost impossible for them to compete locally would've been a better strategy for the EU, too. Instead, the EU has allowed the U.S. tech giants to come and take over the local markets, and then crush or buy out all the smaller competition (UK's DeepMind anyone?!), and then wonder "where are the European competitors?!"
- outlace 8y ago
  But it also seems that the US produces new big tech companies in new sectors whereas Europe appears not to. Sure maybe there aren’t any viable Google or Facebook competitors, but the US produces Stripe, Airbnb, uber, etc.
  - JeremyBanks 8y ago
    Those examples seem to highlight America's weaknesses, not strength. Uber and Airbnb are both mostly-criminal enterprises that could only succeed at the level they did because of corrupt or impotent law enforcement and legislators, and Stripe's success is facilitated by the inaccessible mess of America's underlying banking system.
    - askafriend 8y ago
      I'm sorry but Taxis were a criminally poor, inefficient, and dangerous product before Uber came along. I'd like to see you argue in favor of Taxis, because there really aren't many good arguments or excuses for how they operated and really just squandered their own opportunity. Uber is better on literally every single dimension. Stripe is an international company that's facilitated by the internet.
      - JeremyBanks 8y ago
        Yes, America's existing taxi system was also awful. The fact that the only way to improve upon the situation required a series of criminal conspiracies and attempts to obstruct justice that were never properly punished reflects very poorly on the country.
        askafriend 8y ago
        You're aware of the Taxi lobby and borderline criminal interests and practices surrounding Taxi medallions right? Not to mention that if you were black or lived in under-resourced areas, good luck getting a Taxi to stop for you or go where you need to go. > The fact that the only way to improve upon the situation required a series of criminal conspiracies and attempts to obstruct justice that were never properly punished reflects very poorly on the country. Isn't this an ironic statement given the actual history of how America was founded?
        JeremyBanks 8y ago
        > You're aware of the Taxi lobby and borderline criminal interests and practices surrounding Taxi medallions right? > Yes, America's existing taxi system was also awful.
        arkades 8y ago
        NYC taxis are incomparably better to most European city taxis. It’s not in NYC that I came to appreciate Uber.
m0zg 8y ago
Venture capital and socialism (+overgrown, multi-level bureaucracies in the EU's case) can't really coexist. Nor can $200K+ US salaries coexist with $70K EU salaries for software engineers. So I wish Tusk good luck dealing with this one.
- djohnston 8y ago
  god the pay cut is so real :( .. hopefully the experience makes up for it, temporarily
  - johannes1234321 8y ago
    The "pay cut" is one-dimensional. In Europe I don't have student debt. In Europe I pay less for health care. In Europe I have more time of. In Europe I have better public infrastructure. In Europe I pay less for housing than the Valley. Of course you can validate those things differently, but only looking on salary tells little.
    - m0zg 8y ago
      You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes. The cost structure is different, that's true (European doctors also make a lot less, and US pharma companies subsidize non-US customers for some reason), but that doesn't matter with a typical US SWE salary. And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if you had it in the first place (substantial fraction of students receive financial assistance). Best of both worlds: get your "free" degree in Europe, move to the US, make a killing. This, in short, is Tusk's problem.
      - johannes1234321 8y ago
        > You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes Well, if I look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capitaexpediture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h... per capita is almost double to many European countries. But even then comparison is hard, since treatments etc. differ. > And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if you had it in the first place (substantial fraction of students receive financial assistance). If a European however, isntea dofnoayingnof debt has some money to invest there can be long term benefits (also Europeans often have better retirement funds) All just to say that is complicated and comparison is hard. And true, it can financially be beneficial to get a good education in Europe and the go to make some money. Tusk's issue however is that digital world is important and US has a big leap and control.
ggm 8y ago
Wolfson. Olivetti. The EU fosters an environment where tech companies can be successful and then they're crushed by American market dominance because murica.
- jnurmine 8y ago
  Personal opinion: the biggest problem of Europe is the marketing, or rather the lack of it and its ineffectiveness. USA completely owns this. Just look at what the Silicon Valley media-integrated marketing machine can do. A complete fraud with unsubstantiated promises like Theranos raised 700M with a 10B valuation. Even though they had nothing, their visions became practically an established fact in world wide media, driven by articles like the one in Wired in 2014 ("This Woman Invented a Way to Run 30 Lab Tests on Only One Drop of Blood"). Europe needs to learn to "overpromise and underdeliver" as well. And they need an integrated way to push the message of shiny new stuff to blue-eyed technology media to amplify it into people's consciousness. I don't mean to create frauds like Theranos. I mean to say (for example) you will drone deliver on-demand customized popsicles made on the orbit of Mars five years from now, and then end up mailing customized ice cream made in Denmark instead. People might find the greatest product in the world organically, eventually, by getting fed up with the alternatives, but in the meanwhile those banging the drum the most may just end up cornering the market. I don't think the biggest problem is about salaries or luring in venture capital or the nature of legislation or density of microbreweries within a square kilometer or something like that. I think it is simply about marketing. (And this is not to say that other things play no role whatsoever)
southerndrift 8y ago
In 1985, chancellor Kohl stopped the German network that was on track to deliver 100M fiber connections to every home until the year 2000 [1]. They could have fostered an environment for tech companies, but at least Germany chose do something else. [1] https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Der-Kampf-um-die-Glasfaser-oder-Der-verpasste-Breitbandausbau-in-Deutschland-3952581.html https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Der-Kam...
viraptor 8y ago
What specifically do you have in mind? I mean, it's easy to ask this in general, but what do you think needs changing?
- zamalek 8y ago
  If they want EU citizens to enjoy the fantastic EU privacy protections via EU tech giants, they need to have a beneficial legislative ecosystem. GDPR needs work (as only the giants can afford more than zero breaches, which are an unfortunate reality for every company at some point) and their shiny new copyright law is outright fatal to startups. EU legislation has a very clear message: start your tech company elsewhere.
  - Mirioron 8y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree with this. I think people don't quite understand the extent of GDPR. Hurting start ups and hobby projects that might make some money on the side means that you'll have fewer successful businesses down the line. It also means that you'll have fewer qualified workers. The problem in the EU is that GDPR isn't the first such signal the EU has sent either. The cookie law was a signal that indicated that the EU regulates things without understanding what they're doing. The data retention act from over a decade ago was similar. I'm sure there were others even before that, but probably on a national level.

