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>but if €10k is newsworthy Unpopular opinion that's gonna get downvoted/flagged soon based on my experience here: That just shows you how broke EU tech compani

>but if €10k is newsworthy Unpopular opinion that's gonna get downvoted/flagged soon based on my experience here: That just shows you how broke EU tech companies are that even 10k is newsworthy for them. For context, I only worked for average (not big-tech/unicorns) EU/French/Dutch/German tech companies my whole life and I was shocked to see how much more, the average US tech companies spend on frivolities(forget the wages) than the European companies I worked at. From what I saw, for US tech companies big or small, buying fully decked MacBooks and Herman Miler chairs for their SW devs was the norm, while I only saw the discount bin chairs and base spec HP/Dell/Lenovo laptops wherever I worked here. Even where I work now, SW engineers get the same crappy HP notebooks that HR uses to read emails, since beancounters love fleets of the same cheap laptops for everyone, so my manager needs to jump through hoops for the beancounters to let him order more powerful notebooks for the SW engineers in his team, cause ya' know, Docker and VMs eat more resources than Outlook and Excel. This is relatively unheard of for US SW engineers where little expense is spared on equipment. They even reduced costs related to facility management like AC runtime and cleaning services, so trash bins are emptied twice a week instead of daily, leading to some funny office aromas in summer, if you catch my drift. And of course, they blame Putin for this. I always naively assumed (mostly due to anti-US propaganda we get here in EU) that due to how expensive US labor and healthcare is, it would be the opposite that US companies would have to cost cut to the bone, but no, despite that, US companies still have way more money to spend than European ones. Crazy. My explanation is, European companies are just run the same way EU governments are run, on austerity and cost cutting, so instead of trying to make money by innovating and investing and splurging to get the best of everything, they instead try to increase the profits by cutting all possible costs from purchasing to labors' wages and offshoring, since I assume that's also what's taught in European MBA schools.

