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> Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? If we have to go back to mentioning Airbus (1970)

> Europe has some successful international projects like CERN or Airbus. Besides, what are the other options? If we have to go back to mentioning Airbus (1970) and CERN (1954) to find successful European projects, I think this show how big of a serious problem there is in Europe no!? P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. I'm european and I'm raising my kid in a british college since years for that very reason.

norwegianwhale 6y ago
If there ever is a promising project from europe (a.1) it bootstraps / gets venture capital (a.2) Leaves after 2 years for the US / gets acquired and the fiscal headquarter moves to Delaware (Stripe) (b) Gets absorbed by an old blue chip, like Siemens, Telefonica, and dies a slow death. (c) Becomes highly stymied by bureaucracy, and the initial momentum wanes without winning much market share (Zalando, Deliveroo, Idealista). It's called the market of lemons problem. Only the least productive projects want to have their hands tied and financed by the government.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  Sounds like what happens in Canada, too. One wonders if this is a global phenomenon.
- dependsontheq 6y ago
  UBERs total funding was 25 Billion, that might not be the best example but funding on this scale is not possible in Europe. The core limit is the market size (every EU market needs specific teams) and the funding.
mlyle 6y ago
Europe's done big multinational technical-political things many times to varying levels of success. Don't forget Gaileo, Arianespace, Airbus's parent EADS, the ESA, etc. They tend to not be super capital efficient, but the sheer amount of wealth and resources tend to make things that are priorities not completely fail. > P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. I'm european and I'm raising my kid in a british college since years for that very reason. What factors make you want to get out? As an American who's spent a lot of time in both the US and Continental Europe (and elsewhere) I don't see any terrific suck.
- tristor 6y ago
  > What factors make you want to get out? As an American who's spent a lot of time in both the US and Continental Europe (and elsewhere) I don't see any terrific suck. At the risk of speaking out of turn, I've traveled extensively outside the US and befriended a lot of folks and had discussions on this topic with them. I would summarize my findings as such: 1. Economic Mobility: In Europe economic mobility, on average, is actually better than the US. But, for those who are educated and driven, economic mobility in the US is much much much higher. Average person may up their income by $10k/yr in PPP or more in Europe from young adulthood to adult-hood, average person in the US tends to stay flat. But driven, intelligent people with degrees in the US can double or triple their income from young adulthood to adulthood, and this simply doesn't happen in Europe. The tech industry is a major factor in this, where senior-level positions in non-FAANG companies can make upwards of $150k/yr in the US, and the PPP equivalent European salary is around half of that. 2. Lifestyle goals: In Europe, it is very hard to be successful as a young person outside of major metro areas. This is somewhat true for the US as well, and while business cultures are different in different areas, it's easier (pre-COVID) to work remotely for a US-based company vs a EU-based company, but usually requires working US timezone hours or relocating to the US. Additionally, Americans tend to lead faster paced public lives, but slower paced private lives, and the reverse tends to be the case for Europeans. Everybody has their own lifestyle preferences, and lifestyle also is a major factor in intra-EU movements as well (I have friends who moved from Belgium to Portugal for instance, due to lifestyle. Friends that moved from Germany to Spain, etc.) 3. Freedom: The US is more diverse and free in some aspects. There's a lot of nuance here, but while you obviously have a lot of history, linguistic, and food diversity in the EU, there's significant similarities in cultural expectations, especially in professional work environments once you enter the middle class. The US is a LOT more free in regards to one's behavior, lifestyle choices, and personal life when you are in the middle class, compared to Europe. This is probably more obvious in the UK than anywhere else, where class hallmarks are as direct as how you speak to someone verbally, where in the US it's possible to have a pronounced Southern accent and still be solidly middle class in a professional environment, even though that's not considered as high-brow as a West-coast accent would be. Europe is in many ways more diverse overall, but not really in the middle class and above environments. Also some people just want to be free to do whatever they want on their own property without anyone nosing in, and this is antithetical to the European communal mindset which is very often enforced legally through direct government regulation.
mrtksn 6y ago
Not at all, those are simply the biggest ones that would be recognised by Americans. Another recognisable project would be the Erasmus program or interrail, or ESA(remember the cute spacecraft philae, yep that was not NASA but ESA https://twitter.com/philae2014?lang=en https://twitter.com/philae2014?lang=en). EU has tons of projects with smaller or even larger scale, usually in areas that are not supposed to yield profit but has large impact to trade and life quality of the citizens, preserve peace and food security. Mostly boring stuff, EU is not a for profit company that will design the next iPhone, it's this organisation that does the stiff that individual countries or companies are not willing to do or simply cannot do but it needs to be done.
- norwegianwhale 6y ago
  > Erasmus program or interrail By which upper middle class kids get a free year of holidays abroad at the taxpayer's expense. No results expected. Finishing studies, getting a job and family formation can be postponed to early thirties. Our young generations are having so much success in the job market, housing, and family wise.
  - mrtksn 6y ago
    >By which upper middle class kids get a free year of holidays abroad at the taxpayer's expense. No results expected. I don't know why you would say that. Me, my brother and a lot of people I know benefited from these programs and we are not even a middle class. Now we do better but back then the times were tough. Frankly, a semester abroad with Erasmus is more of partying and networking than studying but people keep these connections and the poorer people who could have never been able to afford it can actually afford it. Many times, poor people stay poor because they lack networking and perspective. Erasmus is a fantastic program, especially for the disadvantaged students, at least they know what's out there and know some people.
    - zepearl 6y ago
