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Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? Not a fan of enormously big companies, but at least

Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? Not a fan of enormously big companies, but at least the U.S. has the likes of Amazon, Tesla, and Microsoft offering much utility. LVMH, on the other hand, is Europe’s most valuable company? What a sore lack of innovation…I’m not even surprised because it’s from the continent that still has a lot of kings and queens (albeit ceremonial)…still doesn’t change my mind because I believe royals are the biggest grifters on earth.

brnt 4y ago
I agree with what you are saying, but overrating is imnsho absolutely why Big Tech is valued at what it is. Magical thinking, signalling isn't exclusive to our outward appearance.
- _hypx 4y ago
  No kidding. At this moment, Meta is still more highly valued than LVMH.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    Because it still shovels massive amount of advertisements, for products like LVMH makes to a huge amount of eyeballs.
Thaxll 4y ago
So it's worse than FANG spying on customers and taking privacy data as a joke?
- joenot443 4y ago
  I think what most people were hoping for was a tech company of FAANG relevance for Europe which is representative of some of the values and lifestyle directions that Europeans are so proud of here. You have to admit, if you told someone in 1923 that 100 years from now, by far the most relevant technology companies will all American or Asian, they’d be a bit surprised.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    > if you told someone in 1923 that 100 years from now, by far the most relevant technology companies will all American or Asian, they’d be a bit surprised. If you told them that the war which ended five years previously would be repeated, except with greater destructive capability, resulting in the flattening of much of Europe leaving tens of millions of its citizens dead or displaced, while at the same time the Washington Naval Treaty being signed in 1923 ultimately failed to contain the Japanese entering the technological arms race, they might be less surprised about that outcome. (because I checked: several of the ships involved in Pearl Harbor on both sides were either in service or under construction in 1923) I'd be very much interested to see if it's possible to compare the wealth gap and the lifestyle gap between the US and Europe to see what its peaks and troughs are over time. It was probably at its widest during the Eisenhower administration.
nologic01 4y ago
Europe today seems to be exhausted and resigned to an obscure sideshow. Its material infrastructure outsourced to China/Asia and its digital infrastructure outsourced to the US. There is no shortage of talent ofcourse, but there is no system to tap it in meaningful and future-oriented ways.
- rickdeckard 4y ago
  True. I believe it shows the weakness in the political landscape of Europe, as many innovative EU-Companies grow first and foremost by supplying big companies in US/Asia. "Hitting the ground running" with a own launch in Europe is almost impossible due to lack of structural support, investor-mindset and language/market differences. I believe a stronger unification would be needed, but unfortunately there's no sign of improvement, as like in US the political trend in EU is for countries to become MORE nationalist instead of embracing a European Union...
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    I have often thought that the EU is the sleeping giant of world politics if only they could manage to get behind a shared identity as Western Europeans. Unfortunately it seems like you need major galvanizing trauma like a major war to drive disparate tribes of people together like that, and it only seems to last as long as it takes for the population a few generations later to forget that bonding event and revert to typical tribal squabbling (see American politics).
    - mongol 4y ago
      The "problem" (not really a problem in my opinion, but the main contributing circumstance) is that we all speak different languages. We can all communicate with each other using a few common languages but the majority have another native language than English. I don't think true identity-building can happen because of this. We will remain as we are, able to communicate but with distinct nationalities and identities. Not neccessarily a problem, just the way it is.
- brnt 4y ago
raverbashing 4y ago
And you think a company scales to this size without any internal (or visible) innovation?
- boeingUH60 4y ago
  Really innovative to sell bags with LV plastered all over the place and those fancy champagnes.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    Yes and the bags magically appear at stores, they don't need a supply chain, a manufacturing facility, a logistics supplier, a design office, etc Innovation is not only the latest js platform or the latest tiktok clone launched
- speed_spread 4y ago
  I believe those luxury brands inflated market value is mostly the result of sophisticated money laundering operations by European organized crime. Once you detach an object's value from it's utility and production costs, there's no limit to how much profit you can claim from it. That's a very nice feature if you're looking to reintroduce dirty money into the system.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    Interesting assumption, note the US is its biggest market (scroll down) https://www.lvmh.com/investors/profile/financial-indicators/#activite https://www.lvmh.com/investors/profile/financial-indicators/...
HopenHeyHi 4y ago
> Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? French top 4 are: - lvmh $496b - Loreal $256b - Hermes $232b - Dior $172b https://companiesmarketcap.com/france/largest-companies-in-france-by-market-cap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/france/largest-companies-in-f... #9 is EssilorLuxottica (sunglasses), and #11 is a clothing brand. If this sort of Fashion ever goes out of style does that whole country go bankrupt? I fear what the unstoppable and inevitable ascendance of Balenciaga might do to the French. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE39q-IKOzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE39q-IKOzA
- boeingUH60 4y ago
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- Xixi 4y ago
  One of the biggest industry in France is aerospace (might even be the biggest, not by market cap but by revenue/people employed), and yet Airbus (not only French of course, also German, Spanish, etc.) is headquartered in the Netherlands. Car maker Stellantis (far from being only French, maybe mostly Italian?) is also headquartered in the Netherlands. Neither are particularly dutch as far as I know. I wonder to what extent the list you link to is affected by French companies moving their headquarters to the Netherlands (or sometimes Luxembourg). Either directly, or while merging with other European companies... Netherlands are a little bit like the European Delaware in that regard... And would you exclude Delaware corps when looking at New York or California?
  - HopenHeyHi 4y ago
    Safran is on this list. Airbus is listed under Netherlands, fair point. > I wonder to what extent the list you link to is affected by French companies moving their headquarters to the Netherlands (or sometimes Luxembourg). Either directly, or while merging with other European companies... Well, cross reference the lists and you tell me. https://companiesmarketcap.com/netherlands/largest-companies-in-the-netherlands-by-market-cap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/netherlands/largest-companies... Stellantis, Airbus, anyone else?
rayiner 4y ago
Blame France, with its four most valuable companies being in the frivolity business: https://companiesmarketcap.com/european-union/largest-companies-in-the-eu-by-market-cap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/european-union/largest-compan... Don’t blame the Dutch (ASML), Swiss (Novo Nordisk), Germans (SAP), etc.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  Blame no one. The frivolity business means nothing. They are luxury companies making luxury goods at the corresponding very high level of quality and with the know how to market it properly. As they say, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. For a community constantly bragging about its cleverness, HN can be surprisingly narrow minded and immature sometimes. France has its fair share of large industrial companies by the way.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Blame France, with its four most valuable companies being in the frivolity business What? What about Airbus (not fully French of course), Stellantis, Renault, Faurecia, OVH, Scaleway, STMicro, Doctolib? Just because what markets valuate luxury goods the most doesn't invalidate the existence and innovation of other sectors.