NeutralForest 1y ago
I don't think it's unpopular, I'm European and it's sad to see the tech scene and the kind of capital we have available, compared to the US.
Perz1val 1y ago
Is this an opinion or the actual state of things?
- poisonborz 1y ago
  I can attest that this is the case, worked in a number of countries there.
CJefferson 1y ago
How many US companies are donating more than 10k to perl? Or even that much? If your anti-EU rant is right, open source projects should just naturally come into a whole bunch of donations this size from these rich US companies. Does that happen? Especially once we get past the big 3?
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >your anti-EU rant How is it anti-EU? I was explaining what I observed, nothing what I said has to do with the EU political union, but with the way EU companies operate. Criticizing the way European companies choose to do business doesn't make you "anti-EU". What's with this hyper-partisan George-Bush-style "You're either with us or against us" type of arguments, where you can't criticize something without someone accusing you of being a hater? Can't we just debate things reasonably and assuming good faith as per HN rules, instead of resorting to attacks and accusations of partisan?
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > How many US companies are donating more than 10k to perl? Or even that much? Craigslist used to donate $100k per month until 2017. Perl has been a member of Google Summer of Code for several years now And Duck Duck Go (based in Pittsburg) recently donated $25k [0] (imo they could have donated more, but something is better than nothing) [0] - https://spreadprivacy.com/2024-duckduckgo-charitable-donations/ https://spreadprivacy.com/2024-duckduckgo-charitable-donatio...
tlamponi 1y ago
Note that Proxmox did not put out any news, the Perl foundation did, and that is based in the USA, so not sure if it really shows what you try to suggest.
tristor 1y ago
> I always naively assumed (mostly due to anti-US propaganda we get here in EU) that due to how expensive US labor and healthcare is, it would be the opposite that US companies would have to cost cut to the bone, but no, despite that, US companies still have way more money to spend than European ones. Crazy. It's actually almost the opposite here in the US. Because labor is expensive, especially engineering labor, it doesn't make sense to scrimp on expenses like computer equipment or office chairs that support that labor, as you want to reduce development costs. If a faster laptop costs $500/unit more but reduces toil/wasted time for a $300k/yr developer of 30 minutes a day, it is easily justified that it's worth the cost since labor cost is so much higher.
alephnerd 1y ago
> European companies are just run the same way EU governments are run, on austerity and cost cutting To a certain extent yes. But that's because of margins. An large automotive parts vendor or a major biopharma company isn't generating revenue on software, so software engineering is treated as a cost center. It's the same in the US, but at least you have tech first companies that generate most of their revenue of tech. Europe's tech industry died out because of a mixture of mismanagement and bad luck. Velti [0] used to outcompete AdSense, but their management was incompetent and borderline fraudulent, and that's why the AdTech industry boomed in the US and collapsed in Europe. The same thing happened to Nokia, Ericcson, and others. The good European startups like Datadog, Spotify, Databricks, and UIPath all ended up relocating to the US so an entire generation of startups doesn't exist in the EU. > they instead try to increase the profits by cutting all possible costs from purchasing to labors' wages and offshoring, since I assume that's also what's taught in European MBA schools I've dealt with MBA grads from the EU and US - they aren't taught any of this. IMO, the issue is most leadership in European companies tend to be ex-accountants from KPMG/EY/PWC/Deloitte/Mazars-type companies, because manufacturing industries like pharma, automotive, etc have severely low margins. [0] - https://www.businessinsider.com/how-velti-one-of-the-largest-mobile-ad-companies-on-the-planet-lost-130-million-2013-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-velti-one-of-the-largest...
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >and bad luck Was it really bad luck or just bad management refusing to accept the reality that they were bad so they blamed luck? Nokia CEO was famous for saying "We did everything right and still lost". Clearly he didn't do everything right if they lost. I think EU leaders and CEOs have no accountability, hindsight or self reflection capacity to see how badly they're failing so then just blame bad luck because it always has to be someone else's fault.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    > Was it really bad luck or just bad management refusing to accept the reality that they were bad so they blamed luck? Bit of column A and bit of column B. There was a LOT of bad management, but the Eurozone Crisis (2007-2014, 2018 for Greece) was also extremely severe and out of corporate leadership's hands. If 70-80% of your customers across the Eurozone were delinquent in payments and in the midst of bankruptcies and rolling down operations, you wouldn't be generating the same amount of revenue needed. In the US, enforcing vendor arrears and collecting dues from bankrupt customers is much easier. These are business law issues that business leadership within the 26+ EU/EFTA nations cannot solve, as this is a legislative issue. > I think EU leaders and CEOs have no accountability, hindsight or self reflection capacity to see how badly they're failing so then just blame bad luck because it always has to be someone else's fault. To a certain extent yes, but that's because they don't empower the private sector beyond a handful of politically connected firms to have an actual say or input. Lobbying happens in the EU as well, but it is much harder for startups and companies that aren't national champions to get a say. Of course, this depends on the country as well as the EU as a whole, which is the crux of the issue - should national law or "EU law" be prioritized? In action, enforcement and regulatory capacity is devolved from the EU to individual member states, and logically, companies do jurisdiction shopping, hence why you see American companies over-represented in Ireland and a strong tech ecosystem in Czechia, Poland, and Romania.

NeutralForest 1y ago

I don't think it's unpopular, I'm European and it's sad to see the tech scene and the kind of capital we have available, compared to the US.

Perz1val 1y ago

Is this an opinion or the actual state of things?

poisonborz 1y ago
I can attest that this is the case, worked in a number of countries there.

CJefferson 1y ago

How many US companies are donating more than 10k to perl? Or even that much? If your anti-EU rant is right, open source projects should just naturally come into a whole bunch of donations this size from these rich US companies. Does that happen? Especially once we get past the big 3?

