11 ms·

I attended a talk in the UK at Google Campus in London by Eric Schmidt. At the end of the talk there was some Q&A and one very apparently angry and frustrated m

by tcldr 6y ago

I attended a talk in the UK at Google Campus in London by Eric Schmidt. At the end of the talk there was some Q&A and one very apparently angry and frustrated member of the audience asked something along the lines of 'Do you think it's fair for Google and other big American Tech firms to keep buying up innovative and valuable British and European companies!?' Eric Schmidt immediately replied 'Well if you don't want us to buy them, then don't sell them!' It seems we're yet to learn that there's a possibility to go all the way.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
100x this! I think it's our fault as Europeans that we don't value and invest in tech enough. Why is it the US's fault that they consider tech to be valuable to their economy and national security and we don't? What's stopping us from doing the same? As long as we'll keep treating tech as some cost center instead of a core business while we keep pumping money to keep afloat 19th century industries who's ships have sailed long ago, then we deserve what's coming to us.
- adventured 6y ago
  That's a difficult and slippery slope type problem. If the Europeans stop the US from acquiring companies there, the US ends up doing the same to European companies trying to acquire US assets. We let Germany buy one of the most important companies on the planet in Monsanto. I consider Monsanto to be a national security level company, we should have never let it go. Seed & AG tech is critical for the coming century and Monsanto is one of the very few global giants. For a long time we've been allowing European pharma giants to catch up in biotech by acquiring several of our important biotech companies, as with Genentech, Genzyme, Baxalta, MedImmune, Bioverativ and so on. We let Germany's Merck buy up Sigma-Aldrich. We let our medtech juggernaut, Medtronic, rebase to Ireland, no doubt taking important IP and jobs with it over time. When I watch important US companies like Genzyme get consumed by a European company, I fully understand how the Europeans feel about ARM etc.
  - coliveira 6y ago
    That's not even comparable. The reason pharma companies relocate is to have access to tax havens that in the past were available only to oil and finance industries. They remain still American companies in essence. Even tech companies like Apple and Google have used European countries as a tax haven scheme.
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      Not to tax havens but to regulatory bodies as well.
  - labcomputer 6y ago
    I don't think OP's point was that Europe should prevent US companies from acquiring European tech firms via, e.g., legislation. Rather, that Europeans should place more value on those companies--and either: for competing European firms to outbid US acquisition attempts; or for the owners to not sell them when the offers are too low. One of the major challenges is "synergies" (gak!). Acquiring, say, ARM adds much more value to a company like Apple or nVidia than it does to SAP or Spotify. There's no way around the fact that right now American tech companies can afford to outbid European ones for ARM because ARM adds more value to American companies.
  - michaelcampbell 6y ago
    > If the Europeans stop the US from acquiring companies there, You seem to imply here that the US acquired this company against the will of the seller, which I don't think the parent thread was getting at (nor is true, as far as I know).
  - baybal2 6y ago
    > We let Germany buy one of the most important companies on the planet in Monsanto. I consider Monsanto to be a national security level company, we should have never let it go. Seed & AG tech is critical for the coming century and Monsanto is one of the very few global giants. Many things around have "global importance," and it is long past the time for any modern, globalised economy to undo that. If China wanted to f__k up the West economically on the supply chain side, they have far, far, far more options to do so than the other way around, and this is not limited by companies on the extremes of labour intensity scale. They are plenty of both low, and high tech companies which are one and only in the world in China. And so can many countries with industrial economies, not event necessarily large one. Take Thailand for example, and how they gave a fright of a lifetime to Internet companies with a single phrase "It may take at least a few years before the world can make new hard drives." Or Taiwan, a Microchip embargo today from them may well be a worse thing than an oil embargo of 1970s to a modern economy. Japan, and Korea both have a deadgrip on high material science products, and not so high as well. Both have giants which control chemicals used in 90%+ of all synthetic fabrics. Life without synthetic fabrics today will not be fun to anybody. India has a generic drugs supremacy, and is relied upon by much of the world other than the West for just any drugs. The one and only in the world top tier substrate plant went up in flames in China week ago. All major chip vendors been using their substrate for the package for a few years. If you see a chip with HBM memory, or any model CPU, it's their substrate which is used. On the other end of high techness scale, China has 90%+ of global market for such essential industrial goods as screws, nuts, and bolts. Neither of these examples avail to being easily substituted, and I can come with many more.