mtgx 8y ago

Maybe if the EU adopted China's model of tricking U.S. giants to come there for the "huge market," then steal/coerce giving away their tech to the local small companies that can become billion-dollar giants a few years later, and then kicking the big U.S. companies out of the country or making it almost impossible for them to compete locally would've been a better strategy for the EU, too. Instead, the EU has allowed the U.S. tech giants to come and take over the local markets, and then crush or buy out all the smaller competition (UK's DeepMind anyone?!), and then wonder "where are the European competitors?!"

outlace 8y ago
But it also seems that the US produces new big tech companies in new sectors whereas Europe appears not to. Sure maybe there aren’t any viable Google or Facebook competitors, but the US produces Stripe, Airbnb, uber, etc.
- JeremyBanks 8y ago
  Those examples seem to highlight America's weaknesses, not strength. Uber and Airbnb are both mostly-criminal enterprises that could only succeed at the level they did because of corrupt or impotent law enforcement and legislators, and Stripe's success is facilitated by the inaccessible mess of America's underlying banking system.
  - askafriend 8y ago
    I'm sorry but Taxis were a criminally poor, inefficient, and dangerous product before Uber came along. I'd like to see you argue in favor of Taxis, because there really aren't many good arguments or excuses for how they operated and really just squandered their own opportunity. Uber is better on literally every single dimension. Stripe is an international company that's facilitated by the internet.
    - JeremyBanks 8y ago
      Yes, America's existing taxi system was also awful. The fact that the only way to improve upon the situation required a series of criminal conspiracies and attempts to obstruct justice that were never properly punished reflects very poorly on the country.
      - askafriend 8y ago
        You're aware of the Taxi lobby and borderline criminal interests and practices surrounding Taxi medallions right? Not to mention that if you were black or lived in under-resourced areas, good luck getting a Taxi to stop for you or go where you need to go. > The fact that the only way to improve upon the situation required a series of criminal conspiracies and attempts to obstruct justice that were never properly punished reflects very poorly on the country. Isn't this an ironic statement given the actual history of how America was founded?
        JeremyBanks 8y ago
        > You're aware of the Taxi lobby and borderline criminal interests and practices surrounding Taxi medallions right? > Yes, America's existing taxi system was also awful.
      - arkades 8y ago
        NYC taxis are incomparably better to most European city taxis. It’s not in NYC that I came to appreciate Uber.

