9 ms·

The US has the best research universities in part because it's socially accepted, even expected, to call anything remotely good "the best" over here. People are

by bla3 5y ago

The US has the best research universities in part because it's socially accepted, even expected, to call anything remotely good "the best" over here. People are a bit more restrained elsewhere. For universities, they're admittedly the best by several objective measures too, but the willingness for self-promotion helps :)

elefanten 5y ago
This rings true... there’s a tendency to exaggerate or maximalize in the US, certainly at least in the commercial realm.
- boringg 5y ago
  In this vein [but slightly off topic], can anyone point me to high profile megacap EU startups? The only one that comes to mind is Spotify. I was speaking with some people the other day and probably due to a NA centric focus we were at a lack of well branded EU starts up that had made it similar to US ones.
  - avs733 5y ago
    Klarna, Revolut, and Hellofresh (German founding I believe) immediately pop to mind but I'm sure there are more if I did some searching. The recent trips to Europe I have been so intrigued by how different the apps people use for many common commercial tasks are to the ones I use at home. I'm assuming there are logistical, cultural, or compliance reasons at play but I can't speak to it.
    - boringg 5y ago
      Oh agree that there are a ton of other reasons for it was just curious. And to be honest I don't know any of those companies. Vaguely familiar with Klarna, no clue on Revolut, is hellofresh the originator or the follower of Blue Apron?
      - rossng 5y ago
        HelloFresh was founded before Blue Apron. And the modern mealkit business model was invented in Sweden about five years before that.
  - ur-whale 5y ago
    > can anyone point me to high profile megacap EU startups Don't waste your time looking, there are none or almost none. EU is simply not geared (anymore) for this type of endeavor to succeed: - finance infrastructure for this is non-existent (VCs are a joke in Europe, both in terms of size and in terms of the type of stuff they invest in) - risk-taking is simply not a cultural value anymore - administrative burdens (taxes, labor laws, cost of labor, hyper-restrictive regulations, etc ...) are such a gigantic drag that most people potentially potentially capable of starting such things either walk away, or move to a place where they can actually conduct business (historically, the US, although it's not as good as it was). - at least in Western Europe, (Germany, France), people are so very comfy in their social cocoon (social security, retirement, social programs), the whole notion of "making it" (e.g becoming truly financially independent) is *very* hard for them to even understand. Net effect: no motivation, no GOOG/FB/AMZN/TESLA/SpaceX - the US has a "let the tree grow first, we'll regulate once it bears fruits" attitude towards emerging and potentially disruptive tech. The EU on the other hand has a "oh, my god, this is potentially very disruptive, someone ought to legislate, and quick". When you try to propose a SpaceX sized idea to a bunch of smart engineers in EU, the immediate reaction is a non-stop list of detailed explanation why the plan simply can't happen. Having really big plans in the EU is a guaranteed way to be classified as complete bozo.
    - oneplane 5y ago
      As someone from the EU, some of your points seem very true, but it's also simply a matter of many people not really having the same goals and requirements. There is no true independence in any society, apart from autocracy, and externalities always exist. There doesn't seem to be much value attributed to 'having a lot of money' etc, for a lot of people, having a fulfilling job, family and life is enough, and having the security of knowing that you can get sick and go to the hospital without being bankrupted, or knowing that you will be able to provide for your family directly or indirectly in almost all scenarios makes this whole "I need to be a billionaire to live" notion very non-existent here. You don't need a VC to be happy, you don't need to create a startup and you don't need to take a lot of risk to create value. This is of course directly related to the social cocoon; and knowing the value of that makes for very little need to take big risks for a chance of making things 'better' (whatever 'better' might be...). That said, there are a lot of self-bootstrapping businesses that function just fine. They don't go public and mostly don't make more than a couple of millions each year, but it is enough, or better: it is plenty. There is no rat race, you have plenty of vacation, you can travel the world, and if something goes wrong there are buffers to catch you. (but those aren't comfortable enough to just slack off in to and 'do nothing', but that'd be unfulfilling for most people anyawy).
avs733 5y ago
Again...personal experience but I can speak to this a bit. I went to an undergraduate university that would be wouldn't be considered highly ranked, but was nationally known in one subfield. I remember being surprised at one point to see a number of articles in major science media sources from MIT about a 'breakthrough'. I read the articles and they were 100% describing something that we did on a regular basis in undergraduate labs. I read the underlying press release and the underlying paper and was decidedly meh but man did it catch a news wave. I've always attributed it to being from MIT more so than truly novel. Not a shot against them...just an observation of the power of self-perpetuating narratives. I now work at a different internationally ranked 'best researchy type' university. The research is better for a lot of reasons. The ability to attract the best people helps, but that comes from the reputation of