8 ms·

> Europe dug it's own grave here by not funding its domestic tech sector enough But nobody was funding Apple. U.S. just created the environment where tech bus

by oytis 6y ago

> Europe dug it's own grave here by not funding its domestic tech sector enough But nobody was funding Apple. U.S. just created the environment where tech business can thrive and let the competition do the rest. EU market on the contrary is still controlled by century-old companies. From my (not that long) experience with German tech job market, I've got an impression that US-based companies normally have better (more open, more inclusive, more developer-centric) culture and better compensation.

ginko 6y ago
>But nobody was funding Apple. U.S. just created the environment where tech business can thrive and let the competition do the rest. EU market on the contrary is still controlled by century-old companies. The US tech sector is essentially pegged by the petrodollar. Countries have to use the dollar to sell oil and then invest their excess dollars in the US economy.
- oytis 6y ago
  What about Chinese tech sector? Yes, there is a lot of protectionism exercised by the Chinese government, but still Huawei and other big players are not funded by the government, they have to compete really hard to survive.
  - ginko 6y ago
    >but still Huawei and other big players are not funded by the government What makes you think that?
    - oytis 6y ago
      Uhm... Because China needs tech sector as money source, not a money sink maybe? So it is implausible they would spend money on a tech company. I'm not aware of any facts in favor of the contrary.
      - ginko 6y ago
        As far as I can tell the Chinese government primarily sees becoming the technological leader mainly as a strategic goal and not as money source. Not in the short term at least.
        xanax 6y ago
        Yes. The influence they would have if the large parts of the world depended on them for internet and communications is insane.
      - TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Don't they already have a huge money source of being the world's factory?
  - dewey 6y ago
    > Tens of billions of dollars in financial assistance from the Chinese government helped fuel Huawei Technologies Co.’s rise to the top of global telecommunications, a scale of support that in key measures dwarfed what its closest tech rivals got from their governments. Are you sure? One of the bigger reasons why Huawei is having troubles with rolling out it's hardware (routes, 5G) in Europe and US is how entangled they are with the government. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-support-helped-fuel-huaweis-global-rise-11577280736 https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-support-helped-fuel-huawe...
  - Bayart 6y ago
    > but still Huawei and other big players are not funded by the government Is that a joke ? Huawei is probably the Chinese tech company with the most government involvement. They're a strategic company propped-up as a point of national policy.
    - powerapple 6y ago
      Actually the most government funded companies are those companies are failing, state-owned enterprises, which employ many low-skilled people. Meng tried to sell Huawei to Motorola for $7.5billion. The deal didn't go through because CEO change in Motorola. Of course, Chinese government would be a client for Huawei as well as Microsoft and many other companies. Also government owned funds would invest in commercial entities to make money. I have not done full research on Huawei, so I cannot say there is no money invested in Huawei. If you are worrying about Chinese government controlling the company, actually in China, the government does not need to fund a company to do that. For example, the poverty elimination program was set out by the government, all major companies would be encouraged to participate. If you are 'encouraged' by the government in anywhere around the world, you would participate for a better relationship with the government.
  - anovikov 6y ago
    LOL Huawei's ownership is concealed in a zillion ways, but it is an open secret that it's owned by the CCP itself, not even the government.
    - oytis 6y ago
      OK, maybe I'm ill-informed on this issue. So Europe's problem is that we've got neither petrodollars nor CCP?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - creato 6y ago
