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The struggle in EU can be boiled down to 3 things: - capital: continuous access to capital without turning a profit for decades is very hard outside US. - tal
by darth_avocado 3y ago
The struggle in EU can be boiled down to 3 things:
- capital: continuous access to capital without turning a profit for decades is very hard outside US.
- talent: no doubt EU has a lot of talent in tech, but most of them want to come to US for better pay. And the funnel of talent from Universities, both international and domestic, is hard because a lot of them in EU are playing catch-up to their American counterparts.
- culture: there’s so much to be desired in terms of culture when it comes to working in EU. The long hours, the flagrant risk taking, high pay, openness to different philosophies/ways of doing things etc. are all aspects that are missing, but are generally needed for startups to succeed. (The openness to different perspectives was especially one of the things that drove me to US. My German colleagues would often shoot down ideas by saying “this is not <insert your country here>, in Germany we have standards”. Ironically those standards couldn’t get anything shipped ever.)
There’s of course more stringent regulations, but those tend to be everywhere.
- whiplash451 3y agoSince when is « continuous access to capital without turning a profit for decades » acceptable in the US? Examples please. Thanks.
- dylan604 3y agoAmazon? Uber?
- darth_avocado 3y agoSNAP, Uber, Lyft, Pinterest, Spotify, Tesla, Etsy, Zoom, Twilio, Dropbox and the list goes on. I don't have the source handy, but if I remember this right, around the time Uber was having it's IPO, there was this stat that out of the top 50 Unicorns, 3 were profitable. Rest all were operating in a net loss, most of them for around or more than a decade.
- whiplash451 3y agoThanks for the pointers
- dontupvoteme 3y agoPay is decreasing and cultural WTF's are increasing, America is less attractive than it was and it may be a splash of cold water for some. Not to mention that little known Trump era tax change regarding software engineering expenses.
- darth_avocado 3y agoThat may be true, but even with those setbacks, it is still better than in EU.
- dontupvoteme 3y agoIt depends entirely on what one values and what one trusts to persist, good or bad. For all its virtues and faults 'Europe' tends to value people quite well, both culturally and legalistically.
- edgyquant 3y agoNah not really, regardless of virtue people prefer America for starting companies and anyone claiming otherwise is just coping.
- eddiewithzato 3y agoNothing to do with talent, it’s always about money and government red tape. The US simply is the best place with potential money. Europe is poor in comparison