having the best people and the resources to attract the best people. That is intermingled with the resources to have support, PR, media relations, and the brand name attraction for grad students. We have pretty much the same distribution of undergrad intellect as other engineering schools I have worked with. It skew more academic and less practical...I'll be honest if I was a VC I would look at other universities for the next founder types. But the resources and money available for students to pursue entrepreneurship are outsized compared to the talent. But the myths about our excellence are pervasive - and drive behaviors from people who have no basis for actual evidence. It means we get students brand shopping and not wanting to do the work (we literally had a case of an international student being expelled for the person in classes not actually being the enrolled student). I don't think this article is wrong per se but the virtuous circle argument is inseparable from the self-perpetuating circle one. And I am unsurprised that the American Economic Association isn't talking about that piece. Objective functions are great, feedback loops are also an element of a control system.
- teorema 5y ago
  Speaking as someone involved in the US research university system, there's something deeply concerning about this piece. It's a bit like an article circa 2006 about the awesome strength of the US stock market.
ur-whale 5y ago
Gosh, had I earned a dollar every time I heard someone in various US corporate environments declare something to be "amazing", "fantastic" when the thing in question was ... vaguely interesting. Over-emphasis is definitely and American trait and it leave precious little room in the language to aptly describe the really good stuff
- angry_octet 5y ago
  Cross-cultural understanding is really important. It is notorious that Americans have praise inflation, like their GPAs. It's really quite rude to speak frankly in many American settings, or even to damn with faint praise. A positive performance review by a foreign supervisor could have unfortunate repercussions on an American, because it could well sound like they were underperforming. Likewise, Europeans may seem standoffish and aloof to new world types -- people outside their social circle -- because they are! Don't expect work and social circles to mesh. You might like to read: https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/ https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/
codethief 5y ago
This. I hope I won't offend anyone here but there's a story that seems quite appropriate: When I was still living in the US, an acquaintance of mine once asked me, "So don't you think the United States are the best country in the world?" I was absolutely baffled. Putting aside for a moment that the US clearly did not rank "best" on so many scales, the question (to me, as a European) didn't even make much sense in the first place: What metric are we talking about? And what's the point of comparing countries on an absolute scale in the first place? No matter what metric we choose, it will never convey the full picture. Sure, I enjoyed living in the US. But I've also come to enjoy living in other countries over the years and I know there are many more that I would absolutely love to live in. In any case, I don't think it would even occur to a European to call their country "the best". Our continent's history is so complicated and riddled with grave mistakes, wars and crimes, that a claim that one country were "better" than the other would just seem… strange. Everyone here knows that their neighboring countries are at least as beautiful as their own and every place and every mentality has its pros and cons. Anyway, I ended up explaining my POV to said acquantaince and also said that, if he so insists on ranking countries in a such an absolute manner, then we would also have to talk about all those things in the US where there's still… room for improvement. We ended up having a long and fruitful discussion and he started agreeing with me (or so I thought) that the question might not make that much sense after all. Still, after an hour of discussing all this, he goes, in a very matter-of-fact way: "Everything you said is certainly correct. But I still think the US are the best country in the world." At this point the only explanation I had left was that he must have been brainwashed properly in school, pledging allegiance to the flag and so on. To the Americans reading this: Where do you think does this sense of "living in the best country in the world" come from? Where did you "learn" it? I'd really be interested in understanding this phenomenon better.
- robbmorganf 5y ago
  I'm an American who has lived overseas and I think I have a little more nuance than this, but overall I have the mindset you describe. I think it's kind of like the factoid that ~70-80% of people say they are better than average at driving. In particular, a healthy level of self esteem helps individuals to perform better because they are more confident and take advantage of more opportunities. And I think "USA is the best country" is a myth that creates the self-assuredness that makes Americans come off as "pushy" to everyone else. In many (but not all) businesses, a "pushy" strategy works well financially. So even though it seems illogical, it's not that attributes of America cause it to be "best", but that America thinking of itself as "best" causes it to have certain strategic attributes. Now, that said, many Americans have a totally unhealthy level of self-esteem that turns into nationalism, white supremacy or near-fascism. TBH I don't know how to deal with those people, but by my logic above it might be more successful to help them consider the impact of their beliefs rather than why their beliefs are wrong.
max_entropy 5y ago
The World's Best Pencil!

