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Excellent essay, particularly like the dive into cultural differences, citizens relationship with state, employees relationship with employers, which alongside

Excellent essay, particularly like the dive into cultural differences, citizens relationship with state, employees relationship with employers, which alongside the more stringent regulations and weaker investment appetite are significant factors to explain the original claim. Two observations, to add to the discussion: Firstly, Europe does indeed innovate, but perhaps cannot scale as fast Chinese companies can with their massive internal market, or as fast as US companies can with their global reach. What seems to happen is European tech firms relocate to the US, or get bought out by US companies (Skype etc). Of course, European founders often relocate to the US at very early stage, so those companies in effect 'become' US companies even though founded by European founders. Secondly, Europe has been highly Americanised over the past two decades; the Internet is a powerful cultural propagator - and it is a US internet. US ideas, concepts, values being readily adopted by European tech culture, and propagated throughout European society. The net effect of this, is that the cultural barriers to US tech adoption are close to zero at the consumer level - every website looks the same, every app follows the same UX etc. Contrast this with tech from East Asia, or India - there is a jarring difference. Hence, European tech companies are in direct competition with more mature, better financed, faster moving US tech equivalents and inevitably get swept aside, unless they can add unique value alongside their innovative service.

YorkshireSeason 4y ago
> Europe has been highly Americanised This is very true and also very interesting. One underappreciated effect of this is the speed of diffusion of ideas originating in the US. Generalising and simplifying a great deal, it takes a couple of years, maybe 2-3 for an idea to become normalised in English speaking European countries, and then another few years before the idea becomes normalised in the non-English speaking countries. This has the effect that Europeans are always late to the party and that hampers competitiveness, b/c the US and China have already moved on. A really amusing instance is EU research funding. Cloud computing became a EU-fundable research theme when Amazon had commercialised AWS already.
- hunglee2 4y ago
  yes, indeed, the cultural exchange is broadly mono-directional. I think both Americans and Europeans are generally unaware of this phenomenon, but basically US is making the future values, habits and behaviours Europeans hold, so US companies will not only inevitably be ahead, but also have a decisive lead if / when a European competitor emerges. US internet is producing cultural convergence in Europe, with the 'centre' being Silicon Valley / New York, and the periphery being everywhere else

YorkshireSeason 4y ago

> Europe has been highly Americanised This is very true and also very interesting. One underappreciated effect of this is the speed of diffusion of ideas originating in the US. Generalising and simplifying a great deal, it takes a couple of years, maybe 2-3 for an idea to become normalised in English speaking European countries, and then another few years before the idea becomes normalised in the non-English speaking countries. This has the effect that Europeans are always late to the party and that hampers competitiveness, b/c the US and China have already moved on. A really amusing instance is EU research funding. Cloud computing became a EU-fundable research theme when Amazon had commercialised AWS already.

hunglee2 4y ago
yes, indeed, the cultural exchange is broadly mono-directional. I think both Americans and Europeans are generally unaware of this phenomenon, but basically US is making the future values, habits and behaviours Europeans hold, so US companies will not only inevitably be ahead, but also have a decisive lead if / when a European competitor emerges. US internet is producing cultural convergence in Europe, with the 'centre' being Silicon Valley / New York, and the periphery being everywhere else