  - bionsystem 4y ago
    You could add Dassault Systèmes, Schneider, Safran, Thalès, Dassault Aviation (best fighter plane in the world, sorry Lockheed Martin...), etc...
- arethuza 4y ago
  Personally I'd rather work on "frivolity" than selling ads!
- palsecam 4y ago
  Novo Nordisk is Danish, not Swiss. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Nordisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Nordisk
- 4y ago
dtech 4y ago
Europe has ASML, without which literally no modern chips could be made. It seems like quite a mistake to equal market cap with importance or innovation.
sofixa 4y ago
> Not a fan of enormously big companies, but at least the U.S. has the likes of Amazon, Tesla, and Microsoft offering much utility. Tesla is (in)famously overvalued. Their market cap is higher than most other car manufacturers (pumping out many times more vehicles than Tesla is), most of whom have caught up on EVs (is Toyota the only big manufacturer still lagging on EVs? I think they are). It's purely the brand of their CEO which is of course floundering because he's incapable of keeping his mouth shut and first comer advantage, and both of those are disappearing fast. Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google have real utility, true, and they're huge, all across the world. > What a sore lack of innovation That's the wrong way of looking at things IMO. Just because the biggest companies are old and in non-tech niches doesn't mean there's no innovation. You can't seriously claim that companies such as VW Group, Stellantis, Airbus don't innovate? Let alone the smaller star/scale-ups (just a few French examples: BackMarket, Doctolib, Ornikar). There's plenty of innovation, it just isn't what's best valued and highest earning. A French innovating startup first has to capture the French market, then expand to neighbouring countries (of course that means legal and translating challenges at the very least) to be able to become big enough for those huge valuations. An American one is starting with a much bigger market to be able to capture, so of course a French innovator will be lagging in terms of global market share and valuation; that doesn't make them any less innovative though. As a small example, Doctolib have practically revolutionised doctor's appointments in France and are exporting the model to other countries. Innovating in the healthcare space is very difficult due to a variety of reasons (highly sensitive data, lots of incumbents, doctors don't necessarily want to have any tech involved any more than necessary) but they did it with great tech.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Tesla has a P/E ratio of 50 and annual earnings growth rate of 75%. It's hard to argue that's overvalued. Due to the reduction in CO2, NOx and SOx, it is estimated that Tesla has prevented over 100,000 premature deaths. OTOH, Google & Meta are advertising companies. I question their utility to the world.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > Tesla has a P/E ratio of 50 and annual earnings growth rate of 75%. It's hard to argue that's overvalued. VW Group has had a 5 year maximum P/E ratio of 20.69; for Stellantis it's 4.11 (but they're less than 2 years old). True that Tesla is seeing some very good revenue growth, 51% for 2022 compared to 2021. But that revenue is at $86 billion, meanwhile VW Group are at $307 billion. It is flat out ridiculous how overpriced Tesla are, nothing justifies them having a higher market cap than say VW Group.
j_maffe 4y ago
What does this have anything to do with kings or queens? Pretty much none of the EU countries' royalty have any cultural significance anymore. On the other hand, you have the US where the billionaires rule the earth and get to do whatever the fucking feel like. Those are the real grifters.
EdwardDiego 4y ago
Teslas aren't overpriced vanity products?
pjc50 4y ago
I'm used to people on here saying "lol europe doesn't make anything", came to comment "look at all this manufacturing happening", and apparently a $500bn business it doesn't count because it's not thing that HN likes? Isn't that also a bit sad? Isn't the measure of market cap more a measure of how much one company monopolizes? Compared to an environment of, say, German "mittelstand" medium-sized companies (which don't count, apparently?) Note also that LVMH are one of the places selling into China, rather than the other way round. Got to recycle those dollars somehow.
- dukeyukey 4y ago
  Especially since EU manufacturing output is significantly bigger than US output.
- HDThoreaun 4y ago
  I wouldn't call luxury good sales "manufacturing", more like "look at all this branding happening" since that's where the vast majority of the value is created.
albertopv 4y ago
Well, one could say that Apple sells overpriced luxury items... And look at the pile of money FAAMG are making, also their products are extremely overpriced. Running stuff on AWS may even considered a luxury by many. I'm joking, but not entirely.
IceHegel 4y ago
I suspect Europe’s economy would be larger if it had more real kings and queens. Its share of global output peaked under that system. On the other hand their democracy feels strained and exhausted, which is not helped by the contingent being a US protectorate. Frankly, I’m not sure why people ignore Aristotle’s idea that the monarch is the people’s best defense against aristocracy/oligarchy.
chimprich 4y ago
It's difficult for a European company to compete with US tech giants due to the difference in capital. They just get bought up if they're very successful. For example, DeepMind: started in the UK, but acquired by Google. I would say that's a an example of an innovative company, but how are they ever going to grow as big as a US tech giant? On the other hand, the US tech giants are headquartered in the US, but are very much multinationals, with people working for them across the world.
- majikaja 4y ago
  >For example, DeepMind: started in the UK, but acquired by Google. This company was profitable?
gumby 4y ago
> Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? I used to think this way but no longer do. I mean, the point of being people is to do people things. The point of trying to fix the climate is so people can keep on doing stuff they want (the planet doesn’t care). And so on. Now indeed, I think ppl should stop doing things that hurt others, but $1,500 scarves aren’t that harmful. And leather is an awful material for most applications these days so these people just hurt themselves :-). If I were to make a list of useless activities that could safely vanish overnight without me missing them, I would indeed wave my wand at fashion, as well as vehicle racing; all forms of movies, video, YouTube, etc; the music “industry” (not musicians!); motorized watercraft; Internet advertising; fast-food restaurants; celebrities… But some people would (inexplicably to me) not agree. And would make their own lists. Fortunately none of us are dictators, in this regard at least. > I believe royals are the biggest grifters on earth. Bad as aristos are, there are even bigger grifters!
- pjc50 4y ago
  > If I were to make a list of useless activities that could safely vanish overnight without me missing them, I would indeed wave my wand at fashion, as well as vehicle racing; all forms of movies, video, YouTube, etc; the music “industry” (not musicians!); motorized watercraft; Internet advertising; fast-food restaurants; celebrities… But some people would (inexplicably to me) not agree. Funny how this works. One of the great premises of the Culture novels, formative for so many nerds, was that material plenty and AI governance would get us to a point where anyone could have as much of those things as they wanted. With none of the downsides. But given how long the list is I'm baffled at what you and your family might do for entertainment.
  - gumby 4y ago
    > But given how long the list is I'm baffled at what you and your family might do for entertainment. Jeez there’s so much choice! Reading books, making music, backpacking, biking, kayaking, writing code, hanging out with friends… come to think of it, the same stuff our friends like to do too, which I guess shouldn’t surprise me.
