You can’t win every war. Germany is a bit better, but not by a large margin. Wages are higher than in France, but so is the cost of living. That said, Europe i

You can’t win every war. Germany is a bit better, but not by a large margin. Wages are higher than in France, but so is the cost of living. That said, Europe isn’t struggling because of labor protection rules but because of its culture. There are 69 countries with 69 different languages, and each of them wants high-paid foreigners to learn their language. I saw the same thing in France, Germany, and Finland. Why on earth would I care about German or French when I speak and write native-level English? Another issue is the vacation culture. Three weeks of vacation is incredibly generous, but people here get even more. I’m switching teams because my current one can’t ship anything—different people are on exceedingly long vacations at different times, and there’s no coordination. Europe is poorer and full of red tape. The fragmentation of languages and regulations doesn’t help. It’s a massive continent, yet the only real tech hubs are in Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, and London. The rest are just running underpaying sweatshops.