      I fully agree - travelling and doing something in foreign countries together with people that come from different backgrounds & religions & nations completely demolishes prejudices, helps to learn to adapt and to respect other people and to develop the mindset needed to try to understand how other people think and behave, etc... . 25 years later I'm still using stuff that I learned during that period. I'm rarely totally in favour or against something but in this case I can see only positive things.
iruoy 6y ago
This is BS. English proficiency is very high in The Netherlands and Scandinavia, but people there are not lining up to emigrate. According to you, who wants to leave and why? P.S. Raising your kids in a British college? As in a school in Britain?
- mrtksn 6y ago
  I don't know why OP is so bitter and wants to emigrate but in general, English is not about moving to another place but doing business beyond local. The Netherlands and Scandinavia accounts for the most of the European global tech output and this is not because Spaniards don't know how to code. The Dutch and people in the Scandinavian countries are so proficient in English that they do products like the Americans. Knowing English that well makes it possible to understand the global popular culture and think in global scale when doing startups.
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    > English is not about moving to another place but doing business beyond local. There are "only" 379 million people speaking English as a native language. But there are 1.2 billion people speaking English as a second language, which means that there are more people speaking English that do not actually speak "proper" English, than people speaking it because they were born with it. The outcome is that > About 75% of the world's 1.2 billion English speakers are non-native speakers. However, while non-native speakers often understand each other well in English, many native speakers are bad at making themselves understood by non-native speakers. > "Often you have a [room] full of people from different countries communicating in English and all understanding each other, and then suddenly the American or Brit walks into the room and nobody can understand them"
    - 6510 6y ago
      As a dutch subject I have to agree. When Americans talk about social security and healthcare they seem to attempt to do it (read "fail") from a purely selfish angle. What seems like a complete lack of empathy born out of a selfish culture where no one has your back is really just my linguistic shortcommerings. Jokes aside (not really) Its pretty funny if you think about it. Europe wants to build a cute union that nurtures the citizens into a bunch of weaklings while team America wants their country to be this big hungry monster that hunts you down and eats you. Clearly non of this is right but migrating from the US to the EU would seem the best experience.
bserge 6y ago
Yeah, probably should've learned Mandarin then. North America doesn't look all that appealing nowadays.
- nmlnn 6y ago
  /s
mschuetz 6y ago
> P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. This is absolutely not true. English is tought in most schools simply because it's used worldwide. Also, most of the people I know are very happy to live here, and most who may have wanted to emmigrate to the US lost any desire to do so after the four years of Trump.
- mamon 6y ago
  My experience is exactly the opposite: I was eager to emigrate during Trump term in the office, despite him making it difficult. Now that Biden has won, I know that emigration should become much easier, but it also became pointless.
  - jason0597 6y ago
    Why is immigration to the US pointless now that Biden won?
    - mamon 6y ago
      Because Trump was all about "business", America's prosperity. Biden is all about things I personally don't care about, like anti-COVID measures, or fighting global warming, which will very likely destroy US economically. Emigrating to a country that's on a brink of the worst crisis in its history is indeed pointless.
      - jason0597 6y ago
        Why do you not care about anti-COVID measures or fighting global warming? Those are serious issues that need to be addressed, no?
        mamon 6y ago
        The worst consequence of COVID will be thousands of people dying from other disease, because healthcare system focused on COVID neglected them, and the economic depression caused by lockdowns. The worst consequence of global warming will be economic depression caused by pushing expensive and ineffective, but low-carbon technologies on us. In both cases we would be better off doing nothing.
haerra 6y ago
Well this makes no sense. I mean, good luck with your decisions, but Europe is wast, and there are certainly places where someone could prosper.
yeahforsureman 6y ago
Not my experience. Away from some parts of Eastern and Southern Europe for lack of opportunities, but generally out of EU, no. And anyway, if your kid goes to college, he or she is very likely to be of legal age and have, like, opinions of their own. Yet you make it sound like you're raising cattle for yourself or something.
- filoleg 6y ago
  >you make it sound like you're raising cattle for yourself or something To me, it sounds more like they identified common trends and desires within young people in Europe, determined those desires to be beneficial/making sense, and are trying to give their kid the prep needed to execute on those desires in the future, in case the kid decides that this is what they want to do. Sounds pretty normal to me, I would only raise an alarm if the parent commenter was just pushing this against the child's wishes. But just giving the prep needed is not in itself wrong. Especially when it comes to something as useful as english language, which will serve the kid very well even if they decide to spend the rest of their life in EU. P.S. Yes, I wish I got more english prep when I was a kid, because doing it all in my late teens was not the most pleasant experience on earth, because at that point in life you got tons of other worries that every other teenager has, on top of worrying about english (college entrance exams/standardized testing, schoolwork, etc.).
- ddeville 6y ago
  Not sure that is what they meant but in some European countries (France being an example), college means middle school rather than university.
romanoderoma 6y ago
> they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. Not in the EU I was born and raised.
gostsamo 6y ago
Sorry, but you are trying to speak on my behalf and I strongly disagree. I learn english for various reasons but leaving the EU is not one of them. The EU has lots of faults and I won't deny it, but so does any other place. So what? One day I might leave to retire on a caribbean island, but it won't be out of bitterness. If you don't feel the same way, be honest and don't project it on others.
boudin 6y ago
I'm european, know people from many european and non european countries, i know absolutly nobody who want to leave the eu. Young people learn english because it's taught in school, not because they're caught in nasty political bullsh*t that tries to put every nation against each other.