- coliveira 6y ago
  The US will require that Europe plays by the rules when it is their interest, but will bend all rules to protect their tech industry. That's why this happens.
- Hokusai 6y ago
  > Why is it the US's fault that they consider tech to be valuable to their economy and national security and we don't? USA has created monstrous monopolies that are very heavily subsidized by the government. Amazon, Apple, etc. do not pay taxes and yet get big sums of money to settle in cities. That is the money that USA is using to buy European companies. China blocked the USA from buying their tech, and the result is a healthy ever growing tech scene. I have worked for a couple of European tech companies purchased by USA corporations. First "nothing will change" is the message, two years later the reduction in quality is clear and all the tech is siphoned to the USA side of the business. It makes sense, it is good for the USA. Europe should follow the Chinese example and ban most of USA tech. No more Facebook radicalizing our citizens, no more Amazon taking over all business without control, ... When TikTok started to grow, the USA banned it. That is the game. Europe should follow, ban Facebook, Twitter, ... let local talent grow. There is much wasted talent in Europe overwhelmed by the current position of USA companies. "Just don't sell" does not work when your adversary puts all the weight of the state to protect and subsidize their tech industry.
  - wuschel 6y ago
    Hi, > I have worked for a couple of European tech companies [...] all the tech is siphoned to the USA side of the business. It makes sense, it is good for the USA. Out of curiosity here: Could you name one/a couple of examples? Not necessarily the ones you worked at, if you are prohibited from disclosing this information. Email is in my profile, if you do not want to make any public statements. Cheers!
    - Hokusai 6y ago
      I am going to talk about one that I have colleagues that worked here in Sweden: Skype It was a successful startup but $8.5 Billion is a lot of cash. I heard that developers were not happy with Microsoft way. Promotions/Pay/etc. became a competition between colleagues instead of a collaboration. Of course in that case my colleague leaved the company, maybe other people really liked it that way and stayed. But, my personal experience is similar. USA companies want employees competing for recognition instead of collaborating to compete with other companies.
ArkVark 6y ago
Extreme wealth is not valued in Europe. To the contrary, income (even upper-middle class income) and consumption is incredibly highly taxed. Many small and mid-sized business struggle or refuse to scale because it exposes them, their owners and management to taxes which cannot be escaped (by contrast small businesses can pay their staff in cash, and charge personal expenses to business accounts for VAT writeoffs). Alternatively many European businesses are optimised to receive Government and EU grants and subsidies, not to compete on the international market. Yes, the USA is unequal compared to Europe, but this might be the price worth paying for innovation and technological dominance: America's poorest are richer than the average Europeans: https://www.acton.org/publications/transatlantic/2019/08/27/americas-poorest-are-richer-most-average-europeans-study https://www.acton.org/publications/transatlantic/2019/08/27/... The solution is for Europe is to dramatically cut taxes (eliminating payroll taxes and reducing VAT to 16% across Europe should be a priority), increase the pension age to 70, and limit access to bachelor's degrees to the top 20% and Master's degrees to the top 10% (many Europeans spend their entire 20s at university, when they could be working instead). The alternative is basically slow Demographic decline and descent in complete central planning, which Europe seems to be pursuing.
- tcldr 6y ago
  This could be a factor but I'm not sure that this is the complete picture. Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I would say it felt much easier to start a business in the UK: Healthcare is covered, believe it or not there is less bureaucracy, there's great digital banking options that the US is only just getting its head around, etc. In Europe I always felt I had a safety net to fall back on if my business failed – not so in the US. My own hypothesis is that the European stock exchanges aren't a particularly attractive place for an IPO. London's AIM, isn't quite the NASDAQ. The US tech stocks are now worth more than the entire European stock market according to Bank of America Global Research. And so I think it's always in the back of a Founder's mind – not to mention their investors – that they'll have better liquidity if they're packaged as a US inc. to start with – and if not just sell to one. Hopefully with Sequoia opening an office in London though, this will begin to change.
- AgloeDreams 6y ago
coliveira 6y ago
England has always been prey to the liberal delusion. The public truly believes in liberalism, when the rest of the world (headed by the US) acts on pure self interest and will bend any kind of market ideology to enrich themselves. This is the true nature of capitalism.

