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> It will end up in the pockets of friends and families of politicians that will be in "the management". 100% agree. Considering the incredible education syste

> It will end up in the pockets of friends and families of politicians that will be in "the management". 100% agree. Considering the incredible education system and engineers we have, the 2 only things restraining Europe from reaching Silicon Valley level are corrupt politicians and risk-adverse VCs.

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andruby 6y ago
In my opinion you've hit the major reasons. I would also include that culture, and especially founder culture is different too, and that hampers these "massive scope" ventures. A somewhat more fractured local market (languages, laws, markets, habits) also plays against it.
burntoutfire 6y ago
Also: - labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries) - lots of disjointed small-to-medium markets (with different laws and languages) make expansion on continental scale much harder than in the US
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >- labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries) That's just not true now and hasn't been the case anymore since like the 2009 financial crisis. In most of Europe it's trivial to fire an underperforming non-unionized employee as the countries have adapted more business friendly laws to remain competitive after the financial crisis. Sure, there may still be some grey beards somewhere with old bulletproof contracts but for anyone entering the tech workforce now, getting fired is a rubber stamp basically especially since tech workers are not unionized and sometimes benefit from less protection than even some blue-collar professions which are unionized. For example, in Austria you can fire anyone for no reason at all as long as you give them their notice period(usually 1 to 3 months) without them being entitled to any other financial compensation from their employer. Moreover, non-competes are legal here without any form of compensation and you can even fire employees while they're on sick leave. All this legally! The whole you can't get fired in Europe maybe only applies to Scandinavia or France but it's mostly a meme nowadays. Actually, contrary to popular belief, tech workers in California might enjoy better protection than tech workers in some European countries. Let that sink in for a bit.
  - dtech 6y ago
    Compared to the US it's still very hard to fire people in most EU countries. In large parts of the US you can fire anyone at anytime [1]. On the other hand Silicon Valley is in California and has some of the strongest labor laws of the US, so if this is such a huge factor why is everyone in SV? Even under the assumption that it's an important factor, would it be worth it for EU to adopt such policies considering the very real human cost?... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    That's just Austria which is a comparatively small country. In the larger ones (DE, FR) labor laws are a nightmare.
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      Labour laws are a nightmare in every country due to bureaucracy but that doesn't mean it's always difficult to fire people. Most companies be it in FR, DE, wherever, have good lawyers on the payroll to advise them o the easiest legal path possible to get rid of undesirable employees. If a company really wants you gone, they'll make it happen one way or another. France was famous for their approach of making an employees' life miserable in order to make them leave as they couldn't fire them easily. Honestly, I'd rather just be fired and get on unemployment than be subjected to psychological torture every day in a poisonous work environment.
      - joelbluminator 6y ago
        > If a company really wants you gone, they'll make it happen one way or another. Well they usually do it by compensating the employee quite heavily. Psychologically torturing an employee isn't that good for team morale, even if the employee was underperforming. I also don't think it's as culturally prevalent as you imply.
        ChuckNorris89 6y ago
- petra 6y ago
  Disjoined markets aren't necessary such a big issue. Israel manages to do well, for example. Usually opening a US office is the common method overcoming that issue.
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    Is there even one unicorn originating from Israel though?
    - dannylandau 6y ago
      Apparently based on this website, there are over 41 and counting -- https://www.techaviv.com/unicorns https://www.techaviv.com/unicorns
- Bayart 6y ago
  I've grown to be extremely suspicious of anyone taking labour laws as a barrier to be brought down, as it's always come from people who've got nothing to lose from it and weakening them seems to systematically translate into lower standards of living and higher income inequality.
whimsicalism 6y ago
There's also the push-factor of the yawning black void of poverty in the US if you choose to pursue your passion rather than your comparative advantage.
Normille 6y ago
>and risk-adverse VCs. I think this is the big one. I don't know exactly how realistic this is. But from this side of the pond [Europe], it seems like, in the US there are VCs willing to throw millions [billions sometimes] at companies which are little more than a couple of guys with a silly idea, which would get you laughed out of your bank manager's office over here, if you went in asking to borrow a few hundred euros/pounds.
- WanderPanda 6y ago