    Huawei got its start by blatantly stealing IP from Cisco and other companies, which is essentially a large subsidy of R&D. That strategy was only possible because the Chinese government shielded them from legal problems. In other words, the Chinese government effectively forced Huawei's competitors to give them a large subsidy.
- totalZero 6y ago
  That only applies to petroleum producers, and they could alternatively use those dollars to buy other resources or currencies -- or hold the dollars in reserve. The US tech sector is supported by the Western world's extremely broad IP protections. In my mind, that's the number-one way in which US tech benefits from the US government.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
That's pretty much it. There was talk of an EU-wide and -funded cloud provider or social network or something like that to gain more independence from US based companies, but right away there was squabbling with various countries arguing about what slice of the cake they should get and what part of the work they should be doing. That's just not going to work. For innovation in Europe, we need a ton of independent money.
- robin_reala 6y ago
  GAIA-X, if anyone’s wondering: https://www.data-infrastructure.eu/GAIAX/Navigation/EN/Home/home.html https://www.data-infrastructure.eu/GAIAX/Navigation/EN/Home/...
- woile 6y ago
  I've been using scaleway, for a small project I started a few months ago[0]. It's similar to Digital Ocean, and it works quite well (no downtime so far, been using it for 2 months). The datacenters are in Europe. Any opinions about it? [0] shameless plug: keat.app
  - eythian 6y ago
    I use them for some personal stuff. No real issues. I do also have one of their baremetal systems (through online.net or something) which I'm considering moving away from because it's quite slow, but excluding that they seem good. I also use TransIP, similar reviews.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > right away there was squabbling with various countries arguing about what slice of the cake they should get and what part of the work they should be doing That's just like the NASA SLS project. One of the project's key selling point was that there were work items performed in each of the 50 states. Even if, through a miracle, the EU countries could agree, how exactly would they expect to hire engineers that could double their income overnight by going to FAANG?
p_l 6y ago
There was a lot of government money, directly or indirectly, involved in keeping Apple afloat and before that, bringing noticeable revenue. Then there's more state rather than federal, if you care about the difference, money from school systems hooked onto Apple II, which made it so that it was produced up to early 1990s. Similarly a non-trivial point in financial history of Sun was contracts that indirectly depended on NSA. Then you have third-order money flows, where lots of govt money flew into various projects, which enriched people enough that they could buy Apple products. I'd argue that the biggest difference is that the government money was very free flowing, and often goal-oriented and who actually got it was a detail that wasn't even taken into account unless you failed to deliver. Meanwhile a lot of EU funding grants, depending on country, involves a lot of paperwork instead of just govt buying from you.
- oytis 6y ago
  > I'd argue that the biggest difference is that the government money was very free flowing, and often goal-oriented and who actually got it was a detail that wasn't even taken into account unless you failed to deliver. Meanwhile a lot of EU funding grants, depending on country, involves a lot of paperwork instead of just govt buying from you. That's an interesting point. I believe this paperwork is there to prevent corruption somehow. Yet, from the unshakeable position and government ties of the old industry one might conclude that the result was exactly the opposite.
  - throwaway_dcnt 6y ago
    The purpose is not to avoid corruption, it is to have the ability to plausibly deny ts existence by having paper trail of a faux-fair process that was followed.
- simonh 6y ago