by bla3 5y ago

elefanten 5y ago

This rings true... there’s a tendency to exaggerate or maximalize in the US, certainly at least in the commercial realm.

boringg 5y ago
In this vein [but slightly off topic], can anyone point me to high profile megacap EU startups? The only one that comes to mind is Spotify. I was speaking with some people the other day and probably due to a NA centric focus we were at a lack of well branded EU starts up that had made it similar to US ones.
- avs733 5y ago
  Klarna, Revolut, and Hellofresh (German founding I believe) immediately pop to mind but I'm sure there are more if I did some searching. The recent trips to Europe I have been so intrigued by how different the apps people use for many common commercial tasks are to the ones I use at home. I'm assuming there are logistical, cultural, or compliance reasons at play but I can't speak to it.
  - boringg 5y ago
    Oh agree that there are a ton of other reasons for it was just curious. And to be honest I don't know any of those companies. Vaguely familiar with Klarna, no clue on Revolut, is hellofresh the originator or the follower of Blue Apron?
    - rossng 5y ago
      HelloFresh was founded before Blue Apron. And the modern mealkit business model was invented in Sweden about five years before that.
- ur-whale 5y ago
  > can anyone point me to high profile megacap EU startups Don't waste your time looking, there are none or almost none. EU is simply not geared (anymore) for this type of endeavor to succeed: - finance infrastructure for this is non-existent (VCs are a joke in Europe, both in terms of size and in terms of the type of stuff they invest in) - risk-taking is simply not a cultural value anymore - administrative burdens (taxes, labor laws, cost of labor, hyper-restrictive regulations, etc ...) are such a gigantic drag that most people potentially potentially capable of starting such things either walk away, or move to a place where they can actually conduct business (historically, the US, although it's not as good as it was). - at least in Western Europe, (Germany, France), people are so very comfy in their social cocoon (social security, retirement, social programs), the whole notion of "making it" (e.g becoming truly financially independent) is *very* hard for them to even understand. Net effect: no motivation, no GOOG/FB/AMZN/TESLA/SpaceX - the US has a "let the tree grow first, we'll regulate once it bears fruits" attitude towards emerging and potentially disruptive tech. The EU on the other hand has a "oh, my god, this is potentially very disruptive, someone ought to legislate, and quick". When you try to propose a SpaceX sized idea to a bunch of smart engineers in EU, the immediate reaction is a non-stop list of detailed explanation why the plan simply can't happen. Having really big plans in the EU is a guaranteed way to be classified as complete bozo.
  - oneplane 5y ago
    As someone from the EU, some of your points seem very true, but it's also simply a matter of many people not really having the same goals and requirements. There is no true independence in any society, apart from autocracy, and externalities always exist. There doesn't seem to be much value attributed to 'having a lot of money' etc, for a lot of people, having a fulfilling job, family and life is enough, and having the security of knowing that you can get sick and go to the hospital without being bankrupted, or knowing that you will be able to provide for your family directly or indirectly in almost all scenarios makes this whole "I need to be a billionaire to live" notion very non-existent here. You don't need a VC to be happy, you don't need to create a startup and you don't need to take a lot of risk to create value. This is of course directly related to the social cocoon; and knowing the value of that makes for very little need to take big risks for a chance of making things 'better' (whatever 'better' might be...). That said, there are a lot of self-bootstrapping businesses that function just fine. They don't go public and mostly don't make more than a couple of millions each year, but it is enough, or better: it is plenty. There is no rat race, you have plenty of vacation, you can travel the world, and if something goes wrong there are buffers to catch you. (but those aren't comfortable enough to just slack off in to and 'do nothing', but that'd be unfulfilling for most people anyawy).