jacooper 4y ago
American companies value is absolutely fake. There is no way on earth Tesla is worth more than VW or Mercedes.
- KoftaBob 4y ago
  Company value is dictated by what buyers/sellers of the stock say it is. When you especially consider that part of a company’s stock value comes from what people think their future potential is, it’s much more open ended than a simple formula. So it doesn’t make sense to say a company’s value is “fake”, what you’re actually saying is that you highly disagree with what the market thinks the value is. You not agreeing with the value doesn’t make the value invalid.
- lancesells 4y ago
  That's the entire stock market. It's what you're willing to pay for a "piece" of a company.
davidguetta 4y ago
One's vanity is another's hobby / normal purschase. Don't forget that Amazon / apple / google make a lot of money off games / useless items or basic advertising.
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hardware2win 4y ago
Amazon? We have ecommerce and delivery too, just splitted into X companies across countries instead of one big
emptyfile 4y ago
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cm2187 4y ago
Aren’t tesla and apple exactly that, peddlers of vanity and luxury items?
- mannerheim 4y ago
  Teslas are a bit too rich for my blood, but the MacBook M1 is a very good laptop for its price, and I'm sure M2 is worth its price too ($1000 and $1200 respectively).
- speedgoose 4y ago
  Most Tesla and Apple products aren’t in the luxury market. They have good value in their (high end) segments and many people can afford them and justify the cost. These days it’s doesn’t make sense to buy a worse and more expensive electric car or laptop unless you really don’t like Tesla or Apple.
- alephnerd 4y ago
  A entry level Tesla Model 3 is in the same ballpark as the quotes I am getting for a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord at dealerships right now in Northern California.
  - mannerheim 4y ago
    Is that under $30k? I thought the Model 3 was at $43k or so.
    - alephnerd 4y ago
      A base model Tesla Model 3 comes out to around $44k. When you add the tax refund, it can range from $37k to $40k. The Honda and Toyota Dealerships I've been going to are selling Model 3 equivalents (Accord and Camry) for around $35-40k (and this if for ICE/Gas versions - their hybrids are just as expensive as the Tesla if not more). When you factor in California gas prices and gas taxes, a premium/mid-level sedan evens out with a Tesla Model 3, hence why you see Teslas almost everywhere in California now.
kergonath 4y ago
> LVMH, on the other hand, is Europe’s most valuable company? What a sore lack of innovation…I’m not even surprised because it’s from the continent that still has a lot of kings and queens (albeit ceremonial)…still doesn’t change my mind because I believe royals are the biggest grifters on earth. I am puzzled. You know that Europe is a big place and that LVMH is from France, the place famous for not having royals? Also, much of LVMH revenues come from the US and China. Neither place is really known for their fancy royals, either. Also, market cap says more about the amount of money flowing around than the intrinsic value of the companies. Tesla’s valuation is more correlated with hype (and the status symbol and luxury character of the cars, similar as Apple, which you left out somehow) than innovation. Your points need a bit of work to be convincing.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Just to back up what you're saying with data: LVMH - Revenue by key regions - https://www.lvmh.com/investors/profile/financial-indicators/#region https://www.lvmh.com/investors/profile/financial-indicators/... - Asia - 23,785 M€ revenue - United States - 21,542 M€ revenue - Europe - 12,717 M€ revenue - Other markets - 9,632 M€ revenue - France- 6,071 M€ revenue - Japan - 5,436 M€ revenue Isn't it funny that the country that supposedly is the biggest innovators in the world, are one of the biggest consumers of luxury goods? Who is the fool here really, the one who sells the luxury goods, or the ones that buy it?
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    I was going to say... seems like there's a whole lot of LVMH stores in Bellevue. Must be unrelated
    - dixie_land 4y ago
      Bellevue === Little Peking
  - drstewart 4y ago
    >Isn't it funny that the country that supposedly is the biggest innovators in the world, are one of the biggest consumers of luxury goods? Not really. That's exactly what you'd expect, since the ones that innovate have the money to buy luxury goods. >Who is the fool here really, the one who sells the luxury goods, or the ones that buy it? Talking about fools, since Tesla is apparently also an overhyped luxury company, who is the real fool here: the ones who make it (the US) or the ones who buy it (Europe)?
majikaja 4y ago
Aren't most people who work in tech doing so to buy vanity items? Someone needs to do the work of motivating these people.
- Invictus0 4y ago
  Vanity items such as a home and a college education for their children
  - majikaja 4y ago
    Sounds like a repeating loop May as well just do an average job
  - ttoinou 4y ago
    Some homes are too big and most useful jobs can be self taught, they don't require that toilet paper of a diploma
mrtksn 4y ago
This narrative is ridiculous. Isn’t it sad that USA’s most valuable companies are advertising agencies? Isn’t it sad that some of the most valuable companies are renting middlemen(AirBnB, Uber)? I don’t know, it’s a stock market. At some point the market decided that some game CD retail shop is orders of magnitude more valuable than previously thought. I wouldn’t read much into this and look for metrics which indicate something tangible like.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  > Isn’t it sad that some of the most valuable companies are renting middlemen(AirBnB, Uber)? Hum... That one is expected. If you improve commerce, you create a huge amount of surplus, and you will certainly be able to take a bit of it. What is sad is that the current crop of middlemen is so uncreative and risk-free. That means our commerce is so restricted that anybody bold enough to defy the government makes a revolution.
  - zamnos 4y ago
    That one is expected, but rather than take a negative take on it, they are trumphs of capitalism - the Internet was supposed to get rid of middlemen and optimize selling, but instead it created whole new markets to more efficiently allocate resources. Gone are the days of timeshares. Now it's all AirBNBs.
- jonas21 4y ago
  > Isn’t it sad that USA’s most valuable companies are advertising agencies? Huh? Which ad agencies are among the most valuable companies in the US? There's Omnicom, but they're not even in the top 100.
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    I believe they mean Facebook and Google.
  - itsyaboi 4y ago
    I think they mean Google/Facebook. edit: jinx
40acres 4y ago
Some would say your first paragraph describes Apple.
shakow 4y ago
> I’m not even surprised because it’s from the continent that still has a lot of kings and queens 1. LVMH stems from France, a company famous for not being really friendly to royals. 2. The bulk of LVMH's brands customers are not royals; they're spawns of neo-liberalism and their wives/daugthers/mistresses: US businessmen, Chinese moguls, Russian oligarchs, UK investment bankers, ... 3. Isn't it sad that US top companies are advertising agencies and mind-manipulative megacorps?
- KoftaBob 4y ago
  > mind-manipulative megacorps This is a very open ended description of a company that can be applied to many of them, including LVMH
  - shakow 4y ago
    I don't remember LVMH being considered a risk for national elections or dealing shady propaganda business with Russian agencies or ‶research″ firms, but sure; whatever floats your dictionary.
subsubzero 4y ago
