3 ms·

If you look at who innovates in the "hardware" space, it's often not US companies. I mean worldwide manufacturing is build around machines build and designed in

If you look at who innovates in the "hardware" space, it's often not US companies. I mean worldwide manufacturing is build around machines build and designed in Germany for example. I think what SC is particularly good at is growing very quickly to immense scale, because there is so much money floating around. That is also the reason why they put this into software, because the risks and timescales are much shorter. In hardware you likely have to put in years of R&D before you might see a RoI. In software that goes much quicker and because evaluation is based on "reach" you don't really need to make a profit, you just need to develop enough reach that someone else will pay you back your investment. Often much of the startup scene especially in software seems like a giant ponzi scheme, i.e. you never actually need to make a profitable business, it's always just about selling to the next investor at a higher price (see Uber for example).

nkmnz 5y ago
Germany is a relatively free country, especially if you compare the last 50 years of economic policy to it’s neighbors such as France or the GDR. While the latter example is self evident, the former has a long history of governmental mandated innovation as well - did not ensure a lot of competitiveness...
- cycomanic 5y ago
  If you think France is not a free country and does not have a lot of innovation, you need to do some serious reading. France is the 3rd largest economy in Europe, has essentially the same GDP per capita as Canada (slightly below Germany).
  - nkmnz 5y ago
    The issue seems to be in the term “relatively”. I never said France was an unfree or poor country. I just said that Frances policies _in the past_ were heavily in favor of huge national corporations. Even though Germany had to adopt the GDR, it’s GDP per capita is >18% higher than Frances. Edit: sorry, the ussr commented was someone else.

nkmnz 5y ago

Germany is a relatively free country, especially if you compare the last 50 years of economic policy to it’s neighbors such as France or the GDR. While the latter example is self evident, the former has a long history of governmental mandated innovation as well - did not ensure a lot of competitiveness...

cycomanic 5y ago
If you think France is not a free country and does not have a lot of innovation, you need to do some serious reading. France is the 3rd largest economy in Europe, has essentially the same GDP per capita as Canada (slightly below Germany).
- nkmnz 5y ago
  The issue seems to be in the term “relatively”. I never said France was an unfree or poor country. I just said that Frances policies _in the past_ were heavily in favor of huge national corporations. Even though Germany had to adopt the GDR, it’s GDP per capita is >18% higher than Frances. Edit: sorry, the ussr commented was someone else.