by tcldr 6y ago

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

100x this! I think it's our fault as Europeans that we don't value and invest in tech enough. Why is it the US's fault that they consider tech to be valuable to their economy and national security and we don't? What's stopping us from doing the same? As long as we'll keep treating tech as some cost center instead of a core business while we keep pumping money to keep afloat 19th century industries who's ships have sailed long ago, then we deserve what's coming to us.

adventured 6y ago
That's a difficult and slippery slope type problem. If the Europeans stop the US from acquiring companies there, the US ends up doing the same to European companies trying to acquire US assets. We let Germany buy one of the most important companies on the planet in Monsanto. I consider Monsanto to be a national security level company, we should have never let it go. Seed & AG tech is critical for the coming century and Monsanto is one of the very few global giants. For a long time we've been allowing European pharma giants to catch up in biotech by acquiring several of our important biotech companies, as with Genentech, Genzyme, Baxalta, MedImmune, Bioverativ and so on. We let Germany's Merck buy up Sigma-Aldrich. We let our medtech juggernaut, Medtronic, rebase to Ireland, no doubt taking important IP and jobs with it over time. When I watch important US companies like Genzyme get consumed by a European company, I fully understand how the Europeans feel about ARM etc.
- coliveira 6y ago
  That's not even comparable. The reason pharma companies relocate is to have access to tax havens that in the past were available only to oil and finance industries. They remain still American companies in essence. Even tech companies like Apple and Google have used European countries as a tax haven scheme.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    Not to tax havens but to regulatory bodies as well.
- labcomputer 6y ago
  I don't think OP's point was that Europe should prevent US companies from acquiring European tech firms via, e.g., legislation. Rather, that Europeans should place more value on those companies--and either: for competing European firms to outbid US acquisition attempts; or for the owners to not sell them when the offers are too low. One of the major challenges is "synergies" (gak!). Acquiring, say, ARM adds much more value to a company like Apple or nVidia than it does to SAP or Spotify. There's no way around the fact that right now American tech companies can afford to outbid European ones for ARM because ARM adds more value to American companies.
- michaelcampbell 6y ago
  > If the Europeans stop the US from acquiring companies there, You seem to imply here that the US acquired this company against the will of the seller, which I don't think the parent thread was getting at (nor is true, as far as I know).
- baybal2 6y ago
  > We let Germany buy one of the most important companies on the planet in Monsanto. I consider Monsanto to be a national security level company, we should have never let it go. Seed & AG tech is critical for the coming century and Monsanto is one of the very few global giants. Many things around have "global importance," and it is long past the time for any modern, globalised economy to undo that. If China wanted to f__k up the West economically on the supply chain side, they have far, far, far more options to do so than the other way around, and this is not limited by companies on the extremes of labour intensity scale. They are plenty of both low, and high tech companies which are one and only in the world in China. And so can many countries with industrial economies, not event necessarily large one. Take Thailand for example, and how they gave a fright of a lifetime to Internet companies with a single phrase "It may take at least a few years before the world can make new hard drives." Or Taiwan, a Microchip embargo today from them may well be a worse thing than an oil embargo of 1970s to a modern economy. Japan, and Korea both have a deadgrip on high material science products, and not so high as well. Both have giants which control chemicals used in 90%+ of all synthetic fabrics. Life without synthetic fabrics today will not be fun to anybody. India has a generic drugs supremacy, and is relied upon by much of the world other than the West for just any drugs. The one and only in the world top tier substrate plant went up in flames in China week ago. All major chip vendors been using their substrate for the package for a few years. If you see a chip with HBM memory, or any model CPU, it's their substrate which is used. On the other end of high techness scale, China has 90%+ of global market for such essential industrial goods as screws, nuts, and bolts. Neither of these examples avail to being easily substituted, and I can come with many more.
coliveira 6y ago
The US will require that Europe plays by the rules when it is their interest, but will bend all rules to protect their tech industry. That's why this happens.
Hokusai 6y ago
> Why is it the US's fault that they consider tech to be valuable to their economy and national security and we don't? USA has created monstrous monopolies that are very heavily subsidized by the government. Amazon, Apple, etc. do not pay taxes and yet get big sums of money to settle in cities. That is the money that USA is using to buy European companies. China blocked the USA from buying their tech, and the result is a healthy ever growing tech scene. I have worked for a couple of European tech companies purchased by USA corporations. First "nothing will change" is the message, two years later the reduction in quality is clear and all the tech is siphoned to the USA side of the business. It makes sense, it is good for the USA. Europe should follow the Chinese example and ban most of USA tech. No more Facebook radicalizing our citizens, no more Amazon taking over all business without control, ... When TikTok started to grow, the USA banned it. That is the game. Europe should follow, ban Facebook, Twitter, ... let local talent grow. There is much wasted talent in Europe overwhelmed by the current position of USA companies. "Just don't sell" does not work when your adversary puts all the weight of the state to protect and subsidize their tech industry.
- wuschel 6y ago
  Hi, > I have worked for a couple of European tech companies [...] all the tech is siphoned to the USA side of the business. It makes sense, it is good for the USA. Out of curiosity here: Could you name one/a couple of examples? Not necessarily the ones you worked at, if you are prohibited from disclosing this information. Email is in my profile, if you do not want to make any public statements. Cheers!
  - Hokusai 6y ago
    I am going to talk about one that I have colleagues that worked here in Sweden: Skype It was a successful startup but $8.5 Billion is a lot of cash. I heard that developers were not happy with Microsoft way. Promotions/Pay/etc. became a competition between colleagues instead of a collaboration. Of course in that case my colleague leaved the company, maybe other people really liked it that way and stayed. But, my personal experience is similar. USA companies want employees competing for recognition instead of collaborating to compete with other companies.