norwegianwhale 6y ago

If there ever is a promising project from europe (a.1) it bootstraps / gets venture capital (a.2) Leaves after 2 years for the US / gets acquired and the fiscal headquarter moves to Delaware (Stripe) (b) Gets absorbed by an old blue chip, like Siemens, Telefonica, and dies a slow death. (c) Becomes highly stymied by bureaucracy, and the initial momentum wanes without winning much market share (Zalando, Deliveroo, Idealista). It's called the market of lemons problem. Only the least productive projects want to have their hands tied and financed by the government.

Apocryphon 6y ago
Sounds like what happens in Canada, too. One wonders if this is a global phenomenon.
dependsontheq 6y ago
UBERs total funding was 25 Billion, that might not be the best example but funding on this scale is not possible in Europe. The core limit is the market size (every EU market needs specific teams) and the funding.

mlyle 6y ago

Europe's done big multinational technical-political things many times to varying levels of success. Don't forget Gaileo, Arianespace, Airbus's parent EADS, the ESA, etc. They tend to not be super capital efficient, but the sheer amount of wealth and resources tend to make things that are priorities not completely fail. > P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. I'm european and I'm raising my kid in a british college since years for that very reason. What factors make you want to get out? As an American who's spent a lot of time in both the US and Continental Europe (and elsewhere) I don't see any terrific suck.