  Educational use of the Apple II wasn't about policy though, it was just that the Apple II was already incredibly popular and had lots of software (Visicalc for example, the first spreadsheet) available. It's commercial success drove educational adoption not the other way round. Conversely the BBC Micro was picked as a winner by the BBC back when it's predecessor systems were also-rans. This drove educational purchases, and ultimately led to ARM. Honestly the main thing that drove the US tech sector was the invention of the integrated circuit, and massive scale. Europe back then was still very balkanised, the EEC (which became the EU) was only just getting going. Fully agree with your last point, Europe was and still is much more bureaucratic.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
> But nobody was funding Apple. U.S. just created the environment where tech business can thrive and let the competition do the rest. The US government has always been quite involved in the rise of their tech sector, from funding to being a customer. If you look into the history of Silicon Valley, for example, you find, as often in the US, the role of the military behind early technological developments and geographical location. A recent example is also SpaceX. It would not exist without decades of government funding for space and without contracts to supply NASA. So, yes the US created and maintained a good environment but they did help much more than that.
- xanax 6y ago
  ^this It's usually been in the government's best interest to fund and lend a hand to companies like these. SpaceX can't exist without government funding for the time being and probably quite a bit of time in the future. When they do manage to get people to mars it will be even more so in the government's interest to fund them.
  - at-fates-hands 6y ago
    > SpaceX can't exist without government funding for the time being and probably quite a bit of time in the future. Considering NASA just had huge budget increases in the last few years, I would say your comment is spot on. Clearly the government is allocating more money back into NASA and space exploration so instead of working together, SpaceX will probably hard pressed to get the amount of funding they need from the government now: The President's Budget Request (PBR) for NASA was released on 11 March 2019, and originally proposed $21.019 billion for fiscal year 2020. A supplemental request was released in May 2019 that proposed an additional $1.6 billion to support an acceleration of the lunar landing goal to 2024. All numbers for the PBR listed on this page include the supplemental request. - $546.5 million for the Mars Exploration Program, of which $278 million is for the Mars 2020 rover and $109 million is to begin formulation of the next mission in a Mars Sample Return campaign. - Moves the launch date of the Europa Clipper mission from the late-2020s to 2023, and proposes using a commercial rocket instead of an SLS for launch. - Walks back the proposal to transition the ISS to commercial operations by 2025: "By 2025, the Budget envisions commercial capabilities on the International Space Station as well as new commercial facilities and platforms to continue the American presence in Earth orbit." - Increases funding for technology development through the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, "which aims to spur the creation of novel technologies needed for lunar surface exploration and accelerate the technology readiness of key systems and components." - NASA is proposing "increasing facility maintenance activities at all Centers to reduce risk to missions. Increased funding will help reduce the significant backlog of facility maintenance projects and requirements." - Proposes $1 billion for a Human Lunar Landing System "to enable NASA to begin supporting the development of commercial human lunar landing systems. This acquisition strategy will allow NASA to purchase an integrated commercial lunar lander that will transport astronauts from lunar orbit to the lunar surface and back."
WhoCaresLies 6y ago
Apple is state funded, they pay close to no tax and they get ton of contracts from governments, just like Tesla, it is alive thanks to funding from the US government Similar stuff with China
Dig1t 6y ago
The compensation difference is ridiculous. You can make literally triple the total-comp in California, with lower taxes, in a very similar cost-of-living environment.
- oytis 6y ago
  That too, but I was referring to the compensation US-based companies offer in EU as opposed to local employers.
Shadonototro 6y ago
Apple is state funded, they pay close to no tax and they get ton of contracts from governments, just like Tesla, it is alive thanks to funding from the US government Similar stuff with China!