I can't think of a single major cutting edge tech company in Europe besides Spotify. I know there are money makers like SAP but I don't see them as innovative or cutting edge. I think Europe needs to look long and hard in the mirror and realize that most of its policies are not working. You have sky high cost of living, a failed covid-19 vaccine rollout(due to the EU bureaucracy trying to nickel and dime vaccine makers), one of the biggest falling birth rates in the developed world, a welfare state that will fail in a generation or two due to not enough workers to support it(and too many non working retirees). I know the US and other Asian countries have these issues with birthrates as well but they do have economies that are innovative and build companies and products the world uses, the EU has barely any of these things expect a passion to push useless regulation on people actually doing work across the pond(thanks GDPR and putting out these annoying pop-ups on every site I visit). Prediction: by 2040 Europe will be in really bad shape, its main industries like automotive will be woefully behind Tesla and a slew of Asian automakers. Its non-existent AI efforts will mean it will be a backwater of technical innovation clinging on to the coattails of US and Chinese technology. Its welfare state will have become insolvent due to too many retirees and not enough workers. I don't see it surviving in its current form for another 20-30 years.
- chorsestudios 4y ago
  ARM Holdings and ASML are both European
  - ginko 4y ago
    Or ASML, or Biontech. If anything, Spotify is a glorified streaming webapp. I wouldn't call that high tech.
- charles_f 4y ago
  I shouldn't respond to troll... > I think Europe needs to look long and hard in the mirror and realize that most of its policies are not working Because for sure all the policies that lead to people not having any sort of medical coverage, bills $200 for insulin vials that cost a couple $ to make, produces electricity mainly by burning stuff, has one of the highest murdering rate of any develop country, the highest incarceration rate of the world, has police randomly kill people in the street because their color was suspect, has its policies figured out. > a failed covid-19 vaccine rollout Wait, are you living in the US? The same US that was for a long time riding the highest part of the COVID train despite being the last to be hit? > EU bureaucracy trying to nickel and dime vaccine makers Being pissed at the very same pharmaceutical companies you gave billions to research a vaccine, now trying to pretend it never happened and didn't help, and trying to do something about it, is so 2019. > The US and other Asian countries have these issues with birthrates as well but they do have economies that are innovative The only thing that matters is innovation and building Twitter or TickTok. Never-mind other things like making sure people don't die of diabetes, or non-computer related industries like aeronautic, nuclear, automotive, and others in which Europe is still very much relevant. > Prediction: by 2040 Europe will be in really bad shape [..] I don't see it surviving in its current form for another 20-30 years. The extreme capitalism going on in the US, on the other hand, is working great, and can last forever. We're not all going to our doom.
mongol 4y ago
Strange take. First of all, since we have this huge wealth disparity in the world, it is not surprising that a company that targets the very rich can make huge profits. Second, what does the most valuable company say about all less valuable companies? Nothing! It is like saying no energy innovation happens at planet Earth because the sun produces so much more energy.
yumraj 4y ago
> Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? Actually no, since luxury items sell at highest margin so it makes complete sense that a luxury item company would be valued high, as long as there is a demand for their wares - which at the moment seems to be there. > What a sore lack of innovation… Again, not sure what you means since in a way since designers and fashion companies need to keep on innovating new trends and designs and IMHO are one of the most creative and innovative in the true sense.
sbuk 4y ago
From a peddler of financial gossip, masquerading as 'news'.
dukeyukey 4y ago
Ironically, the biggest tech centres in Europe (London by far, Amsterdam and Stockholm are up there) are run by monarchies.
JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
> > Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? It's not about the item, it's about what you get after you give the item as a present ;)
drumhead 4y ago
Luxury goods are and always have been high margin. Its a great business to be in. All car makers aspire to be Mercedes or BMW. All watchmakers want to be Rolex. Argueably all IT manufacturers want to be Apple, with its fat margins. For a non-tech, non-oil company to reach that valuation is amazing.
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onetimeusename 4y ago
LVMH is a conglomeration of a bunch of French brands including distilleries, champagne houses, and vineyards. It has been a republic more or less since 1870 and some time before that also. Many of those brands were founded when it was a monarchy, ironically.
KoftaBob 4y ago
A big part of this is the fact that certain regions just happen to excel at particular industries more than others. For Europe, it’s luxury goods + cosmetics For the Middle East, it’s energy For the US, it’s things like tech + media + finance It doesn’t mean that Europe lacking in innovation in those other industries, just that the luxury goods market is an outsized one for them.
nequo 4y ago
Not debating that it would be good to see more tech start-ups succeed in Europe. But there are a couple clear differences between Europe and the US. 1. Europe is more linguistically fragmented than the US. For example, the EU has 24 official languages while the US effectively has two. Because of this, in Europe network effects and economies of scale are more difficult to achieve with products that could compete with YouTube, Instagram, and so on. Instead, many European products that are popular are those that don't rely on network effects: cars, appliances, clothing, and food. Meanwhile, because of its more cohesive market, the US has seen higher returns to investment in movies, music, and social networks. Thanks to having more resources, many of those products become enormously successful domestically and end up being exported. 2. The stock market generally plays a smaller role in financing companies in Europe than in the US. For example, the Czech JetBrains is not traded in the stock market at all, and the Swedish Spotify's debt-to-equity ratio is 47% while Meta's is 8%.[1] Two companies with equal future EBITDA streams have different valuations for their stocks if one of them is primarily debt financed and the other is primarily financed through the stock market. [1] https://ycharts.com/companies/SPOT/debt_equity_ratio https://ycharts.com/companies/SPOT/debt_equity_ratio https://ycharts.com/companies/META/debt_equity_ratio https://ycharts.com/companies/META/debt_equity_ratio Although admittedly this is an imperfect comparison.
kylehotchkiss 4y ago
Yes, it is. And their items are status symbols that people in developing countries who come across wealth tend to chase, preventing money from flowing within their own communities. Europe doesn't hold any sort of exclusivity on clothing, bags, etc. There are plenty of artisans outside the region who could meet the same quality standards if new brands arise in these regions.
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somedude895 4y ago
This is such a hilariously stereotypical HN comment: "Tech is inherently superior to stupid luxury products. Why do people even buy those? We make useful things!" Another view would be that LVMH make products that people (maybe not SWEs) actually desire. Apart from Apple and Tesla most US tech giants just offer services that people use because they have to, or for mindless entertainment.
melesian 4y ago
A deeply foolish comment, completely ignoring the fact that the US has capital markets dwarfing those of all European countries, a single national language, and, so far, a tradition of sucking up talent from the rest of the world, including from Europe. And... as any girl should have told you by now: size isn't everything. In Europe we prefer to buy locally produced food in local pedestrian districts to driving to giant Walmarts -- and so on across the board. We'll happily trade 6 weeks annual leave, parental leave, socialized healthcare and many other things (freedom from school shootings, lower child mortality, longer life expectancy, vastly lower inequality etc etc) for your size-based bragging rights. As for innovation: we're doing fine. The web originated in Europe and so did a lot else, including the world's largest and best regulated market, something Americans can only dream of: https://fsi.stanford.edu/events/why-europe%E2%80%99s-single-market-surpassed-america%E2%80%99s https://fsi.stanford.edu/events/why-europe%E2%80%99s-single-...

