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Tech is like film. Big unicorns with big exits are like the blockbuster tent pole superhero films that net hundreds of millions of dollars. You don’t have those
by api 3y ago
Tech is like film. Big unicorns with big exits are like the blockbuster tent pole superhero films that net hundreds of millions of dollars. You don’t have those the whole industry collapses. No art flicks or risky experiments with new ideas without Guardians of the Galaxy.
It’s not just investment capital which usually grows out of exits but also the whole ecosystem of services and consultants and experts and law firms specializing in the sector. All of it.
The EU doesn’t have enough routes to exit due to both regulation and a way more conservative business climate. As a result you don’t get a big tech ecosystem and most exits result in the whole thing being pulled into the US orbit.
- fvdessen 3y agoRegulations are not a problem, it's the lack of a big common market. Expanding from let's say Belgium to Germany is almost as difficult as expanding to the USA. That's why the two countries that have a big tech scenes (US/China) are the ones that have big unified markets.
- api 3y agoThat argues for more U in EU. Hard sell against a rising populist current though.
- zeroCalories 3y agoRegulation is what makes that hard.
- ljm 3y agoNot really. Regulation serves the interest of the consumer, rather than the kind of deregulation that serves the interest of the shareholder. In the US you build your app and everything is in English. You can launch that across all of the states as-is. In Europe (not even the EU specifically) you’re gonna need i18n, particularly with B2B. If you want to launch in Germany, for example, you’ll be expected to provide an interface in German. You can’t presume everyone speaks English, because they don’t. Expect multilingual support too. Then you have payment. Different countries have different cultural norms, so what people are used to using in the Netherlands is unlikely to be supported generically elsewhere. It’s not gonna be enough to just support Stripe and card payments or PayPal for B2C. Regulation doesn’t mandate any of this. It’s effectively conducting business internationally.