7 ms·

Europe can't do computers. This is bad for them, because foreign companies, who can do computers, make money in Europe and beat out the local competition. Not

Europe can't do computers. This is bad for them, because foreign companies, who can do computers, make money in Europe and beat out the local competition. Not this again. Europe fails on producing unicorn that grow by exploiting people's addictions (Facebook), externalizing cost (Uber, AirBnB). However, Europe does fine in computing. The chips in you cell phone and computer are most likely made with an eUV machine from ASML, it probably has a bunch of NXP chips in it too. Europe has huge business software companies like SAP. Europe also has plenty of unicorns, like Klarna, Spotify, Revolut, Mollie, Just Eat/Takeaway etc. You may not know about all of them, because they operate primarily in Europe, like there are also plenty of US unicorns that barely have any footing in Europe.

digging 4y ago
Americans tend to assume every successful tech company is founded in America. Whenever Ubisoft is in gaming news, there are always Americans surprised to learn they're French.
- pb7 4y ago
  Activision-Blizzard, Epic, Microsoft, Take-Two, Electronic Arts, and Sony (partially) are all American and have 10x the revenue. China and Japan are both ahead of EU as a whole.
  - digging 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - pb7 4y ago
      I disagree, I find it quite relevant that a larger population somehow has less than 1/10th of the market share in products they consume at an equal rate. One large successful company in a massive industry (video games) is nothing to be proud of when you have 450M people -- it is troubling.
      - digging 4y ago
        Ubisoft isn't the only large successful game company in the EU though. It was a single example. Yes, the US is undoubtedly ahead in that regard as they are in most tech. Japan is also famous for its video game industry. China is definitely one to be impressed with more than the EU in terms of emerging tech dominance [from a market that isn't a historical powerhouse in the way US and Japan are]. That doesn't mean the EU is "bad at computers" or that all tech companies are in the US, which is what I was responding to.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Ubisoft As an European I currently wouldn't be proud with Ubisoft.
  - digging 4y ago
    I'm not saying anyone should be. But they are a large successful tech company.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
      So Ubisoft is?
  - p_j_w 4y ago
    Activision-Blizzard, Epic, Microsoft, Take-Two, Electronic Arts, and Sony, as mentioned by the comment above you, aren't companies to be proud of, either.
- yesco 4y ago
  The European Union has 100 million more people living in it than the United States alone. You named a single video game studio. The European Union is far behind, it's both pitiful and unproductive to suggest otherwise. The reason American's are surprised to hear certain companies like Ubisoft are from the EU is because it's that uncommon, no one gets surprised when a company is Japanese.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - yesco 4y ago
      > Europe is kind of blind spot for most Americans. They don't understand separate countries. They are surprised they can't pay in dollars and that the wall sockets are weird. Absolute nonsense, what in the world led you to believing this? The average American has far more awareness of Europe than countries in South East Asia. That fact that Americans don't reciprocate the fanatical obsession Europeans tend to have with American current events & politics does not make them stupid like so many pretentious Europeans like to believe.
      - scotty79 4y ago
        https://www.rferl.org/a/1068259.html https://www.rferl.org/a/1068259.html
  - digging 4y ago
    I wasn't trying to create an exhaustive list. I was giving an example to support my point.
pb7 4y ago
>plenty of unicorns, like Klarna, Spotify, Revolut, Mollie, Just Eat/Takeaway Other than Spotify, most unicorns in Europe are copies of businesses first successfully pioneered in the US. PayPal first did digital payments in the 20th century.
- qayxc 4y ago
  Bad example - PayPal was the fruit of the (then) massively underdeveloped banking system in the US. Europe has SEPA and there was simply little to no need for something like PayPal. Whenever I hear that cheques are still in use in the US, I scratch my head, because outside of the UK I never used a cheque in my life.
  - amadeuspagel 4y ago
    PayPal is used a lot in europe[1]. Maybe the Wirecard scandal could have been avoided if only someone had explained that SEPA makes any kind of fintech obsolete. [1]: https://sifted.eu/articles/paypal-tops-european-downloads/ https://sifted.eu/articles/paypal-tops-european-downloads/
    - Woeps 4y ago
      Nobody really uses it tough... it just gets downloaded for those one in a life time transfers that go outside the EU
  - pb7 4y ago
    Why is PayPal so popular in Europe then?[0] Significantly more popular than even Visa/MasterCard directly it seems.[1] I didn't even know the extent of it until just now but this is very surprising. 80-90% market share across various major countries. [0] https://ecommercedb.com/news/paypal-usage-around-90-in-europe-and-the-u-s/3940 https://ecommercedb.com/news/paypal-usage-around-90-in-europ... [1] https://ecommercenews.eu/top-3-payment-methods-per-european-country/ https://ecommercenews.eu/top-3-payment-methods-per-european-...
