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I’d flip the question and ask you by what metrics Europes tech sector is performing comparatively well. Employment? Average salary? ARR? I struggle to think of

I’d flip the question and ask you by what metrics Europes tech sector is performing comparatively well. Employment? Average salary? ARR? I struggle to think of a metric that’s a positive outlier.

kube-system 2y ago
Vacation time.
- RestlessMind 2y ago
  Pfft. Iran, Burkina Faso, Cambodia and Bahrain beat "Europe" handily on that metric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b... Let's have those countries as our role model then? /s
  - mrtksn 2y ago
    The full phrase is "vacation time in Europe".
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  If we are talking about tech companies, as stated in the great-grandparent comment, tech employees in the US have as much or more vacation time as Europeans. I can easily take multi-month vacations if I so choose (with some prior planning and assent of course), and that is a similar story for other tech employees too. The difference is that we just get paid much more for the same work.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    They are allocated a good number of PTO hours, but Americans are really bad at taking them. I also could take that long of a vacation too, technically, but I never have and realistically never would.
    - satvikpendem 2y ago
      I guess, that's on them then. One could say the same of those types of Europeans who don't take vacation either. Personally I'm taking everything I'm allocated.
- influx 2y ago
  I know a bunch of FAANG engineers that retired in their 30s and 40s, so the rest of their life is vacation time...
mrtksn 2y ago
Longevity, happiness, health, leisure, life satisfaction. Companies are there to make these possible, not to maximise the stock trading price. Some achieve that by making EUV lithography machines, others do chemicals or pharmaceuticals. Are you aware that you can use the developer tools in your browser to set the price of the stock or your bank account balance to anything you like? You don't have to crumble your infrastructure, run from the mentally ill homeless people or bankrupt sick people to see those numbers. If you insist on extra steps, you can sell a stock to your friend at ridiculous price and say that that this company is now bigger than the worlds' economy combined.
- RestlessMind 2y ago
  > Longevity, happiness, health, leisure, life satisfaction Apart from longevity[1], everything else is subjective so do you have any evidence? From what I see based on a quick search, happiness level seems same in US/Canada vs Germany/France. eg. Rankings by this[2] measure: Canada(15), USA(23), Germany(24), France(27). Or scores by this[3] measure: Canada (6.9), USA(6.7), Germany(6.7), France(6.6) [1] Even longevity is full of caveats and nuances. When you look at life expectancy by ethnicity, a given ethnicity has similar life expectancy across different advanced countries (eg. Japanese-Americans vs Japanese in Japan). It doesn't even seem to be correlated by income in the US, because latinos have a higher life expectancy than whites[4] even though later group is richer than the former. [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-countries-in-the-world https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-... [3] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-map-of-global-happiness-by-country-in-2024/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-map-of-global-happiness-b... [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9256789/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9256789/
  - mrtksn 2y ago
    I’m sure Americans are dying healthy and happy at young age. Crunching the numbers until the fit the narrative aside, the chocolates are horrible too.
    - knowaveragejoe 2y ago

I’d flip the question and ask you by what metrics Europes tech sector is performing comparatively well. Employment? Average salary? ARR? I struggle to think of a metric that’s a positive outlier.

kube-system 2y ago

Vacation time.

RestlessMind 2y ago
Pfft. Iran, Burkina Faso, Cambodia and Bahrain beat "Europe" handily on that metric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b... Let's have those countries as our role model then? /s
- mrtksn 2y ago
  The full phrase is "vacation time in Europe".
satvikpendem 2y ago
If we are talking about tech companies, as stated in the great-grandparent comment, tech employees in the US have as much or more vacation time as Europeans. I can easily take multi-month vacations if I so choose (with some prior planning and assent of course), and that is a similar story for other tech employees too. The difference is that we just get paid much more for the same work.
- kube-system 2y ago
  They are allocated a good number of PTO hours, but Americans are really bad at taking them. I also could take that long of a vacation too, technically, but I never have and realistically never would.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    I guess, that's on them then. One could say the same of those types of Europeans who don't take vacation either. Personally I'm taking everything I'm allocated.
influx 2y ago
I know a bunch of FAANG engineers that retired in their 30s and 40s, so the rest of their life is vacation time...

mrtksn 2y ago

Longevity, happiness, health, leisure, life satisfaction. Companies are there to make these possible, not to maximise the stock trading price. Some achieve that by making EUV lithography machines, others do chemicals or pharmaceuticals. Are you aware that you can use the developer tools in your browser to set the price of the stock or your bank account balance to anything you like? You don't have to crumble your infrastructure, run from the mentally ill homeless people or bankrupt sick people to see those numbers. If you insist on extra steps, you can sell a stock to your friend at ridiculous price and say that that this company is now bigger than the worlds' economy combined.

RestlessMind 2y ago
> Longevity, happiness, health, leisure, life satisfaction Apart from longevity[1], everything else is subjective so do you have any evidence? From what I see based on a quick search, happiness level seems same in US/Canada vs Germany/France. eg. Rankings by this[2] measure: Canada(15), USA(23), Germany(24), France(27). Or scores by this[3] measure: Canada (6.9), USA(6.7), Germany(6.7), France(6.6) [1] Even longevity is full of caveats and nuances. When you look at life expectancy by ethnicity, a given ethnicity has similar life expectancy across different advanced countries (eg. Japanese-Americans vs Japanese in Japan). It doesn't even seem to be correlated by income in the US, because latinos have a higher life expectancy than whites[4] even though later group is richer than the former. [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-countries-in-the-world https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/happiest-... [3] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-map-of-global-happiness-by-country-in-2024/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-map-of-global-happiness-b... [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9256789/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9256789/
- mrtksn 2y ago
  I’m sure Americans are dying healthy and happy at young age. Crunching the numbers until the fit the narrative aside, the chocolates are horrible too.
  - knowaveragejoe 2y ago