avs733 5y ago

Again...personal experience but I can speak to this a bit. I went to an undergraduate university that would be wouldn't be considered highly ranked, but was nationally known in one subfield. I remember being surprised at one point to see a number of articles in major science media sources from MIT about a 'breakthrough'. I read the articles and they were 100% describing something that we did on a regular basis in undergraduate labs. I read the underlying press release and the underlying paper and was decidedly meh but man did it catch a news wave. I've always attributed it to being from MIT more so than truly novel. Not a shot against them...just an observation of the power of self-perpetuating narratives. I now work at a different internationally ranked 'best researchy type' university. The research is better for a lot of reasons. The ability to attract the best people helps, but that comes from the reputation of having the best people and the resources to attract the best people. That is intermingled with the resources to have support, PR, media relations, and the brand name attraction for grad students. We have pretty much the same distribution of undergrad intellect as other engineering schools I have worked with. It skew more academic and less practical...I'll be honest if I was a VC I would look at other universities for the next founder types. But the resources and money available for students to pursue entrepreneurship are outsized compared to the talent. But the myths about our excellence are pervasive - and drive behaviors from people who have no basis for actual evidence. It means we get students brand shopping and not wanting to do the work (we literally had a case of an international student being expelled for the person in classes not actually being the enrolled student). I don't think this article is wrong per se but the virtuous circle argument is inseparable from the self-perpetuating circle one. And I am unsurprised that the American Economic Association isn't talking about that piece. Objective functions are great, feedback loops are also an element of a control system.

teorema 5y ago
Speaking as someone involved in the US research university system, there's something deeply concerning about this piece. It's a bit like an article circa 2006 about the awesome strength of the US stock market.

ur-whale 5y ago

Gosh, had I earned a dollar every time I heard someone in various US corporate environments declare something to be "amazing", "fantastic" when the thing in question was ... vaguely interesting. Over-emphasis is definitely and American trait and it leave precious little room in the language to aptly describe the really good stuff

angry_octet 5y ago
Cross-cultural understanding is really important. It is notorious that Americans have praise inflation, like their GPAs. It's really quite rude to speak frankly in many American settings, or even to damn with faint praise. A positive performance review by a foreign supervisor could have unfortunate repercussions on an American, because it could well sound like they were underperforming. Likewise, Europeans may seem standoffish and aloof to new world types -- people outside their social circle -- because they are! Don't expect work and social circles to mesh. You might like to read: https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/ https://erinmeyer.com/books/the-culture-map/

codethief 5y ago

This. I hope I won't offend anyone here but there's a story that seems quite appropriate: When I was still living in the US, an acquaintance of mine once asked me, "So don't you think the United States are the best country in the world?" I was absolutely baffled. Putting aside for a moment that the US clearly did not rank "best" on so many scales, the question (to me, as a European) didn't even make much sense in the first place: What metric are we talking about? And what's the point of comparing countries on an absolute scale in the first place? No matter what metric we choose, it will never convey the full picture. Sure, I enjoyed living in the US. But I've also come to enjoy living in other countries over the years and I know there are many more that I would absolutely love to live in. In any case, I don't think it would even occur to a European to call their country "the best". Our continent's history is so complicated and riddled with grave mistakes, wars and crimes, that a claim that one country were "better" than the other would just seem… strange. Everyone here knows that their neighboring countries are at least as beautiful as their own and every place and every mentality has its pros and cons. Anyway, I ended up explaining my POV to said acquantaince and also said that, if he so insists on ranking countries in a such an absolute manner, then we would also have to talk about all those things in the US where there's still… room for improvement. We ended up having a long and fruitful discussion and he started agreeing with me (or so I thought) that the question might not make that much sense after all. Still, after an hour of discussing all this, he goes, in a very matter-of-fact way: "Everything you said is certainly correct. But I still think the US are the best country in the world." At this point the only explanation I had left was that he must have been brainwashed properly in school, pledging allegiance to the flag and so on. To the Americans reading this: Where do you think does this sense of "living in the best country in the world" come from? Where did you "learn" it? I'd really be interested in understanding this phenomenon better.

robbmorganf 5y ago
I'm an American who has lived overseas and I think I have a little more nuance than this, but overall I have the mindset you describe. I think it's kind of like the factoid that ~70-80% of people say they are better than average at driving. In particular, a healthy level of self esteem helps individuals to perform better because they are more confident and take advantage of more opportunities. And I think "USA is the best country" is a myth that creates the self-assuredness that makes Americans come off as "pushy" to everyone else. In many (but not all) businesses, a "pushy" strategy works well financially. So even though it seems illogical, it's not that attributes of America cause it to be "best", but that America thinking of itself as "best" causes it to have certain strategic attributes. Now, that said, many Americans have a totally unhealthy level of self-esteem that turns into nationalism, white supremacy or near-fascism. TBH I don't know how to deal with those people, but by my logic above it might be more successful to help them consider the impact of their beliefs rather than why their beliefs are wrong.

max_entropy 5y ago

The World's Best Pencil!