tristor 6y ago
> What factors make you want to get out? As an American who's spent a lot of time in both the US and Continental Europe (and elsewhere) I don't see any terrific suck. At the risk of speaking out of turn, I've traveled extensively outside the US and befriended a lot of folks and had discussions on this topic with them. I would summarize my findings as such: 1. Economic Mobility: In Europe economic mobility, on average, is actually better than the US. But, for those who are educated and driven, economic mobility in the US is much much much higher. Average person may up their income by $10k/yr in PPP or more in Europe from young adulthood to adult-hood, average person in the US tends to stay flat. But driven, intelligent people with degrees in the US can double or triple their income from young adulthood to adulthood, and this simply doesn't happen in Europe. The tech industry is a major factor in this, where senior-level positions in non-FAANG companies can make upwards of $150k/yr in the US, and the PPP equivalent European salary is around half of that. 2. Lifestyle goals: In Europe, it is very hard to be successful as a young person outside of major metro areas. This is somewhat true for the US as well, and while business cultures are different in different areas, it's easier (pre-COVID) to work remotely for a US-based company vs a EU-based company, but usually requires working US timezone hours or relocating to the US. Additionally, Americans tend to lead faster paced public lives, but slower paced private lives, and the reverse tends to be the case for Europeans. Everybody has their own lifestyle preferences, and lifestyle also is a major factor in intra-EU movements as well (I have friends who moved from Belgium to Portugal for instance, due to lifestyle. Friends that moved from Germany to Spain, etc.) 3. Freedom: The US is more diverse and free in some aspects. There's a lot of nuance here, but while you obviously have a lot of history, linguistic, and food diversity in the EU, there's significant similarities in cultural expectations, especially in professional work environments once you enter the middle class. The US is a LOT more free in regards to one's behavior, lifestyle choices, and personal life when you are in the middle class, compared to Europe. This is probably more obvious in the UK than anywhere else, where class hallmarks are as direct as how you speak to someone verbally, where in the US it's possible to have a pronounced Southern accent and still be solidly middle class in a professional environment, even though that's not considered as high-brow as a West-coast accent would be. Europe is in many ways more diverse overall, but not really in the middle class and above environments. Also some people just want to be free to do whatever they want on their own property without anyone nosing in, and this is antithetical to the European communal mindset which is very often enforced legally through direct government regulation.

mrtksn 6y ago

Not at all, those are simply the biggest ones that would be recognised by Americans. Another recognisable project would be the Erasmus program or interrail, or ESA(remember the cute spacecraft philae, yep that was not NASA but ESA https://twitter.com/philae2014?lang=en https://twitter.com/philae2014?lang=en). EU has tons of projects with smaller or even larger scale, usually in areas that are not supposed to yield profit but has large impact to trade and life quality of the citizens, preserve peace and food security. Mostly boring stuff, EU is not a for profit company that will design the next iPhone, it's this organisation that does the stiff that individual countries or companies are not willing to do or simply cannot do but it needs to be done.

norwegianwhale 6y ago
> Erasmus program or interrail By which upper middle class kids get a free year of holidays abroad at the taxpayer's expense. No results expected. Finishing studies, getting a job and family formation can be postponed to early thirties. Our young generations are having so much success in the job market, housing, and family wise.
- mrtksn 6y ago
  >By which upper middle class kids get a free year of holidays abroad at the taxpayer's expense. No results expected. I don't know why you would say that. Me, my brother and a lot of people I know benefited from these programs and we are not even a middle class. Now we do better but back then the times were tough. Frankly, a semester abroad with Erasmus is more of partying and networking than studying but people keep these connections and the poorer people who could have never been able to afford it can actually afford it. Many times, poor people stay poor because they lack networking and perspective. Erasmus is a fantastic program, especially for the disadvantaged students, at least they know what's out there and know some people.
  - zepearl 6y ago
    I fully agree - travelling and doing something in foreign countries together with people that come from different backgrounds & religions & nations completely demolishes prejudices, helps to learn to adapt and to respect other people and to develop the mindset needed to try to understand how other people think and behave, etc... . 25 years later I'm still using stuff that I learned during that period. I'm rarely totally in favour or against something but in this case I can see only positive things.

iruoy 6y ago

This is BS. English proficiency is very high in The Netherlands and Scandinavia, but people there are not lining up to emigrate. According to you, who wants to leave and why? P.S. Raising your kids in a British college? As in a school in Britain?