brnt 4y ago

I agree with what you are saying, but overrating is imnsho absolutely why Big Tech is valued at what it is. Magical thinking, signalling isn't exclusive to our outward appearance.

_hypx 4y ago
No kidding. At this moment, Meta is still more highly valued than LVMH.
- pixl97 4y ago
  Because it still shovels massive amount of advertisements, for products like LVMH makes to a huge amount of eyeballs.

Thaxll 4y ago

So it's worse than FANG spying on customers and taking privacy data as a joke?

joenot443 4y ago
I think what most people were hoping for was a tech company of FAANG relevance for Europe which is representative of some of the values and lifestyle directions that Europeans are so proud of here. You have to admit, if you told someone in 1923 that 100 years from now, by far the most relevant technology companies will all American or Asian, they’d be a bit surprised.
- pjc50 4y ago
  > if you told someone in 1923 that 100 years from now, by far the most relevant technology companies will all American or Asian, they’d be a bit surprised. If you told them that the war which ended five years previously would be repeated, except with greater destructive capability, resulting in the flattening of much of Europe leaving tens of millions of its citizens dead or displaced, while at the same time the Washington Naval Treaty being signed in 1923 ultimately failed to contain the Japanese entering the technological arms race, they might be less surprised about that outcome. (because I checked: several of the ships involved in Pearl Harbor on both sides were either in service or under construction in 1923) I'd be very much interested to see if it's possible to compare the wealth gap and the lifestyle gap between the US and Europe to see what its peaks and troughs are over time. It was probably at its widest during the Eisenhower administration.

nologic01 4y ago

Europe today seems to be exhausted and resigned to an obscure sideshow. Its material infrastructure outsourced to China/Asia and its digital infrastructure outsourced to the US. There is no shortage of talent ofcourse, but there is no system to tap it in meaningful and future-oriented ways.

rickdeckard 4y ago
True. I believe it shows the weakness in the political landscape of Europe, as many innovative EU-Companies grow first and foremost by supplying big companies in US/Asia. "Hitting the ground running" with a own launch in Europe is almost impossible due to lack of structural support, investor-mindset and language/market differences. I believe a stronger unification would be needed, but unfortunately there's no sign of improvement, as like in US the political trend in EU is for countries to become MORE nationalist instead of embracing a European Union...
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  I have often thought that the EU is the sleeping giant of world politics if only they could manage to get behind a shared identity as Western Europeans. Unfortunately it seems like you need major galvanizing trauma like a major war to drive disparate tribes of people together like that, and it only seems to last as long as it takes for the population a few generations later to forget that bonding event and revert to typical tribal squabbling (see American politics).
  - mongol 4y ago
    The "problem" (not really a problem in my opinion, but the main contributing circumstance) is that we all speak different languages. We can all communicate with each other using a few common languages but the majority have another native language than English. I don't think true identity-building can happen because of this. We will remain as we are, able to communicate but with distinct nationalities and identities. Not neccessarily a problem, just the way it is.
brnt 4y ago

raverbashing 4y ago

And you think a company scales to this size without any internal (or visible) innovation?

boeingUH60 4y ago
Really innovative to sell bags with LV plastered all over the place and those fancy champagnes.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  Yes and the bags magically appear at stores, they don't need a supply chain, a manufacturing facility, a logistics supplier, a design office, etc Innovation is not only the latest js platform or the latest tiktok clone launched
speed_spread 4y ago
I believe those luxury brands inflated market value is mostly the result of sophisticated money laundering operations by European organized crime. Once you detach an object's value from it's utility and production costs, there's no limit to how much profit you can claim from it. That's a very nice feature if you're looking to reintroduce dirty money into the system.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  Interesting assumption, note the US is its biggest market (scroll down) https://www.lvmh.com/investors/profile/financial-indicators/#activite https://www.lvmh.com/investors/profile/financial-indicators/...

HopenHeyHi 4y ago

> Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? French top 4 are: - lvmh $496b - Loreal $256b - Hermes $232b - Dior $172b https://companiesmarketcap.com/france/largest-companies-in-france-by-market-cap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/france/largest-companies-in-f... #9 is EssilorLuxottica (sunglasses), and #11 is a clothing brand. If this sort of Fashion ever goes out of style does that whole country go bankrupt? I fear what the unstoppable and inevitable ascendance of Balenciaga might do to the French. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE39q-IKOzA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE39q-IKOzA

boeingUH60 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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Xixi 4y ago
One of the biggest industry in France is aerospace (might even be the biggest, not by market cap but by revenue/people employed), and yet Airbus (not only French of course, also German, Spanish, etc.) is headquartered in the Netherlands. Car maker Stellantis (far from being only French, maybe mostly Italian?) is also headquartered in the Netherlands. Neither are particularly dutch as far as I know. I wonder to what extent the list you link to is affected by French companies moving their headquarters to the Netherlands (or sometimes Luxembourg). Either directly, or while merging with other European companies... Netherlands are a little bit like the European Delaware in that regard... And would you exclude Delaware corps when looking at New York or California?
- HopenHeyHi 4y ago
  Safran is on this list. Airbus is listed under Netherlands, fair point. > I wonder to what extent the list you link to is affected by French companies moving their headquarters to the Netherlands (or sometimes Luxembourg). Either directly, or while merging with other European companies... Well, cross reference the lists and you tell me. https://companiesmarketcap.com/netherlands/largest-companies-in-the-netherlands-by-market-cap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/netherlands/largest-companies... Stellantis, Airbus, anyone else?

rayiner 4y ago

Blame France, with its four most valuable companies being in the frivolity business: https://companiesmarketcap.com/european-union/largest-companies-in-the-eu-by-market-cap/ https://companiesmarketcap.com/european-union/largest-compan... Don’t blame the Dutch (ASML), Swiss (Novo Nordisk), Germans (SAP), etc.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
Blame no one. The frivolity business means nothing. They are luxury companies making luxury goods at the corresponding very high level of quality and with the know how to market it properly. As they say, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. For a community constantly bragging about its cleverness, HN can be surprisingly narrow minded and immature sometimes. France has its fair share of large industrial companies by the way.
sofixa 4y ago
> Blame France, with its four most valuable companies being in the frivolity business What? What about Airbus (not fully French of course), Stellantis, Renault, Faurecia, OVH, Scaleway, STMicro, Doctolib? Just because what markets valuate luxury goods the most doesn't invalidate the existence and innovation of other sectors.
- bionsystem 4y ago
  You could add Dassault Systèmes, Schneider, Safran, Thalès, Dassault Aviation (best fighter plane in the world, sorry Lockheed Martin...), etc...
arethuza 4y ago
Personally I'd rather work on "frivolity" than selling ads!
palsecam 4y ago
Novo Nordisk is Danish, not Swiss. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Nordisk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novo_Nordisk
4y ago

dtech 4y ago

Europe has ASML, without which literally no modern chips could be made. It seems like quite a mistake to equal market cap with importance or innovation.

