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> So why does Europe have such hard time popping new software ventures like the US? Because people in Europe still largely believe that a business should be an

> So why does Europe have such hard time popping new software ventures like the US? Because people in Europe still largely believe that a business should be an actual business. You know, operating and bringing profit. Unlike the US where nearly every single "unicorn" can lose billions of dollars a year for over a decade, never see a profit, and still be lauded as a successful business.

chrisseaton 5y ago
Yeah those people earning half a million at Uber in the US are the real fools here, right? /s
- dmitriid 5y ago
  I never said anything about people working at Uber. However, Uber as a company has so far lost over 20 billion dollars and only turned a profit once. Yup. A very successful and sustainable business.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > only turned a profit once I don’t understand - what do you think is the problem with this? What exactly is wrong there? They aren’t spending your money, or tax payer money. They’re doing nothing but pumping money into workers’ hands and the economy, creating thousands of skilled jobs. It’s currently a massive wealth-redistribution system. Why are you sarcastically turning your nose up at it, based on some accounting metric, that doesn’t even involve or effect you? Why don’t we want this in Europe?
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      > They’re doing nothing but pumping money into workers’ hands and the economy They are not really pumping that money into workers and economy given how they don't want to spend any money on drivers. > Why are you sarcastically turning your nose up at it, based on some accounting metric It's not "some accounting metric". The measure of a successful business is whether it can support itself. And not if it can siphon unlimited investor money for a decade. > Why don’t we want this in Europe? Because those 20 billion dollars are better spent on actual businesses.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        > They are not really pumping that money into workers and economy Uber pays thousands of engineers hundreds of thousands of dollars. They all live and spend in their local communities. > The measure of a successful business is whether it can support itself. Well this is the major difference - in the US they’re happy to invest and work for the long term, not short-term profits. > Because those 20 billion dollars are better spent on actual businesses. Why do you care or have an opinion on where someone else invests their money? I’ve had to work my whole career for North American companies because European ones can’t even begin to compete. It’s madness to say Europe is better off with our bargain basement tech sector.
        dmitriid 5y ago
        > Uber pays thousands of engineers hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not even close to "thousands of engineers". It's ~23k employees, not engineers. The absolute vast majority of its employees are not engineers. And their salaries are of course laughable. It's barely median U.S. salary for employees, and below median for drivers [1] So much for "investing in economy", "pumping money into workers’ hands" and other bullshit. It's a yet another unbelievably unprofitable American "unicorn" driving wages down and passing all costs onto its employees. > Well this is the major difference - in the US they’re happy to invest and work for the long term, not short-term profits. 10 years and loss of 20 billion dollars is not "working for the long term". > Why do you care or have an opinion on where someone else invests their money? Ah yes. I'm not allowed to have an opinion. It's not as good of an argument as you think it is > I’ve had to work my whole career for North American companies Good for you. It's still not as good as argument as you think it is. [1] https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Uber/salaries https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Uber/salaries
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        > It's not even close to "thousands of engineers". Uber was up to 2000 engineers as early as 2016.
        5y ago
- perceptronas 5y ago
  To be fair, Uber in EU pays local market rates. This means that salary difference between senior developers you mentioned and EU ones is 8-10x
  - comp_throw7 5y ago
    Per levels.fyi, Uber pays senior engineers in the Netherlands ~180k/year. That's a difference of ~2x compared to the US, and is pretty much top-of-market for the region. If by "local market rates" you mean "slightly more than the best-paying native tech companies", then sure.
    - perceptronas 5y ago
      I stand corrected, I never talked to Uber in Netherlands. Honestly I never even saw an ad in EU for more than 150k/year
- native_samples 5y ago
  It's great for employees, for now at least. The question is what happens if/when it stops being sustainable. It's not so easy to adjust from those sorts of salaries downwards. The endless flow of VC money into absurd startups with no business plan worth a damn is caused by groupthink and extremely bad monetary policy by supposedly "independent" central banks. They aren't really independent of course, they're creatures of government and politicians can reign them in any time they want. Why would they do so? Inflation. Bubbles. The sort of problems that have occurred repeatedly throughout history. And what happens when they respond by raising interest rates and ceasing to buy up all the low risk debt instruments? Well, suddenly boring but profitable businesses become useful to invest in again because they pay out dividends and the like. That in turn leads to a sucking sound as money flows out of the venture and equity markets, which makes it harder for those businesses to buy up all the talent, trashes the returns offered by VC funds and makes "sell $1 for $0.90" type business models unsustainable. Fundamentally, the salaries we earn now from US firms may not be reflective of the value we're actually creating. They may be partially an artifact of money printing. Of course, the Eurozone prints money up the wazoo too so I'm not saying that in relative terms EU/US programmer salaries will get closer just that the very high salaries and proliferation of zombie fake businesses may go away.
  - jason0597 5y ago
    I agree with you except for one thing: > Of course, the Eurozone prints money up the wazoo too I disagree that the ECB prints as much money as you say. Sure we have had ridiculous amounts of "quantitative easing", but this has been nowhere near as bad as it has been in the US. The frugal EU countries (Germany, Netherlands, Austria, etc.) always keep a leash on the ECB.
native_samples 5y ago
Yes has to be a big part of it. I can feel it myself. I am very reluctant to create a money losing business. It is a deep-seated fear (I'm creating a new business at the moment). Where I got this from, parents, culture, common sense, whatever, doesn't really matter. I would not personally feel successful if I had created Uber, I'd just feel stressed and kind of a fraud. End of story. So for my new business I'm not getting VC funding even though I know some VCs and they made it clear I could get money from them. I want to build a real business that is actually sustainable on its own terms. This will inevitably limit my reach and likely means I won't create a "tech company", but I've made my peace with that.