ArkVark 6y ago

Extreme wealth is not valued in Europe. To the contrary, income (even upper-middle class income) and consumption is incredibly highly taxed. Many small and mid-sized business struggle or refuse to scale because it exposes them, their owners and management to taxes which cannot be escaped (by contrast small businesses can pay their staff in cash, and charge personal expenses to business accounts for VAT writeoffs). Alternatively many European businesses are optimised to receive Government and EU grants and subsidies, not to compete on the international market. Yes, the USA is unequal compared to Europe, but this might be the price worth paying for innovation and technological dominance: America's poorest are richer than the average Europeans: https://www.acton.org/publications/transatlantic/2019/08/27/americas-poorest-are-richer-most-average-europeans-study https://www.acton.org/publications/transatlantic/2019/08/27/... The solution is for Europe is to dramatically cut taxes (eliminating payroll taxes and reducing VAT to 16% across Europe should be a priority), increase the pension age to 70, and limit access to bachelor's degrees to the top 20% and Master's degrees to the top 10% (many Europeans spend their entire 20s at university, when they could be working instead). The alternative is basically slow Demographic decline and descent in complete central planning, which Europe seems to be pursuing.

tcldr 6y ago
This could be a factor but I'm not sure that this is the complete picture. Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I would say it felt much easier to start a business in the UK: Healthcare is covered, believe it or not there is less bureaucracy, there's great digital banking options that the US is only just getting its head around, etc. In Europe I always felt I had a safety net to fall back on if my business failed – not so in the US. My own hypothesis is that the European stock exchanges aren't a particularly attractive place for an IPO. London's AIM, isn't quite the NASDAQ. The US tech stocks are now worth more than the entire European stock market according to Bank of America Global Research. And so I think it's always in the back of a Founder's mind – not to mention their investors – that they'll have better liquidity if they're packaged as a US inc. to start with – and if not just sell to one. Hopefully with Sequoia opening an office in London though, this will begin to change.
AgloeDreams 6y ago

coliveira 6y ago

England has always been prey to the liberal delusion. The public truly believes in liberalism, when the rest of the world (headed by the US) acts on pure self interest and will bend any kind of market ideology to enrich themselves. This is the true nature of capitalism.