mrtksn 6y ago
I don't know why OP is so bitter and wants to emigrate but in general, English is not about moving to another place but doing business beyond local. The Netherlands and Scandinavia accounts for the most of the European global tech output and this is not because Spaniards don't know how to code. The Dutch and people in the Scandinavian countries are so proficient in English that they do products like the Americans. Knowing English that well makes it possible to understand the global popular culture and think in global scale when doing startups.
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  > English is not about moving to another place but doing business beyond local. There are "only" 379 million people speaking English as a native language. But there are 1.2 billion people speaking English as a second language, which means that there are more people speaking English that do not actually speak "proper" English, than people speaking it because they were born with it. The outcome is that > About 75% of the world's 1.2 billion English speakers are non-native speakers. However, while non-native speakers often understand each other well in English, many native speakers are bad at making themselves understood by non-native speakers. > "Often you have a [room] full of people from different countries communicating in English and all understanding each other, and then suddenly the American or Brit walks into the room and nobody can understand them"
  - 6510 6y ago
    As a dutch subject I have to agree. When Americans talk about social security and healthcare they seem to attempt to do it (read "fail") from a purely selfish angle. What seems like a complete lack of empathy born out of a selfish culture where no one has your back is really just my linguistic shortcommerings. Jokes aside (not really) Its pretty funny if you think about it. Europe wants to build a cute union that nurtures the citizens into a bunch of weaklings while team America wants their country to be this big hungry monster that hunts you down and eats you. Clearly non of this is right but migrating from the US to the EU would seem the best experience.

bserge 6y ago

Yeah, probably should've learned Mandarin then. North America doesn't look all that appealing nowadays.

nmlnn 6y ago
/s

mschuetz 6y ago

> P.S: a lot of the young in Europe are learning english because they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. This is absolutely not true. English is tought in most schools simply because it's used worldwide. Also, most of the people I know are very happy to live here, and most who may have wanted to emmigrate to the US lost any desire to do so after the four years of Trump.

mamon 6y ago
My experience is exactly the opposite: I was eager to emigrate during Trump term in the office, despite him making it difficult. Now that Biden has won, I know that emigration should become much easier, but it also became pointless.
- jason0597 6y ago
  Why is immigration to the US pointless now that Biden won?
  - mamon 6y ago
    Because Trump was all about "business", America's prosperity. Biden is all about things I personally don't care about, like anti-COVID measures, or fighting global warming, which will very likely destroy US economically. Emigrating to a country that's on a brink of the worst crisis in its history is indeed pointless.
    - jason0597 6y ago
      Why do you not care about anti-COVID measures or fighting global warming? Those are serious issues that need to be addressed, no?
      - mamon 6y ago
        The worst consequence of COVID will be thousands of people dying from other disease, because healthcare system focused on COVID neglected them, and the economic depression caused by lockdowns. The worst consequence of global warming will be economic depression caused by pushing expensive and ineffective, but low-carbon technologies on us. In both cases we would be better off doing nothing.

haerra 6y ago

Well this makes no sense. I mean, good luck with your decisions, but Europe is wast, and there are certainly places where someone could prosper.

yeahforsureman 6y ago

Not my experience. Away from some parts of Eastern and Southern Europe for lack of opportunities, but generally out of EU, no. And anyway, if your kid goes to college, he or she is very likely to be of legal age and have, like, opinions of their own. Yet you make it sound like you're raising cattle for yourself or something.

filoleg 6y ago
>you make it sound like you're raising cattle for yourself or something To me, it sounds more like they identified common trends and desires within young people in Europe, determined those desires to be beneficial/making sense, and are trying to give their kid the prep needed to execute on those desires in the future, in case the kid decides that this is what they want to do. Sounds pretty normal to me, I would only raise an alarm if the parent commenter was just pushing this against the child's wishes. But just giving the prep needed is not in itself wrong. Especially when it comes to something as useful as english language, which will serve the kid very well even if they decide to spend the rest of their life in EU. P.S. Yes, I wish I got more english prep when I was a kid, because doing it all in my late teens was not the most pleasant experience on earth, because at that point in life you got tons of other worries that every other teenager has, on top of worrying about english (college entrance exams/standardized testing, schoolwork, etc.).
ddeville 6y ago
Not sure that is what they meant but in some European countries (France being an example), college means middle school rather than university.

romanoderoma 6y ago

> they want to get the f--- out the EU as soon as they can. Not in the EU I was born and raised.

gostsamo 6y ago

Sorry, but you are trying to speak on my behalf and I strongly disagree. I learn english for various reasons but leaving the EU is not one of them. The EU has lots of faults and I won't deny it, but so does any other place. So what? One day I might leave to retire on a caribbean island, but it won't be out of bitterness. If you don't feel the same way, be honest and don't project it on others.

boudin 6y ago

I'm european, know people from many european and non european countries, i know absolutly nobody who want to leave the eu. Young people learn english because it's taught in school, not because they're caught in nasty political bullsh*t that tries to put every nation against each other.