chrisseaton 5y ago

Yeah those people earning half a million at Uber in the US are the real fools here, right? /s

dmitriid 5y ago
I never said anything about people working at Uber. However, Uber as a company has so far lost over 20 billion dollars and only turned a profit once. Yup. A very successful and sustainable business.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > only turned a profit once I don’t understand - what do you think is the problem with this? What exactly is wrong there? They aren’t spending your money, or tax payer money. They’re doing nothing but pumping money into workers’ hands and the economy, creating thousands of skilled jobs. It’s currently a massive wealth-redistribution system. Why are you sarcastically turning your nose up at it, based on some accounting metric, that doesn’t even involve or effect you? Why don’t we want this in Europe?
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > They’re doing nothing but pumping money into workers’ hands and the economy They are not really pumping that money into workers and economy given how they don't want to spend any money on drivers. > Why are you sarcastically turning your nose up at it, based on some accounting metric It's not "some accounting metric". The measure of a successful business is whether it can support itself. And not if it can siphon unlimited investor money for a decade. > Why don’t we want this in Europe? Because those 20 billion dollars are better spent on actual businesses.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > They are not really pumping that money into workers and economy Uber pays thousands of engineers hundreds of thousands of dollars. They all live and spend in their local communities. > The measure of a successful business is whether it can support itself. Well this is the major difference - in the US they’re happy to invest and work for the long term, not short-term profits. > Because those 20 billion dollars are better spent on actual businesses. Why do you care or have an opinion on where someone else invests their money? I’ve had to work my whole career for North American companies because European ones can’t even begin to compete. It’s madness to say Europe is better off with our bargain basement tech sector.
      - dmitriid 5y ago
        > Uber pays thousands of engineers hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not even close to "thousands of engineers". It's ~23k employees, not engineers. The absolute vast majority of its employees are not engineers. And their salaries are of course laughable. It's barely median U.S. salary for employees, and below median for drivers [1] So much for "investing in economy", "pumping money into workers’ hands" and other bullshit. It's a yet another unbelievably unprofitable American "unicorn" driving wages down and passing all costs onto its employees. > Well this is the major difference - in the US they’re happy to invest and work for the long term, not short-term profits. 10 years and loss of 20 billion dollars is not "working for the long term". > Why do you care or have an opinion on where someone else invests their money? Ah yes. I'm not allowed to have an opinion. It's not as good of an argument as you think it is > I’ve had to work my whole career for North American companies Good for you. It's still not as good as argument as you think it is. [1] https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Uber/salaries https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Uber/salaries
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        > It's not even close to "thousands of engineers". Uber was up to 2000 engineers as early as 2016.
        5y ago
perceptronas 5y ago
To be fair, Uber in EU pays local market rates. This means that salary difference between senior developers you mentioned and EU ones is 8-10x
- comp_throw7 5y ago
  Per levels.fyi, Uber pays senior engineers in the Netherlands ~180k/year. That's a difference of ~2x compared to the US, and is pretty much top-of-market for the region. If by "local market rates" you mean "slightly more than the best-paying native tech companies", then sure.
  - perceptronas 5y ago
    I stand corrected, I never talked to Uber in Netherlands. Honestly I never even saw an ad in EU for more than 150k/year
native_samples 5y ago
It's great for employees, for now at least. The question is what happens if/when it stops being sustainable. It's not so easy to adjust from those sorts of salaries downwards. The endless flow of VC money into absurd startups with no business plan worth a damn is caused by groupthink and extremely bad monetary policy by supposedly "independent" central banks. They aren't really independent of course, they're creatures of government and politicians can reign them in any time they want. Why would they do so? Inflation. Bubbles. The sort of problems that have occurred repeatedly throughout history. And what happens when they respond by raising interest rates and ceasing to buy up all the low risk debt instruments? Well, suddenly boring but profitable businesses become useful to invest in again because they pay out dividends and the like. That in turn leads to a sucking sound as money flows out of the venture and equity markets, which makes it harder for those businesses to buy up all the talent, trashes the returns offered by VC funds and makes "sell $1 for $0.90" type business models unsustainable. Fundamentally, the salaries we earn now from US firms may not be reflective of the value we're actually creating. They may be partially an artifact of money printing. Of course, the Eurozone prints money up the wazoo too so I'm not saying that in relative terms EU/US programmer salaries will get closer just that the very high salaries and proliferation of zombie fake businesses may go away.
- jason0597 5y ago
  I agree with you except for one thing: > Of course, the Eurozone prints money up the wazoo too I disagree that the ECB prints as much money as you say. Sure we have had ridiculous amounts of "quantitative easing", but this has been nowhere near as bad as it has been in the US. The frugal EU countries (Germany, Netherlands, Austria, etc.) always keep a leash on the ECB.

native_samples 5y ago

Yes has to be a big part of it. I can feel it myself. I am very reluctant to create a money losing business. It is a deep-seated fear (I'm creating a new business at the moment). Where I got this from, parents, culture, common sense, whatever, doesn't really matter. I would not personally feel successful if I had created Uber, I'd just feel stressed and kind of a fraud. End of story. So for my new business I'm not getting VC funding even though I know some VCs and they made it clear I could get money from them. I want to build a real business that is actually sustainable on its own terms. This will inevitably limit my reach and likely means I won't create a "tech company", but I've made my peace with that.