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> The seven largest U.S. tech companies (...) are 20 times bigger than Europe’s seven largest, and generate 10 times more revenue. I'm going to guess that this

> The seven largest U.S. tech companies (...) are 20 times bigger than Europe’s seven largest, and generate 10 times more revenue. I'm going to guess that this part is intentional. Europe tends to be more aggressive in enforcing antitrust laws. Economically, Europe's goal isn't to have the biggest companies but to have more smaller companies. So you're not going to get companies like Google, but you will get companies like Proton, Spotify, Tuta, Hetzner, Mistral, Threema, Filen, Babbel, Nextcloud, CryptPad, DeepL, Vivaldi, and so on.

panick21_ 1y ago
Antitrust laws are not the reasons for more smaller companies. Getting an antitrust case off in Europe is very hard, not US hard but still hard. The reasons are more complex then that.
nonethewiser 1y ago
>I'm going to guess that this part is intentional. Europe tends to be more aggressive in enforcing antitrust laws. Economically, Europe's goal isn't to have the biggest companies but to have more smaller companies. So is your hypothesis that the total market cap of EU tech companies is something like 50,60,70, etc. % of total US tech marketcap? Something significantly different than the ~10% implied by that figure (largest us companies 10x largest EU companies). And it's just more broadly distributed? Hard to find data on this but this is showing EU tech market cap at 3.2T. https://www.stateofeuropeantech.com/chapters/outcomes https://www.stateofeuropeantech.com/chapters/outcomes Whereas this is saying the US "megacaps" ($200B+) are at 21T. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/05/tech-megacaps-worth-market-cap.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/05/tech-megacaps-worth-market-c... Which puts the entire EU tech market at 15% of the US megacaps. Not even the entire market.
- layer8 1y ago
  European companies are smaller on average and less likely to go public in general, so market cap comparisons don’t show the whole picture. Growing big is less often seen as a goal than in the US. “Megacaps” aren’t necessarily considered a healthy thing to have.
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    Yes, and this all but guarantees that Europe will stay behind USA and China in their technology capabilities.
    - layer8 1y ago
      If it means sticking to their values, then so be it.
    - mjburgess 1y ago
      What are these capabilities? I don't see any sense in which the EU has fewer capabilities. It has, say, a smaller number of businesses with smaller market dominance. It isnt clear to me what capability the EU would gain by having a monopolist social network, a monopolist search engine, a monopolist advertising trader
      - jimbokun 1y ago
        Europe has all of those things, they just come from the US.

panick21_ 1y ago

Antitrust laws are not the reasons for more smaller companies. Getting an antitrust case off in Europe is very hard, not US hard but still hard. The reasons are more complex then that.

nonethewiser 1y ago

>I'm going to guess that this part is intentional. Europe tends to be more aggressive in enforcing antitrust laws. Economically, Europe's goal isn't to have the biggest companies but to have more smaller companies. So is your hypothesis that the total market cap of EU tech companies is something like 50,60,70, etc. % of total US tech marketcap? Something significantly different than the ~10% implied by that figure (largest us companies 10x largest EU companies). And it's just more broadly distributed? Hard to find data on this but this is showing EU tech market cap at 3.2T. https://www.stateofeuropeantech.com/chapters/outcomes https://www.stateofeuropeantech.com/chapters/outcomes Whereas this is saying the US "megacaps" ($200B+) are at 21T. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/05/tech-megacaps-worth-market-cap.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/05/tech-megacaps-worth-market-c... Which puts the entire EU tech market at 15% of the US megacaps. Not even the entire market.

layer8 1y ago
European companies are smaller on average and less likely to go public in general, so market cap comparisons don’t show the whole picture. Growing big is less often seen as a goal than in the US. “Megacaps” aren’t necessarily considered a healthy thing to have.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  Yes, and this all but guarantees that Europe will stay behind USA and China in their technology capabilities.
  - layer8 1y ago
    If it means sticking to their values, then so be it.
  - mjburgess 1y ago
    What are these capabilities? I don't see any sense in which the EU has fewer capabilities. It has, say, a smaller number of businesses with smaller market dominance. It isnt clear to me what capability the EU would gain by having a monopolist social network, a monopolist search engine, a monopolist advertising trader
    - jimbokun 1y ago
      Europe has all of those things, they just come from the US.