    - 4y ago
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>Europe fails on producing unicorn that grow by exploiting people's addictions Not true, there's plenty of scummy dating apps for the German speaking market funded by Swiss and Bavarian VCs to exploit single lonely desperate men. European tech founders don't hold some holy moral high ground compared to the US ones. They can all be equally unscrupulous when it comes to making money. Does Wirecard ring any bells? >machine from ASML Not this again, if I had a biscuit crumb for every time the chip hipsters on HN mentioned ASML as an example of European tech dominance, I would have died from obesity several times over. The simple fact that Europeans can only name ASML (and SAP) every time when discussing EU tech dominance, speaks volumes that we actually don't have much of a tech industry relative to US. (I'm also European BTW) Short story: the only reason ASML won lithography and its competitors Canon and Nikon lost, is that US decided to license its domestic EUV tech From Sandia labs to ASML, and denied it to Canon and Nikon, purely because ASML acquired Silicon Valley Group Inc, US's leading lithography supplier at the time, giving ASML a strategic US presence on US soil, versus their Japanese competitors. Longer story: [1] >it probably has a bunch of NXP chips in it too NXP mostly makes relatively low margin chips. The margins US semi companies like Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Micron, Quallcomm, Broadcom make, dwarf NXP and EU semi makers by orders of magnitude. >Europe has huge business software companies like SAP Companies? That's plural. But you only listed one. Which other large business SW companies do we have? >like Klarna, Spotify, Revolut, Mollie, Just Eat/Takeaway etc. That's it? A music streaming service that's potentially unsustainable[2] and a bunch of local food delivery and scummy online payment apps nobody outside of EU has ever heard of? Where is EU's IBM? Or Oracle? Or iPhone? Or Android? Or Windows? Or Intel? Or AWS? Or Office365? Or Google? Or ChatGPT? Or Xbox? Or Steam? Or Netflix? Or Nvidia? Or AMD? You know, the big international money makers in the tech world, not some local EU ones that make peanuts. US's handful of top tech companies outmatch the EU's entire tech sector combined (including UK, Switzerland and Norway), both in market cap and sheer numbers. It's not even a competition. Or why did Linus Torvalds, Bjarne Stroustrup, Guido van Rossum or Andrej Karpathy move to the US to make their impacts in the tech world instead of staying in their native European countries and doing it here? Europe is basically completely absent in terms of raising international champions in SW and HW products and services, especially in the consumer facing market. Our strength is making innovations and start-ups that end up swallowed by US money/entities and relocated across the Atlantic in some Delaware holding where they flourish on US soil. A few local payment and food delivery apps doesn't tilt the balance much for us. Even India ca do those better. [1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDfNRWsMRsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDfNRWsMRsU
amadeuspagel 4y ago
It's funny that you mention AirBnB, because there were several well-funded german attempts to clone it[1][2]. But now that these failed, the grapes were always sour. [1]: https://www.eu-startups.com/2011/04/9flats-and-wimdu-the-german-clones-of-airbnb/ https://www.eu-startups.com/2011/04/9flats-and-wimdu-the-ger... [2]: https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/01/airbnb-buys-german-clone-accoleo-opens-first-european-office-in-hamburg/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/01/airbnb-buys-german-clone-a...
- Woeps 4y ago
  Now this is not an AirBnB clone, but booking.com is even scummier then AirBnB or those German-clones (don't know how big they're outside of Europe tough)
- the-anarchist 4y ago
  That has always been Europe's model. Lean back and wait to see what innovation establishes itself, then copycat it and get the copycat sold to the US original.
dash2 4y ago
I don't think this changes my argument, though it is an interesting point. (NB: I'm from the UK, so I know about these companies.) I still claim that Europe's record in software is far behind the US - even if you think some of those unicorns do bad stuff.
pvaldes 4y ago
Arduino and Raspberry PI were created in Europe also.
nxm 4y ago
Nokia/Siemens were replaced by Apple and Android (Google) In car tech is moving to being built on top of Android. Cloud computing-Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Sure Europe has some smaller companies, but it’s behind in tech and the reasons are: - regulations - bankruptcy laws, where US bankruptcy code encourages risk taking which is needed in a fast moving industry like tech

digging 4y ago

Americans tend to assume every successful tech company is founded in America. Whenever Ubisoft is in gaming news, there are always Americans surprised to learn they're French.