sofixa 4y ago

> Not a fan of enormously big companies, but at least the U.S. has the likes of Amazon, Tesla, and Microsoft offering much utility. Tesla is (in)famously overvalued. Their market cap is higher than most other car manufacturers (pumping out many times more vehicles than Tesla is), most of whom have caught up on EVs (is Toyota the only big manufacturer still lagging on EVs? I think they are). It's purely the brand of their CEO which is of course floundering because he's incapable of keeping his mouth shut and first comer advantage, and both of those are disappearing fast. Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google have real utility, true, and they're huge, all across the world. > What a sore lack of innovation That's the wrong way of looking at things IMO. Just because the biggest companies are old and in non-tech niches doesn't mean there's no innovation. You can't seriously claim that companies such as VW Group, Stellantis, Airbus don't innovate? Let alone the smaller star/scale-ups (just a few French examples: BackMarket, Doctolib, Ornikar). There's plenty of innovation, it just isn't what's best valued and highest earning. A French innovating startup first has to capture the French market, then expand to neighbouring countries (of course that means legal and translating challenges at the very least) to be able to become big enough for those huge valuations. An American one is starting with a much bigger market to be able to capture, so of course a French innovator will be lagging in terms of global market share and valuation; that doesn't make them any less innovative though. As a small example, Doctolib have practically revolutionised doctor's appointments in France and are exporting the model to other countries. Innovating in the healthcare space is very difficult due to a variety of reasons (highly sensitive data, lots of incumbents, doctors don't necessarily want to have any tech involved any more than necessary) but they did it with great tech.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
Tesla has a P/E ratio of 50 and annual earnings growth rate of 75%. It's hard to argue that's overvalued. Due to the reduction in CO2, NOx and SOx, it is estimated that Tesla has prevented over 100,000 premature deaths. OTOH, Google & Meta are advertising companies. I question their utility to the world.
- sofixa 4y ago
  > Tesla has a P/E ratio of 50 and annual earnings growth rate of 75%. It's hard to argue that's overvalued. VW Group has had a 5 year maximum P/E ratio of 20.69; for Stellantis it's 4.11 (but they're less than 2 years old). True that Tesla is seeing some very good revenue growth, 51% for 2022 compared to 2021. But that revenue is at $86 billion, meanwhile VW Group are at $307 billion. It is flat out ridiculous how overpriced Tesla are, nothing justifies them having a higher market cap than say VW Group.

j_maffe 4y ago

What does this have anything to do with kings or queens? Pretty much none of the EU countries' royalty have any cultural significance anymore. On the other hand, you have the US where the billionaires rule the earth and get to do whatever the fucking feel like. Those are the real grifters.

EdwardDiego 4y ago

Teslas aren't overpriced vanity products?

pjc50 4y ago

I'm used to people on here saying "lol europe doesn't make anything", came to comment "look at all this manufacturing happening", and apparently a $500bn business it doesn't count because it's not thing that HN likes? Isn't that also a bit sad? Isn't the measure of market cap more a measure of how much one company monopolizes? Compared to an environment of, say, German "mittelstand" medium-sized companies (which don't count, apparently?) Note also that LVMH are one of the places selling into China, rather than the other way round. Got to recycle those dollars somehow.

dukeyukey 4y ago
Especially since EU manufacturing output is significantly bigger than US output.
HDThoreaun 4y ago
I wouldn't call luxury good sales "manufacturing", more like "look at all this branding happening" since that's where the vast majority of the value is created.

albertopv 4y ago

Well, one could say that Apple sells overpriced luxury items... And look at the pile of money FAAMG are making, also their products are extremely overpriced. Running stuff on AWS may even considered a luxury by many. I'm joking, but not entirely.

IceHegel 4y ago

I suspect Europe’s economy would be larger if it had more real kings and queens. Its share of global output peaked under that system. On the other hand their democracy feels strained and exhausted, which is not helped by the contingent being a US protectorate. Frankly, I’m not sure why people ignore Aristotle’s idea that the monarch is the people’s best defense against aristocracy/oligarchy.

chimprich 4y ago

It's difficult for a European company to compete with US tech giants due to the difference in capital. They just get bought up if they're very successful. For example, DeepMind: started in the UK, but acquired by Google. I would say that's a an example of an innovative company, but how are they ever going to grow as big as a US tech giant? On the other hand, the US tech giants are headquartered in the US, but are very much multinationals, with people working for them across the world.

majikaja 4y ago
>For example, DeepMind: started in the UK, but acquired by Google. This company was profitable?

gumby 4y ago

> Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? I used to think this way but no longer do. I mean, the point of being people is to do people things. The point of trying to fix the climate is so people can keep on doing stuff they want (the planet doesn’t care). And so on. Now indeed, I think ppl should stop doing things that hurt others, but $1,500 scarves aren’t that harmful. And leather is an awful material for most applications these days so these people just hurt themselves :-). If I were to make a list of useless activities that could safely vanish overnight without me missing them, I would indeed wave my wand at fashion, as well as vehicle racing; all forms of movies, video, YouTube, etc; the music “industry” (not musicians!); motorized watercraft; Internet advertising; fast-food restaurants; celebrities… But some people would (inexplicably to me) not agree. And would make their own lists. Fortunately none of us are dictators, in this regard at least. > I believe royals are the biggest grifters on earth. Bad as aristos are, there are even bigger grifters!

pjc50 4y ago
> If I were to make a list of useless activities that could safely vanish overnight without me missing them, I would indeed wave my wand at fashion, as well as vehicle racing; all forms of movies, video, YouTube, etc; the music “industry” (not musicians!); motorized watercraft; Internet advertising; fast-food restaurants; celebrities… But some people would (inexplicably to me) not agree. Funny how this works. One of the great premises of the Culture novels, formative for so many nerds, was that material plenty and AI governance would get us to a point where anyone could have as much of those things as they wanted. With none of the downsides. But given how long the list is I'm baffled at what you and your family might do for entertainment.
- gumby 4y ago
  > But given how long the list is I'm baffled at what you and your family might do for entertainment. Jeez there’s so much choice! Reading books, making music, backpacking, biking, kayaking, writing code, hanging out with friends… come to think of it, the same stuff our friends like to do too, which I guess shouldn’t surprise me.

jacooper 4y ago

American companies value is absolutely fake. There is no way on earth Tesla is worth more than VW or Mercedes.

