16 ms·

>Being comfortable makes you less risk-averse, even lazy Do you mean more risk-averse? Anyway, to comment on this point. Non-Europeans, get quite a few things

>Being comfortable makes you less risk-averse, even lazy Do you mean more risk-averse? Anyway, to comment on this point. Non-Europeans, get quite a few things mixed up. >We all joke on here about Europe with its 6-8 weeks of vacation, 35 hour work weeks, universal health care and a year of maternity of leave to some extent. The bigger problem is two-fold and has to do with your second point: 1. Europeans have very set schedules, which has only started to erode with younger generations. Summer for vacation. Evening and weekend for relaxation. Weekdays for work. This encompasses almost every hour of a person's life, each year. If you have an idea you can execute alone and deviate from this pattern, great. If you don't and need someone else, good luck finding like-minded people, as you're already a very unique individual. If you can somehow accumulate enough wealth or get an investment, you could hire people instead. Yet, that's tough for younger people to do, and older people will slowly settle in their ways. Also, related to point 1, Europeans typically don't venture very far away from their childhood friends and family unlike Americans having no qualms uprooting their past lives. 2. Europeans don't universally have 6-8 weeks of vacation and 35 hour work weeks. Most of the younger middle class or upper middle class is likely to work 40h weeks and has 3-4 weeks of vacation, as well as some loose mandatory holidays. Loose mandatory holidays kinda suck to work with for bigger projects, at best you can weave them together with your PTO. Even working 32h weeks, which a lot of Europeans started doing, still leaves your head with the job 4 out of 7 days and mentally complex things require pretty big context shifts. The structure of this free time is more positioned as "regular bigger breaks from work" rather than "now I can take time off from my job for a long time and focus on my own stuff". Either way, nothing beats just taking a year off to work on yourself or your own ideas.

cletus 5y ago
> Do you mean more risk-averse? I do. Thanks. Corrected. > Europeans have very set schedules That's another way of describing conformity, in this case to cultural norms. The best way I can describe it is like this: in the UK (and the US), the default position is that things are allowed unless they're specifically forbidden. In continental Europe, it's the reverse: everything is disallowed unless it's specifically permitted. This was evident to me from the time that I lived in Germany and Switzerland at least. Disruptive businesses aren't created by conformists.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I wonder about the UK. When I created my business I started by contracting and using the inevitable downtime to get my products off the ground. Thanks to IR35 I would find that very difficult now. Then you have stuff like workplace pensions which are an administrative mine field.
- mnouquet 5y ago
  > The best way I can describe it is like this: in the UK (and the US), the default position is that things are allowed unless they're specifically forbidden. In continental Europe, it's the reverse: everything is disallowed unless it's specifically permitted. Only in rural North America, otherwise, everybody has the mentality as the Europeans. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree. Europeans don't know the meaning of the word "Freedom". The only difference with the Uber and such is that people have no fear to break the Law.
tester756 5y ago
> Loose mandatory holidays kinda suck to work with for bigger projects, at best you can weave them together with your PTO. those are like a few days per year it's maybe relevant once or twice a year >Even working 32h weeks, which a lot of Europeans started doing ? first time I hear about this in Eastern EU

cletus 5y ago

> Do you mean more risk-averse? I do. Thanks. Corrected. > Europeans have very set schedules That's another way of describing conformity, in this case to cultural norms. The best way I can describe it is like this: in the UK (and the US), the default position is that things are allowed unless they're specifically forbidden. In continental Europe, it's the reverse: everything is disallowed unless it's specifically permitted. This was evident to me from the time that I lived in Germany and Switzerland at least. Disruptive businesses aren't created by conformists.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I wonder about the UK. When I created my business I started by contracting and using the inevitable downtime to get my products off the ground. Thanks to IR35 I would find that very difficult now. Then you have stuff like workplace pensions which are an administrative mine field.
mnouquet 5y ago
> The best way I can describe it is like this: in the UK (and the US), the default position is that things are allowed unless they're specifically forbidden. In continental Europe, it's the reverse: everything is disallowed unless it's specifically permitted. Only in rural North America, otherwise, everybody has the mentality as the Europeans. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly agree. Europeans don't know the meaning of the word "Freedom". The only difference with the Uber and such is that people have no fear to break the Law.

tester756 5y ago

> Loose mandatory holidays kinda suck to work with for bigger projects, at best you can weave them together with your PTO. those are like a few days per year it's maybe relevant once or twice a year >Even working 32h weeks, which a lot of Europeans started doing ? first time I hear about this in Eastern EU