pb7 4y ago
Activision-Blizzard, Epic, Microsoft, Take-Two, Electronic Arts, and Sony (partially) are all American and have 10x the revenue. China and Japan are both ahead of EU as a whole.
- digging 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - pb7 4y ago
    I disagree, I find it quite relevant that a larger population somehow has less than 1/10th of the market share in products they consume at an equal rate. One large successful company in a massive industry (video games) is nothing to be proud of when you have 450M people -- it is troubling.
    - digging 4y ago
      Ubisoft isn't the only large successful game company in the EU though. It was a single example. Yes, the US is undoubtedly ahead in that regard as they are in most tech. Japan is also famous for its video game industry. China is definitely one to be impressed with more than the EU in terms of emerging tech dominance [from a market that isn't a historical powerhouse in the way US and Japan are]. That doesn't mean the EU is "bad at computers" or that all tech companies are in the US, which is what I was responding to.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>Ubisoft As an European I currently wouldn't be proud with Ubisoft.
- digging 4y ago
  I'm not saying anyone should be. But they are a large successful tech company.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    So Ubisoft is?
- p_j_w 4y ago
  Activision-Blizzard, Epic, Microsoft, Take-Two, Electronic Arts, and Sony, as mentioned by the comment above you, aren't companies to be proud of, either.
yesco 4y ago
The European Union has 100 million more people living in it than the United States alone. You named a single video game studio. The European Union is far behind, it's both pitiful and unproductive to suggest otherwise. The reason American's are surprised to hear certain companies like Ubisoft are from the EU is because it's that uncommon, no one gets surprised when a company is Japanese.
- scotty79 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - yesco 4y ago
    > Europe is kind of blind spot for most Americans. They don't understand separate countries. They are surprised they can't pay in dollars and that the wall sockets are weird. Absolute nonsense, what in the world led you to believing this? The average American has far more awareness of Europe than countries in South East Asia. That fact that Americans don't reciprocate the fanatical obsession Europeans tend to have with American current events & politics does not make them stupid like so many pretentious Europeans like to believe.
    - scotty79 4y ago
      https://www.rferl.org/a/1068259.html https://www.rferl.org/a/1068259.html
- digging 4y ago
  I wasn't trying to create an exhaustive list. I was giving an example to support my point.

pb7 4y ago

>plenty of unicorns, like Klarna, Spotify, Revolut, Mollie, Just Eat/Takeaway Other than Spotify, most unicorns in Europe are copies of businesses first successfully pioneered in the US. PayPal first did digital payments in the 20th century.

qayxc 4y ago
Bad example - PayPal was the fruit of the (then) massively underdeveloped banking system in the US. Europe has SEPA and there was simply little to no need for something like PayPal. Whenever I hear that cheques are still in use in the US, I scratch my head, because outside of the UK I never used a cheque in my life.
- amadeuspagel 4y ago
  PayPal is used a lot in europe[1]. Maybe the Wirecard scandal could have been avoided if only someone had explained that SEPA makes any kind of fintech obsolete. [1]: https://sifted.eu/articles/paypal-tops-european-downloads/ https://sifted.eu/articles/paypal-tops-european-downloads/
  - Woeps 4y ago
    Nobody really uses it tough... it just gets downloaded for those one in a life time transfers that go outside the EU
- pb7 4y ago
  Why is PayPal so popular in Europe then?[0] Significantly more popular than even Visa/MasterCard directly it seems.[1] I didn't even know the extent of it until just now but this is very surprising. 80-90% market share across various major countries. [0] https://ecommercedb.com/news/paypal-usage-around-90-in-europe-and-the-u-s/3940 https://ecommercedb.com/news/paypal-usage-around-90-in-europ... [1] https://ecommercenews.eu/top-3-payment-methods-per-european-country/ https://ecommercenews.eu/top-3-payment-methods-per-european-...
  - 4y ago