KoftaBob 4y ago
Company value is dictated by what buyers/sellers of the stock say it is. When you especially consider that part of a company’s stock value comes from what people think their future potential is, it’s much more open ended than a simple formula. So it doesn’t make sense to say a company’s value is “fake”, what you’re actually saying is that you highly disagree with what the market thinks the value is. You not agreeing with the value doesn’t make the value invalid.
lancesells 4y ago
That's the entire stock market. It's what you're willing to pay for a "piece" of a company.

davidguetta 4y ago

One's vanity is another's hobby / normal purschase. Don't forget that Amazon / apple / google make a lot of money off games / useless items or basic advertising.

deleted 4y ago

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hardware2win 4y ago

Amazon? We have ecommerce and delivery too, just splitted into X companies across countries instead of one big

emptyfile 4y ago

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cm2187 4y ago

Aren’t tesla and apple exactly that, peddlers of vanity and luxury items?

mannerheim 4y ago
Teslas are a bit too rich for my blood, but the MacBook M1 is a very good laptop for its price, and I'm sure M2 is worth its price too ($1000 and $1200 respectively).
speedgoose 4y ago
Most Tesla and Apple products aren’t in the luxury market. They have good value in their (high end) segments and many people can afford them and justify the cost. These days it’s doesn’t make sense to buy a worse and more expensive electric car or laptop unless you really don’t like Tesla or Apple.
alephnerd 4y ago
A entry level Tesla Model 3 is in the same ballpark as the quotes I am getting for a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord at dealerships right now in Northern California.
- mannerheim 4y ago
  Is that under $30k? I thought the Model 3 was at $43k or so.
  - alephnerd 4y ago
    A base model Tesla Model 3 comes out to around $44k. When you add the tax refund, it can range from $37k to $40k. The Honda and Toyota Dealerships I've been going to are selling Model 3 equivalents (Accord and Camry) for around $35-40k (and this if for ICE/Gas versions - their hybrids are just as expensive as the Tesla if not more). When you factor in California gas prices and gas taxes, a premium/mid-level sedan evens out with a Tesla Model 3, hence why you see Teslas almost everywhere in California now.

kergonath 4y ago

> LVMH, on the other hand, is Europe’s most valuable company? What a sore lack of innovation…I’m not even surprised because it’s from the continent that still has a lot of kings and queens (albeit ceremonial)…still doesn’t change my mind because I believe royals are the biggest grifters on earth. I am puzzled. You know that Europe is a big place and that LVMH is from France, the place famous for not having royals? Also, much of LVMH revenues come from the US and China. Neither place is really known for their fancy royals, either. Also, market cap says more about the amount of money flowing around than the intrinsic value of the companies. Tesla’s valuation is more correlated with hype (and the status symbol and luxury character of the cars, similar as Apple, which you left out somehow) than innovation. Your points need a bit of work to be convincing.

capableweb 4y ago
Just to back up what you're saying with data: LVMH - Revenue by key regions - https://www.lvmh.com/investors/profile/financial-indicators/#region https://www.lvmh.com/investors/profile/financial-indicators/... - Asia - 23,785 M€ revenue - United States - 21,542 M€ revenue - Europe - 12,717 M€ revenue - Other markets - 9,632 M€ revenue - France- 6,071 M€ revenue - Japan - 5,436 M€ revenue Isn't it funny that the country that supposedly is the biggest innovators in the world, are one of the biggest consumers of luxury goods? Who is the fool here really, the one who sells the luxury goods, or the ones that buy it?
- brailsafe 4y ago
  I was going to say... seems like there's a whole lot of LVMH stores in Bellevue. Must be unrelated
  - dixie_land 4y ago
    Bellevue === Little Peking
- drstewart 4y ago
  >Isn't it funny that the country that supposedly is the biggest innovators in the world, are one of the biggest consumers of luxury goods? Not really. That's exactly what you'd expect, since the ones that innovate have the money to buy luxury goods. >Who is the fool here really, the one who sells the luxury goods, or the ones that buy it? Talking about fools, since Tesla is apparently also an overhyped luxury company, who is the real fool here: the ones who make it (the US) or the ones who buy it (Europe)?

majikaja 4y ago

Aren't most people who work in tech doing so to buy vanity items? Someone needs to do the work of motivating these people.

Invictus0 4y ago
Vanity items such as a home and a college education for their children
- majikaja 4y ago
  Sounds like a repeating loop May as well just do an average job
- ttoinou 4y ago
  Some homes are too big and most useful jobs can be self taught, they don't require that toilet paper of a diploma

mrtksn 4y ago

This narrative is ridiculous. Isn’t it sad that USA’s most valuable companies are advertising agencies? Isn’t it sad that some of the most valuable companies are renting middlemen(AirBnB, Uber)? I don’t know, it’s a stock market. At some point the market decided that some game CD retail shop is orders of magnitude more valuable than previously thought. I wouldn’t read much into this and look for metrics which indicate something tangible like.

marcosdumay 4y ago
> Isn’t it sad that some of the most valuable companies are renting middlemen(AirBnB, Uber)? Hum... That one is expected. If you improve commerce, you create a huge amount of surplus, and you will certainly be able to take a bit of it. What is sad is that the current crop of middlemen is so uncreative and risk-free. That means our commerce is so restricted that anybody bold enough to defy the government makes a revolution.
- zamnos 4y ago
  That one is expected, but rather than take a negative take on it, they are trumphs of capitalism - the Internet was supposed to get rid of middlemen and optimize selling, but instead it created whole new markets to more efficiently allocate resources. Gone are the days of timeshares. Now it's all AirBNBs.
jonas21 4y ago
> Isn’t it sad that USA’s most valuable companies are advertising agencies? Huh? Which ad agencies are among the most valuable companies in the US? There's Omnicom, but they're not even in the top 100.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  I believe they mean Facebook and Google.
- itsyaboi 4y ago
  I think they mean Google/Facebook. edit: jinx

40acres 4y ago

Some would say your first paragraph describes Apple.

shakow 4y ago

> I’m not even surprised because it’s from the continent that still has a lot of kings and queens 1. LVMH stems from France, a company famous for not being really friendly to royals. 2. The bulk of LVMH's brands customers are not royals; they're spawns of neo-liberalism and their wives/daugthers/mistresses: US businessmen, Chinese moguls, Russian oligarchs, UK investment bankers, ... 3. Isn't it sad that US top companies are advertising agencies and mind-manipulative megacorps?

