Why people have this perception seems pretty clear to me. Just comparing Europe to the US: The US has both the major desktop/laptop CPU designers, as well as b

Why people have this perception seems pretty clear to me. Just comparing Europe to the US: The US has both the major desktop/laptop CPU designers, as well as both desktop/laptop GPU designers. Of the three major desktop/laptop OSes, two are American, and the last doesn't belong to any particular country, but the primary creator moved from Europe to the US permanently. The two major smartphone OSes are made by American companies. Two biggest browsers, again, Americans. Maybe three, if you count Mozilla (though Samsung is probably around there as well). Huge internet/software tech companies that consumers interact with? Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple are all American. Europe has no equivalent to these, all they can boast is a few smaller ones like Spotify, or business facing giants like SAP (equivalent to that in the US would probably be like Oracle or IBM). While obviously Europe doesn't have a complete dearth of local software, in terms of major consumer hits, especially the kind that get play outside of the region they originated in -- not much of that going on. Also, I work at Google Munich, and it's pretty telling how rare it is for people here to get 'poached' by other local tech companies. It happened to a few people I knew...to go to Lyft's Munich office. Other than that, I can't think of any. When it comes to enticing engineers, there just aren't any German tech companies that play in the same league as Google.