  I don‘t subscribe to this at all. If there was such a huge opportunity in investing in European startups VCs would take it. Its not like they are nationalistic, they would equalise the arbitrage opportunities in no time
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    Truth is they do... I've met a lot of European founders in the valley.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    That not how VC's work, they invest in places where they know the laws, customs and markets. It is more common for teams to nove to place where there are VC's, thanthe other way round.c
eastendguy 6y ago
"corrupt politicians"... really? Do you have any examples of large scale corruption inside EU? I don't. I think the majority of EU politicians are doing fine.
- topspin 6y ago
  Nothing that would meet some arbitrary, establishment defined definition of 'corruption.' The fact that the sons and daughters and son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws, extended family and close friends all end up in cushy no-show non-profit chairmanships where they launder corporate donations to family foundations, drive their fleet of foundation owned cars, live in foundation owned mansions and accrue their foundation pensions is the sort of perfectly legal corruption people have in mind. The sentiment appearing here is correct; not a cent of the money invested by the EU in semiconductors will escape the clutches of establishment grandees and instead find its way to anyone that knows how to compete effectively with prevailing foundries, so don't expect to find any European manufactured chips troubling TSMC et al. in this lifetime.
- ralfn 6y ago
  >Do you have any examples of large scale corruption inside EU? It doesn't happen with the one large corruption scheme taking all of the money. Its hundreds of small corruptions like a locust. Here is a fair and neutral attempt to catalog all the schemes in play: https://www.oecd.org/gov/ethics/prevention-fraud-corruption-european-funds.pdf https://www.oecd.org/gov/ethics/prevention-fraud-corruption-... In return: Do you have an example of where the EU paid anywhere below 200% of industry standard price for anything? I'm not arguing its more corrupt than say the US Congress. Its on par, with some weird extremes. For example: Berlusconi, a prime minister, spending public money on under age prostitutes, serving today freely as a member of the EP. That kind also owned most media companies in his country and implemented favourable regulation and tax exemptions for himself. Here in the Netherlands, there is something referred to as the 'job carousel'. Where favourable regulation by politicians is rewarded in the future (after a political carreer) by very highly paid gigs in the industries and companies they favoured. Technically legal, and very hard to legislate against. Its a refined form of corruption, but it has all the same downsides. During Corona for example, the Netherlands had trouble getting its testing in order. Turned out we had excluded big commercial labs from consideration because we had represenatites of the 'small artisinal labs' in our taskforce lobbying. A small scale corruption, with heavy economic distortion as a result! I'm also not perse blaming corruption on the politicians themselves. We are all together responsible for the corporate and governance culture we breed. Yet we shouldn't pretend we currently have the ability to spend/invest money effectively and fairly as a collective.
eldaisfish 6y ago
>Considering the incredible education system and engineers we have, the 2 only things restraining Europe from reaching Silicon Valley level are corrupt politicians and risk-adverse VCs. I find it telling that it's mostly europeans who make these types of comments. The EU has tremendous barriers to labour mobility that most europeans don't even realise - differing bureaucracy and language being two of the most significant. And i cannot emphasise the bureaucratic hurdles enough when moving countries. Despite the EU crying itself hoarse about labour mobility, only around 5% of EU citizens relocate between EU countries. The majority of that 5% is people moving from poor to richer countries. The comparable number in the US is 20%. Most rational people realise that despite all its flaws, some of the most key factors in US tech dominance are the existence of a large talent pool, all of whom speak the same language, the existence of a large market all of which operates in the same language and finally VCs willing to take on risk. Corrupt politicians are not hobbling European tech success any more than corrupt US politicians are hobbling its success. The EU will not reach Silicon Valley's levels of success, at least not in my lifetime.
- arnaudsm 6y ago
  Historically, Silicon Valley was created from government contracts and subsidies, then the VCs joined the party. It's a chicken-egg problem, and Europe has no chicken nor eggs at the moment. But lots of grain and hay.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > differing bureaucracy and language being two of the most significant It has never been cheaper and easier to operate in several languages. Seriously, translation and internationalization is as cheap as it can get (and most folks in Europe are at least bilinguals!). What they need to focus on is a unified marketplace and harmonized regulation. Now each tiny country has it's special snowflakes regulations (how to accept payment, who and how to pay taxes, huge amount of paperwork to get employees and ultra-restrictive labor laws). I mean it's good as a job program to keep EU civil servants employed, not so much to bootstrap a tech ecosystem!
  - eldaisfish 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