KoftaBob 4y ago
> mind-manipulative megacorps This is a very open ended description of a company that can be applied to many of them, including LVMH
- shakow 4y ago
  I don't remember LVMH being considered a risk for national elections or dealing shady propaganda business with Russian agencies or ‶research″ firms, but sure; whatever floats your dictionary.

subsubzero 4y ago

I can't think of a single major cutting edge tech company in Europe besides Spotify. I know there are money makers like SAP but I don't see them as innovative or cutting edge. I think Europe needs to look long and hard in the mirror and realize that most of its policies are not working. You have sky high cost of living, a failed covid-19 vaccine rollout(due to the EU bureaucracy trying to nickel and dime vaccine makers), one of the biggest falling birth rates in the developed world, a welfare state that will fail in a generation or two due to not enough workers to support it(and too many non working retirees). I know the US and other Asian countries have these issues with birthrates as well but they do have economies that are innovative and build companies and products the world uses, the EU has barely any of these things expect a passion to push useless regulation on people actually doing work across the pond(thanks GDPR and putting out these annoying pop-ups on every site I visit). Prediction: by 2040 Europe will be in really bad shape, its main industries like automotive will be woefully behind Tesla and a slew of Asian automakers. Its non-existent AI efforts will mean it will be a backwater of technical innovation clinging on to the coattails of US and Chinese technology. Its welfare state will have become insolvent due to too many retirees and not enough workers. I don't see it surviving in its current form for another 20-30 years.

chorsestudios 4y ago
ARM Holdings and ASML are both European
- ginko 4y ago
  Or ASML, or Biontech. If anything, Spotify is a glorified streaming webapp. I wouldn't call that high tech.
charles_f 4y ago
I shouldn't respond to troll... > I think Europe needs to look long and hard in the mirror and realize that most of its policies are not working Because for sure all the policies that lead to people not having any sort of medical coverage, bills $200 for insulin vials that cost a couple $ to make, produces electricity mainly by burning stuff, has one of the highest murdering rate of any develop country, the highest incarceration rate of the world, has police randomly kill people in the street because their color was suspect, has its policies figured out. > a failed covid-19 vaccine rollout Wait, are you living in the US? The same US that was for a long time riding the highest part of the COVID train despite being the last to be hit? > EU bureaucracy trying to nickel and dime vaccine makers Being pissed at the very same pharmaceutical companies you gave billions to research a vaccine, now trying to pretend it never happened and didn't help, and trying to do something about it, is so 2019. > The US and other Asian countries have these issues with birthrates as well but they do have economies that are innovative The only thing that matters is innovation and building Twitter or TickTok. Never-mind other things like making sure people don't die of diabetes, or non-computer related industries like aeronautic, nuclear, automotive, and others in which Europe is still very much relevant. > Prediction: by 2040 Europe will be in really bad shape [..] I don't see it surviving in its current form for another 20-30 years. The extreme capitalism going on in the US, on the other hand, is working great, and can last forever. We're not all going to our doom.

mongol 4y ago

Strange take. First of all, since we have this huge wealth disparity in the world, it is not surprising that a company that targets the very rich can make huge profits. Second, what does the most valuable company say about all less valuable companies? Nothing! It is like saying no energy innovation happens at planet Earth because the sun produces so much more energy.

yumraj 4y ago

> Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? Actually no, since luxury items sell at highest margin so it makes complete sense that a luxury item company would be valued high, as long as there is a demand for their wares - which at the moment seems to be there. > What a sore lack of innovation… Again, not sure what you means since in a way since designers and fashion companies need to keep on innovating new trends and designs and IMHO are one of the most creative and innovative in the true sense.

sbuk 4y ago

From a peddler of financial gossip, masquerading as 'news'.

dukeyukey 4y ago

Ironically, the biggest tech centres in Europe (London by far, Amsterdam and Stockholm are up there) are run by monarchies.

JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago

> > Isn’t it sad that the first $500b+ company from Europe is a peddler of vanity and overpriced luxury items? It's not about the item, it's about what you get after you give the item as a present ;)

drumhead 4y ago

Luxury goods are and always have been high margin. Its a great business to be in. All car makers aspire to be Mercedes or BMW. All watchmakers want to be Rolex. Argueably all IT manufacturers want to be Apple, with its fat margins. For a non-tech, non-oil company to reach that valuation is amazing.

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onetimeusename 4y ago

LVMH is a conglomeration of a bunch of French brands including distilleries, champagne houses, and vineyards. It has been a republic more or less since 1870 and some time before that also. Many of those brands were founded when it was a monarchy, ironically.

KoftaBob 4y ago

A big part of this is the fact that certain regions just happen to excel at particular industries more than others. For Europe, it’s luxury goods + cosmetics For the Middle East, it’s energy For the US, it’s things like tech + media + finance It doesn’t mean that Europe lacking in innovation in those other industries, just that the luxury goods market is an outsized one for them.

nequo 4y ago

Not debating that it would be good to see more tech start-ups succeed in Europe. But there are a couple clear differences between Europe and the US. 1. Europe is more linguistically fragmented than the US. For example, the EU has 24 official languages while the US effectively has two. Because of this, in Europe network effects and economies of scale are more difficult to achieve with products that could compete with YouTube, Instagram, and so on. Instead, many European products that are popular are those that don't rely on network effects: cars, appliances, clothing, and food. Meanwhile, because of its more cohesive market, the US has seen higher returns to investment in movies, music, and social networks. Thanks to having more resources, many of those products become enormously successful domestically and end up being exported. 2. The stock market generally plays a smaller role in financing companies in Europe than in the US. For example, the Czech JetBrains is not traded in the stock market at all, and the Swedish Spotify's debt-to-equity ratio is 47% while Meta's is 8%.[1] Two companies with equal future EBITDA streams have different valuations for their stocks if one of them is primarily debt financed and the other is primarily financed through the stock market. [1] https://ycharts.com/companies/SPOT/debt_equity_ratio https://ycharts.com/companies/SPOT/debt_equity_ratio https://ycharts.com/companies/META/debt_equity_ratio https://ycharts.com/companies/META/debt_equity_ratio Although admittedly this is an imperfect comparison.

kylehotchkiss 4y ago

Yes, it is. And their items are status symbols that people in developing countries who come across wealth tend to chase, preventing money from flowing within their own communities. Europe doesn't hold any sort of exclusivity on clothing, bags, etc. There are plenty of artisans outside the region who could meet the same quality standards if new brands arise in these regions.

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somedude895 4y ago

This is such a hilariously stereotypical HN comment: "Tech is inherently superior to stupid luxury products. Why do people even buy those? We make useful things!" Another view would be that LVMH make products that people (maybe not SWEs) actually desire. Apart from Apple and Tesla most US tech giants just offer services that people use because they have to, or for mindless entertainment.

melesian 4y ago

A deeply foolish comment, completely ignoring the fact that the US has capital markets dwarfing those of all European countries, a single national language, and, so far, a tradition of sucking up talent from the rest of the world, including from Europe. And... as any girl should have told you by now: size isn't everything. In Europe we prefer to buy locally produced food in local pedestrian districts to driving to giant Walmarts -- and so on across the board. We'll happily trade 6 weeks annual leave, parental leave, socialized healthcare and many other things (freedom from school shootings, lower child mortality, longer life expectancy, vastly lower inequality etc etc) for your size-based bragging rights. As for innovation: we're doing fine. The web originated in Europe and so did a lot else, including the world's largest and best regulated market, something Americans can only dream of: https://fsi.stanford.edu/events/why-europe%E2%80%99s-single-market-surpassed-america%E2%80%99s https://fsi.stanford.edu/events/why-europe%E2%80%99s-single-...