m0zg 8y ago

Venture capital and socialism (+overgrown, multi-level bureaucracies in the EU's case) can't really coexist. Nor can $200K+ US salaries coexist with $70K EU salaries for software engineers. So I wish Tusk good luck dealing with this one.

djohnston 8y ago
god the pay cut is so real :( .. hopefully the experience makes up for it, temporarily
- johannes1234321 8y ago
  The "pay cut" is one-dimensional. In Europe I don't have student debt. In Europe I pay less for health care. In Europe I have more time of. In Europe I have better public infrastructure. In Europe I pay less for housing than the Valley. Of course you can validate those things differently, but only looking on salary tells little.
  - m0zg 8y ago
    You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes. The cost structure is different, that's true (European doctors also make a lot less, and US pharma companies subsidize non-US customers for some reason), but that doesn't matter with a typical US SWE salary. And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if you had it in the first place (substantial fraction of students receive financial assistance). Best of both worlds: get your "free" degree in Europe, move to the US, make a killing. This, in short, is Tusk's problem.
    - johannes1234321 8y ago
      > You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes Well, if I look at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capitaexpediture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h... per capita is almost double to many European countries. But even then comparison is hard, since treatments etc. differ. > And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if you had it in the first place (substantial fraction of students receive financial assistance). If a European however, isntea dofnoayingnof debt has some money to invest there can be long term benefits (also Europeans often have better retirement funds) All just to say that is complicated and comparison is hard. And true, it can financially be beneficial to get a good education in Europe and the go to make some money. Tusk's issue however is that digital world is important and US has a big leap and control.

ggm 8y ago

Wolfson. Olivetti. The EU fosters an environment where tech companies can be successful and then they're crushed by American market dominance because murica.

jnurmine 8y ago
Personal opinion: the biggest problem of Europe is the marketing, or rather the lack of it and its ineffectiveness. USA completely owns this. Just look at what the Silicon Valley media-integrated marketing machine can do. A complete fraud with unsubstantiated promises like Theranos raised 700M with a 10B valuation. Even though they had nothing, their visions became practically an established fact in world wide media, driven by articles like the one in Wired in 2014 ("This Woman Invented a Way to Run 30 Lab Tests on Only One Drop of Blood"). Europe needs to learn to "overpromise and underdeliver" as well. And they need an integrated way to push the message of shiny new stuff to blue-eyed technology media to amplify it into people's consciousness. I don't mean to create frauds like Theranos. I mean to say (for example) you will drone deliver on-demand customized popsicles made on the orbit of Mars five years from now, and then end up mailing customized ice cream made in Denmark instead. People might find the greatest product in the world organically, eventually, by getting fed up with the alternatives, but in the meanwhile those banging the drum the most may just end up cornering the market. I don't think the biggest problem is about salaries or luring in venture capital or the nature of legislation or density of microbreweries within a square kilometer or something like that. I think it is simply about marketing. (And this is not to say that other things play no role whatsoever)

southerndrift 8y ago

In 1985, chancellor Kohl stopped the German network that was on track to deliver 100M fiber connections to every home until the year 2000 [1]. They could have fostered an environment for tech companies, but at least Germany chose do something else. [1] https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Der-Kampf-um-die-Glasfaser-oder-Der-verpasste-Breitbandausbau-in-Deutschland-3952581.html https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Missing-Link-Der-Kam...

viraptor 8y ago

What specifically do you have in mind? I mean, it's easy to ask this in general, but what do you think needs changing?

zamalek 8y ago
If they want EU citizens to enjoy the fantastic EU privacy protections via EU tech giants, they need to have a beneficial legislative ecosystem. GDPR needs work (as only the giants can afford more than zero breaches, which are an unfortunate reality for every company at some point) and their shiny new copyright law is outright fatal to startups. EU legislation has a very clear message: start your tech company elsewhere.
- Mirioron 8y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree with this. I think people don't quite understand the extent of GDPR. Hurting start ups and hobby projects that might make some money on the side means that you'll have fewer successful businesses down the line. It also means that you'll have fewer qualified workers. The problem in the EU is that GDPR isn't the first such signal the EU has sent either. The cookie law was a signal that indicated that the EU regulates things without understanding what they're doing. The data retention act from over a decade ago was similar. I'm sure there were others even before that, but probably on a national level.