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andruby 6y ago

In my opinion you've hit the major reasons. I would also include that culture, and especially founder culture is different too, and that hampers these "massive scope" ventures. A somewhat more fractured local market (languages, laws, markets, habits) also plays against it.

burntoutfire 6y ago

Also: - labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries) - lots of disjointed small-to-medium markets (with different laws and languages) make expansion on continental scale much harder than in the US

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>- labor laws (very hard to fire people in many European countries) That's just not true now and hasn't been the case anymore since like the 2009 financial crisis. In most of Europe it's trivial to fire an underperforming non-unionized employee as the countries have adapted more business friendly laws to remain competitive after the financial crisis. Sure, there may still be some grey beards somewhere with old bulletproof contracts but for anyone entering the tech workforce now, getting fired is a rubber stamp basically especially since tech workers are not unionized and sometimes benefit from less protection than even some blue-collar professions which are unionized. For example, in Austria you can fire anyone for no reason at all as long as you give them their notice period(usually 1 to 3 months) without them being entitled to any other financial compensation from their employer. Moreover, non-competes are legal here without any form of compensation and you can even fire employees while they're on sick leave. All this legally! The whole you can't get fired in Europe maybe only applies to Scandinavia or France but it's mostly a meme nowadays. Actually, contrary to popular belief, tech workers in California might enjoy better protection than tech workers in some European countries. Let that sink in for a bit.
- dtech 6y ago
  Compared to the US it's still very hard to fire people in most EU countries. In large parts of the US you can fire anyone at anytime [1]. On the other hand Silicon Valley is in California and has some of the strongest labor laws of the US, so if this is such a huge factor why is everyone in SV? Even under the assumption that it's an important factor, would it be worth it for EU to adopt such policies considering the very real human cost?... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment
- ur-whale 6y ago
  That's just Austria which is a comparatively small country. In the larger ones (DE, FR) labor laws are a nightmare.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    Labour laws are a nightmare in every country due to bureaucracy but that doesn't mean it's always difficult to fire people. Most companies be it in FR, DE, wherever, have good lawyers on the payroll to advise them o the easiest legal path possible to get rid of undesirable employees. If a company really wants you gone, they'll make it happen one way or another. France was famous for their approach of making an employees' life miserable in order to make them leave as they couldn't fire them easily. Honestly, I'd rather just be fired and get on unemployment than be subjected to psychological torture every day in a poisonous work environment.
    - joelbluminator 6y ago
      > If a company really wants you gone, they'll make it happen one way or another. Well they usually do it by compensating the employee quite heavily. Psychologically torturing an employee isn't that good for team morale, even if the employee was underperforming. I also don't think it's as culturally prevalent as you imply.
      - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
petra 6y ago
Disjoined markets aren't necessary such a big issue. Israel manages to do well, for example. Usually opening a US office is the common method overcoming that issue.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  Is there even one unicorn originating from Israel though?
  - dannylandau 6y ago
    Apparently based on this website, there are over 41 and counting -- https://www.techaviv.com/unicorns https://www.techaviv.com/unicorns
Bayart 6y ago
I've grown to be extremely suspicious of anyone taking labour laws as a barrier to be brought down, as it's always come from people who've got nothing to lose from it and weakening them seems to systematically translate into lower standards of living and higher income inequality.

whimsicalism 6y ago

There's also the push-factor of the yawning black void of poverty in the US if you choose to pursue your passion rather than your comparative advantage.

Normille 6y ago

>and risk-adverse VCs. I think this is the big one. I don't know exactly how realistic this is. But from this side of the pond [Europe], it seems like, in the US there are VCs willing to throw millions [billions sometimes] at companies which are little more than a couple of guys with a silly idea, which would get you laughed out of your bank manager's office over here, if you went in asking to borrow a few hundred euros/pounds.