by oytis 6y ago

ginko 6y ago

>But nobody was funding Apple. U.S. just created the environment where tech business can thrive and let the competition do the rest. EU market on the contrary is still controlled by century-old companies. The US tech sector is essentially pegged by the petrodollar. Countries have to use the dollar to sell oil and then invest their excess dollars in the US economy.

oytis 6y ago
What about Chinese tech sector? Yes, there is a lot of protectionism exercised by the Chinese government, but still Huawei and other big players are not funded by the government, they have to compete really hard to survive.
- ginko 6y ago
  >but still Huawei and other big players are not funded by the government What makes you think that?
  - oytis 6y ago
    Uhm... Because China needs tech sector as money source, not a money sink maybe? So it is implausible they would spend money on a tech company. I'm not aware of any facts in favor of the contrary.
    - ginko 6y ago
      As far as I can tell the Chinese government primarily sees becoming the technological leader mainly as a strategic goal and not as money source. Not in the short term at least.
      - xanax 6y ago
        Yes. The influence they would have if the large parts of the world depended on them for internet and communications is insane.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Don't they already have a huge money source of being the world's factory?
- dewey 6y ago
  > Tens of billions of dollars in financial assistance from the Chinese government helped fuel Huawei Technologies Co.’s rise to the top of global telecommunications, a scale of support that in key measures dwarfed what its closest tech rivals got from their governments. Are you sure? One of the bigger reasons why Huawei is having troubles with rolling out it's hardware (routes, 5G) in Europe and US is how entangled they are with the government. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-support-helped-fuel-huaweis-global-rise-11577280736 https://www.wsj.com/articles/state-support-helped-fuel-huawe...
- Bayart 6y ago
  > but still Huawei and other big players are not funded by the government Is that a joke ? Huawei is probably the Chinese tech company with the most government involvement. They're a strategic company propped-up as a point of national policy.
  - powerapple 6y ago
    Actually the most government funded companies are those companies are failing, state-owned enterprises, which employ many low-skilled people. Meng tried to sell Huawei to Motorola for $7.5billion. The deal didn't go through because CEO change in Motorola. Of course, Chinese government would be a client for Huawei as well as Microsoft and many other companies. Also government owned funds would invest in commercial entities to make money. I have not done full research on Huawei, so I cannot say there is no money invested in Huawei. If you are worrying about Chinese government controlling the company, actually in China, the government does not need to fund a company to do that. For example, the poverty elimination program was set out by the government, all major companies would be encouraged to participate. If you are 'encouraged' by the government in anywhere around the world, you would participate for a better relationship with the government.
- anovikov 6y ago
  LOL Huawei's ownership is concealed in a zillion ways, but it is an open secret that it's owned by the CCP itself, not even the government.
  - oytis 6y ago
    OK, maybe I'm ill-informed on this issue. So Europe's problem is that we've got neither petrodollars nor CCP?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- creato 6y ago
  Huawei got its start by blatantly stealing IP from Cisco and other companies, which is essentially a large subsidy of R&D. That strategy was only possible because the Chinese government shielded them from legal problems. In other words, the Chinese government effectively forced Huawei's competitors to give them a large subsidy.
totalZero 6y ago
That only applies to petroleum producers, and they could alternatively use those dollars to buy other resources or currencies -- or hold the dollars in reserve. The US tech sector is supported by the Western world's extremely broad IP protections. In my mind, that's the number-one way in which US tech benefits from the US government.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

That's pretty much it. There was talk of an EU-wide and -funded cloud provider or social network or something like that to gain more independence from US based companies, but right away there was squabbling with various countries arguing about what slice of the cake they should get and what part of the work they should be doing. That's just not going to work. For innovation in Europe, we need a ton of independent money.

robin_reala 6y ago
GAIA-X, if anyone’s wondering: https://www.data-infrastructure.eu/GAIAX/Navigation/EN/Home/home.html https://www.data-infrastructure.eu/GAIAX/Navigation/EN/Home/...
woile 6y ago
I've been using scaleway, for a small project I started a few months ago[0]. It's similar to Digital Ocean, and it works quite well (no downtime so far, been using it for 2 months). The datacenters are in Europe. Any opinions about it? [0] shameless plug: keat.app
- eythian 6y ago
  I use them for some personal stuff. No real issues. I do also have one of their baremetal systems (through online.net or something) which I'm considering moving away from because it's quite slow, but excluding that they seem good. I also use TransIP, similar reviews.
908B64B197 6y ago
> right away there was squabbling with various countries arguing about what slice of the cake they should get and what part of the work they should be doing That's just like the NASA SLS project. One of the project's key selling point was that there were work items performed in each of the 50 states. Even if, through a miracle, the EU countries could agree, how exactly would they expect to hire engineers that could double their income overnight by going to FAANG?

p_l 6y ago

There was a lot of government money, directly or indirectly, involved in keeping Apple afloat and before that, bringing noticeable revenue. Then there's more state rather than federal, if you care about the difference, money from school systems hooked onto Apple II, which made it so that it was produced up to early 1990s. Similarly a non-trivial point in financial history of Sun was contracts that indirectly depended on NSA. Then you have third-order money flows, where lots of govt money flew into various projects, which enriched people enough that they could buy Apple products. I'd argue that the biggest difference is that the government money was very free flowing, and often goal-oriented and who actually got it was a detail that wasn't even taken into account unless you failed to deliver. Meanwhile a lot of EU funding grants, depending on country, involves a lot of paperwork instead of just govt buying from you.