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>your anti-EU rant How is it anti-EU? I was explaining what I observed, nothing what I said has to do with the EU political union, but with the way EU companies operate. Criticizing the way European companies choose to do business doesn't make you "anti-EU". What's with this hyper-partisan George-Bush-style "You're either with us or against us" type of arguments, where you can't criticize something without someone accusing you of being a hater? Can't we just debate things reasonably and assuming good faith as per HN rules, instead of resorting to attacks and accusations of partisan?
alephnerd 1y ago
> How many US companies are donating more than 10k to perl? Or even that much? Craigslist used to donate $100k per month until 2017. Perl has been a member of Google Summer of Code for several years now And Duck Duck Go (based in Pittsburg) recently donated $25k [0] (imo they could have donated more, but something is better than nothing) [0] - https://spreadprivacy.com/2024-duckduckgo-charitable-donations/ https://spreadprivacy.com/2024-duckduckgo-charitable-donatio...

tlamponi 1y ago

Note that Proxmox did not put out any news, the Perl foundation did, and that is based in the USA, so not sure if it really shows what you try to suggest.

tristor 1y ago

> I always naively assumed (mostly due to anti-US propaganda we get here in EU) that due to how expensive US labor and healthcare is, it would be the opposite that US companies would have to cost cut to the bone, but no, despite that, US companies still have way more money to spend than European ones. Crazy. It's actually almost the opposite here in the US. Because labor is expensive, especially engineering labor, it doesn't make sense to scrimp on expenses like computer equipment or office chairs that support that labor, as you want to reduce development costs. If a faster laptop costs $500/unit more but reduces toil/wasted time for a $300k/yr developer of 30 minutes a day, it is easily justified that it's worth the cost since labor cost is so much higher.

alephnerd 1y ago

> European companies are just run the same way EU governments are run, on austerity and cost cutting To a certain extent yes. But that's because of margins. An large automotive parts vendor or a major biopharma company isn't generating revenue on software, so software engineering is treated as a cost center. It's the same in the US, but at least you have tech first companies that generate most of their revenue of tech. Europe's tech industry died out because of a mixture of mismanagement and bad luck. Velti [0] used to outcompete AdSense, but their management was incompetent and borderline fraudulent, and that's why the AdTech industry boomed in the US and collapsed in Europe. The same thing happened to Nokia, Ericcson, and others. The good European startups like Datadog, Spotify, Databricks, and UIPath all ended up relocating to the US so an entire generation of startups doesn't exist in the EU. > they instead try to increase the profits by cutting all possible costs from purchasing to labors' wages and offshoring, since I assume that's also what's taught in European MBA schools I've dealt with MBA grads from the EU and US - they aren't taught any of this. IMO, the issue is most leadership in European companies tend to be ex-accountants from KPMG/EY/PWC/Deloitte/Mazars-type companies, because manufacturing industries like pharma, automotive, etc have severely low margins. [0] - https://www.businessinsider.com/how-velti-one-of-the-largest-mobile-ad-companies-on-the-planet-lost-130-million-2013-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-velti-one-of-the-largest...

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>and bad luck Was it really bad luck or just bad management refusing to accept the reality that they were bad so they blamed luck? Nokia CEO was famous for saying "We did everything right and still lost". Clearly he didn't do everything right if they lost. I think EU leaders and CEOs have no accountability, hindsight or self reflection capacity to see how badly they're failing so then just blame bad luck because it always has to be someone else's fault.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > Was it really bad luck or just bad management refusing to accept the reality that they were bad so they blamed luck? Bit of column A and bit of column B. There was a LOT of bad management, but the Eurozone Crisis (2007-2014, 2018 for Greece) was also extremely severe and out of corporate leadership's hands. If 70-80% of your customers across the Eurozone were delinquent in payments and in the midst of bankruptcies and rolling down operations, you wouldn't be generating the same amount of revenue needed. In the US, enforcing vendor arrears and collecting dues from bankrupt customers is much easier. These are business law issues that business leadership within the 26+ EU/EFTA nations cannot solve, as this is a legislative issue. > I think EU leaders and CEOs have no accountability, hindsight or self reflection capacity to see how badly they're failing so then just blame bad luck because it always has to be someone else's fault. To a certain extent yes, but that's because they don't empower the private sector beyond a handful of politically connected firms to have an actual say or input. Lobbying happens in the EU as well, but it is much harder for startups and companies that aren't national champions to get a say. Of course, this depends on the country as well as the EU as a whole, which is the crux of the issue - should national law or "EU law" be prioritized? In action, enforcement and regulatory capacity is devolved from the EU to individual member states, and logically, companies do jurisdiction shopping, hence why you see American companies over-represented in Ireland and a strong tech ecosystem in Czechia, Poland, and Romania.