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

>Europe fails on producing unicorn that grow by exploiting people's addictions Not true, there's plenty of scummy dating apps for the German speaking market funded by Swiss and Bavarian VCs to exploit single lonely desperate men. European tech founders don't hold some holy moral high ground compared to the US ones. They can all be equally unscrupulous when it comes to making money. Does Wirecard ring any bells? >machine from ASML Not this again, if I had a biscuit crumb for every time the chip hipsters on HN mentioned ASML as an example of European tech dominance, I would have died from obesity several times over. The simple fact that Europeans can only name ASML (and SAP) every time when discussing EU tech dominance, speaks volumes that we actually don't have much of a tech industry relative to US. (I'm also European BTW) Short story: the only reason ASML won lithography and its competitors Canon and Nikon lost, is that US decided to license its domestic EUV tech From Sandia labs to ASML, and denied it to Canon and Nikon, purely because ASML acquired Silicon Valley Group Inc, US's leading lithography supplier at the time, giving ASML a strategic US presence on US soil, versus their Japanese competitors. Longer story: [1] >it probably has a bunch of NXP chips in it too NXP mostly makes relatively low margin chips. The margins US semi companies like Nvidia, Intel, AMD, Micron, Quallcomm, Broadcom make, dwarf NXP and EU semi makers by orders of magnitude. >Europe has huge business software companies like SAP Companies? That's plural. But you only listed one. Which other large business SW companies do we have? >like Klarna, Spotify, Revolut, Mollie, Just Eat/Takeaway etc. That's it? A music streaming service that's potentially unsustainable[2] and a bunch of local food delivery and scummy online payment apps nobody outside of EU has ever heard of? Where is EU's IBM? Or Oracle? Or iPhone? Or Android? Or Windows? Or Intel? Or AWS? Or Office365? Or Google? Or ChatGPT? Or Xbox? Or Steam? Or Netflix? Or Nvidia? Or AMD? You know, the big international money makers in the tech world, not some local EU ones that make peanuts. US's handful of top tech companies outmatch the EU's entire tech sector combined (including UK, Switzerland and Norway), both in market cap and sheer numbers. It's not even a competition. Or why did Linus Torvalds, Bjarne Stroustrup, Guido van Rossum or Andrej Karpathy move to the US to make their impacts in the tech world instead of staying in their native European countries and doing it here? Europe is basically completely absent in terms of raising international champions in SW and HW products and services, especially in the consumer facing market. Our strength is making innovations and start-ups that end up swallowed by US money/entities and relocated across the Atlantic in some Delaware holding where they flourish on US soil. A few local payment and food delivery apps doesn't tilt the balance much for us. Even India ca do those better. [1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65642319 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDfNRWsMRsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDfNRWsMRsU

amadeuspagel 4y ago

It's funny that you mention AirBnB, because there were several well-funded german attempts to clone it[1][2]. But now that these failed, the grapes were always sour. [1]: https://www.eu-startups.com/2011/04/9flats-and-wimdu-the-german-clones-of-airbnb/ https://www.eu-startups.com/2011/04/9flats-and-wimdu-the-ger... [2]: https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/01/airbnb-buys-german-clone-accoleo-opens-first-european-office-in-hamburg/ https://techcrunch.com/2011/06/01/airbnb-buys-german-clone-a...

Woeps 4y ago
Now this is not an AirBnB clone, but booking.com is even scummier then AirBnB or those German-clones (don't know how big they're outside of Europe tough)
the-anarchist 4y ago
That has always been Europe's model. Lean back and wait to see what innovation establishes itself, then copycat it and get the copycat sold to the US original.

dash2 4y ago

I don't think this changes my argument, though it is an interesting point. (NB: I'm from the UK, so I know about these companies.) I still claim that Europe's record in software is far behind the US - even if you think some of those unicorns do bad stuff.

pvaldes 4y ago

Arduino and Raspberry PI were created in Europe also.

nxm 4y ago

Nokia/Siemens were replaced by Apple and Android (Google) In car tech is moving to being built on top of Android. Cloud computing-Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Sure Europe has some smaller companies, but it’s behind in tech and the reasons are: - regulations - bankruptcy laws, where US bankruptcy code encourages risk taking which is needed in a fast moving industry like tech