oytis 6y ago
> I'd argue that the biggest difference is that the government money was very free flowing, and often goal-oriented and who actually got it was a detail that wasn't even taken into account unless you failed to deliver. Meanwhile a lot of EU funding grants, depending on country, involves a lot of paperwork instead of just govt buying from you. That's an interesting point. I believe this paperwork is there to prevent corruption somehow. Yet, from the unshakeable position and government ties of the old industry one might conclude that the result was exactly the opposite.
- throwaway_dcnt 6y ago
  The purpose is not to avoid corruption, it is to have the ability to plausibly deny ts existence by having paper trail of a faux-fair process that was followed.
simonh 6y ago
Educational use of the Apple II wasn't about policy though, it was just that the Apple II was already incredibly popular and had lots of software (Visicalc for example, the first spreadsheet) available. It's commercial success drove educational adoption not the other way round. Conversely the BBC Micro was picked as a winner by the BBC back when it's predecessor systems were also-rans. This drove educational purchases, and ultimately led to ARM. Honestly the main thing that drove the US tech sector was the invention of the integrated circuit, and massive scale. Europe back then was still very balkanised, the EEC (which became the EU) was only just getting going. Fully agree with your last point, Europe was and still is much more bureaucratic.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

> But nobody was funding Apple. U.S. just created the environment where tech business can thrive and let the competition do the rest. The US government has always been quite involved in the rise of their tech sector, from funding to being a customer. If you look into the history of Silicon Valley, for example, you find, as often in the US, the role of the military behind early technological developments and geographical location. A recent example is also SpaceX. It would not exist without decades of government funding for space and without contracts to supply NASA. So, yes the US created and maintained a good environment but they did help much more than that.

xanax 6y ago
^this It's usually been in the government's best interest to fund and lend a hand to companies like these. SpaceX can't exist without government funding for the time being and probably quite a bit of time in the future. When they do manage to get people to mars it will be even more so in the government's interest to fund them.
- at-fates-hands 6y ago
  > SpaceX can't exist without government funding for the time being and probably quite a bit of time in the future. Considering NASA just had huge budget increases in the last few years, I would say your comment is spot on. Clearly the government is allocating more money back into NASA and space exploration so instead of working together, SpaceX will probably hard pressed to get the amount of funding they need from the government now: The President's Budget Request (PBR) for NASA was released on 11 March 2019, and originally proposed $21.019 billion for fiscal year 2020. A supplemental request was released in May 2019 that proposed an additional $1.6 billion to support an acceleration of the lunar landing goal to 2024. All numbers for the PBR listed on this page include the supplemental request. - $546.5 million for the Mars Exploration Program, of which $278 million is for the Mars 2020 rover and $109 million is to begin formulation of the next mission in a Mars Sample Return campaign. - Moves the launch date of the Europa Clipper mission from the late-2020s to 2023, and proposes using a commercial rocket instead of an SLS for launch. - Walks back the proposal to transition the ISS to commercial operations by 2025: "By 2025, the Budget envisions commercial capabilities on the International Space Station as well as new commercial facilities and platforms to continue the American presence in Earth orbit." - Increases funding for technology development through the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative, "which aims to spur the creation of novel technologies needed for lunar surface exploration and accelerate the technology readiness of key systems and components." - NASA is proposing "increasing facility maintenance activities at all Centers to reduce risk to missions. Increased funding will help reduce the significant backlog of facility maintenance projects and requirements." - Proposes $1 billion for a Human Lunar Landing System "to enable NASA to begin supporting the development of commercial human lunar landing systems. This acquisition strategy will allow NASA to purchase an integrated commercial lunar lander that will transport astronauts from lunar orbit to the lunar surface and back."

WhoCaresLies 6y ago

Apple is state funded, they pay close to no tax and they get ton of contracts from governments, just like Tesla, it is alive thanks to funding from the US government Similar stuff with China

Dig1t 6y ago

The compensation difference is ridiculous. You can make literally triple the total-comp in California, with lower taxes, in a very similar cost-of-living environment.

oytis 6y ago
That too, but I was referring to the compensation US-based companies offer in EU as opposed to local employers.

Shadonototro 6y ago

Apple is state funded, they pay close to no tax and they get ton of contracts from governments, just like Tesla, it is alive thanks to funding from the US government Similar stuff with China!