WanderPanda 6y ago
I don‘t subscribe to this at all. If there was such a huge opportunity in investing in European startups VCs would take it. Its not like they are nationalistic, they would equalise the arbitrage opportunities in no time
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  Truth is they do... I've met a lot of European founders in the valley.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  That not how VC's work, they invest in places where they know the laws, customs and markets. It is more common for teams to nove to place where there are VC's, thanthe other way round.c

eastendguy 6y ago

"corrupt politicians"... really? Do you have any examples of large scale corruption inside EU? I don't. I think the majority of EU politicians are doing fine.

topspin 6y ago
Nothing that would meet some arbitrary, establishment defined definition of 'corruption.' The fact that the sons and daughters and son-in-laws and daughter-in-laws, extended family and close friends all end up in cushy no-show non-profit chairmanships where they launder corporate donations to family foundations, drive their fleet of foundation owned cars, live in foundation owned mansions and accrue their foundation pensions is the sort of perfectly legal corruption people have in mind. The sentiment appearing here is correct; not a cent of the money invested by the EU in semiconductors will escape the clutches of establishment grandees and instead find its way to anyone that knows how to compete effectively with prevailing foundries, so don't expect to find any European manufactured chips troubling TSMC et al. in this lifetime.
ralfn 6y ago
>Do you have any examples of large scale corruption inside EU? It doesn't happen with the one large corruption scheme taking all of the money. Its hundreds of small corruptions like a locust. Here is a fair and neutral attempt to catalog all the schemes in play: https://www.oecd.org/gov/ethics/prevention-fraud-corruption-european-funds.pdf https://www.oecd.org/gov/ethics/prevention-fraud-corruption-... In return: Do you have an example of where the EU paid anywhere below 200% of industry standard price for anything? I'm not arguing its more corrupt than say the US Congress. Its on par, with some weird extremes. For example: Berlusconi, a prime minister, spending public money on under age prostitutes, serving today freely as a member of the EP. That kind also owned most media companies in his country and implemented favourable regulation and tax exemptions for himself. Here in the Netherlands, there is something referred to as the 'job carousel'. Where favourable regulation by politicians is rewarded in the future (after a political carreer) by very highly paid gigs in the industries and companies they favoured. Technically legal, and very hard to legislate against. Its a refined form of corruption, but it has all the same downsides. During Corona for example, the Netherlands had trouble getting its testing in order. Turned out we had excluded big commercial labs from consideration because we had represenatites of the 'small artisinal labs' in our taskforce lobbying. A small scale corruption, with heavy economic distortion as a result! I'm also not perse blaming corruption on the politicians themselves. We are all together responsible for the corporate and governance culture we breed. Yet we shouldn't pretend we currently have the ability to spend/invest money effectively and fairly as a collective.

eldaisfish 6y ago

>Considering the incredible education system and engineers we have, the 2 only things restraining Europe from reaching Silicon Valley level are corrupt politicians and risk-adverse VCs. I find it telling that it's mostly europeans who make these types of comments. The EU has tremendous barriers to labour mobility that most europeans don't even realise - differing bureaucracy and language being two of the most significant. And i cannot emphasise the bureaucratic hurdles enough when moving countries. Despite the EU crying itself hoarse about labour mobility, only around 5% of EU citizens relocate between EU countries. The majority of that 5% is people moving from poor to richer countries. The comparable number in the US is 20%. Most rational people realise that despite all its flaws, some of the most key factors in US tech dominance are the existence of a large talent pool, all of whom speak the same language, the existence of a large market all of which operates in the same language and finally VCs willing to take on risk. Corrupt politicians are not hobbling European tech success any more than corrupt US politicians are hobbling its success. The EU will not reach Silicon Valley's levels of success, at least not in my lifetime.

arnaudsm 6y ago
Historically, Silicon Valley was created from government contracts and subsidies, then the VCs joined the party. It's a chicken-egg problem, and Europe has no chicken nor eggs at the moment. But lots of grain and hay.
908B64B197 6y ago
> differing bureaucracy and language being two of the most significant It has never been cheaper and easier to operate in several languages. Seriously, translation and internationalization is as cheap as it can get (and most folks in Europe are at least bilinguals!). What they need to focus on is a unified marketplace and harmonized regulation. Now each tiny country has it's special snowflakes regulations (how to accept payment, who and how to pay taxes, huge amount of paperwork to get employees and ultra-restrictive labor laws). I mean it's good as a job program to keep EU civil servants employed, not so much to bootstrap a tech ecosystem!
- eldaisfish 6y ago