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"Europe has trailed America for decades, partly because of a tricky environment for entrepreneurs." Disagreeing with that from the start or the article. It re

by Zenst 14y ago

"Europe has trailed America for decades, partly because of a tricky environment for entrepreneurs." Disagreeing with that from the start or the article. It realy depends upon what industry you look at, many sucessful entrepreneurs all around the World. Some countries are more suited to enableing them in one area as apposed to other countries and also the feild. Writting books, software and alot of inventions can be done with a extreemly low startup cost. So without clearcut examples it is hard for me as a European to understand. I will accept VC/finance may be easier or was easier in America for some feilds and still is, but a entrepreneur is by definition somebody who trancends the limitations that are normal and as such stands out. Goverments with regards to getting involved in Buisness do it in many ways, grants for research helps in a area that creates buisness's without directly doing so. Buisness's that are well extablished and come to a country can deal with goverments for TAX breaks, no startups/new companies can realy do that or leverage that area of govermentale assistance, they get breaks like all new companies. As for the rest of the article is is realy just focusing lossly upon technology and offers nothing tangable to highlight things. If it had a interview with somebody who tried to setup a technology company in europe and then endedup going to america to do things as it was easier, then the article would have made more sence and of had a good example. Given the author was involved with Messagelabs who's HQ is located in the UK and not the USA, then I would of expected more references to the direction the article takes. More so as that company would seem to highlight against the article as it was started in the UK, grew well, sold to Symantic for large pile of £'s and not $'s indicating a succesful startup in a country thats in Europe. So again can see why I disagree on many levels with this article, sorry.

omd 14y ago
Investors are frustrated that they can't replicate the success of Silicon Valley here in Europe, but our governments aren't the ones to blame. The environment here is different because the people want it that way. It's a different culture with different priorities and different goals. Just as Hollywood could only have become what it is in the US because it fits the (West Coast) American mentality, so too could a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram only come out of the American way of doing business. I don't see anything wrong with that and I've been able to do business here for almost 20 years. The trick is to not treat the environment here as something it's not and has no intention to become.
- im3w1l 14y ago
  >a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram only come out of the American way of doing business. I find this statement hard to believe. There are many successful companies from other countries. What about F/T/I is different, and could only have come from the US?
  - toyg 14y ago
    Europeans are very skeptical about backing businesses without a clear and short path to monetization, something that businesses like twitter or facebook did not have until very late. Maybe it's due to our history (lots of revolutions, lots of people going broke from one day to the next, etc) but people over here are much more conservative when evaluating potential investments. Also, the whole data-mining / reselling business, which is "the backer of last resort" for most "free" startups in the States, is probably less developed over here (and is subject to fairly strict regulation).
    - LaGrange 14y ago
      It doesn't really have to be a short path. Sometimes things like highways and similar are intended to be profitable, but the up-front investments is so high, that the break-even point is far in the future. Sometimes the investments are clearly non-profitable monetarily -- like, say, regional public transportation. The point is that the investment either has to be profitable within a predictable future, and then it's a business, or it must be significantly beneficial to the society as a whole, and then it's a state matter. I don't think this is universally recognized in EU (I think the OP confuses Europe with EU), of course, nor do I think nobody in US thinks that way, but general attitudes towards the statement that started this paragraph seem to differ. The effect is that if you apply for e.g. any of the EU innovation funds, you actually have to come up with a business plan that states what are you doing, how is it similar to others, how and when are you going to ultimately turn profit. It's reasonable for VC to do the same.
  - saurik 14y ago
    All three of these companies are built on a foundation of a bunch of users frantically sharing lots of content with each other, as fast as possible, for free; the result is something that may or may not actually have any value at all, despite insanely high valuations from investments and acquisitions. In a way, the question of whether these companies are even "successful" at all is actually an important one to consider: they aren't terribly profitable (or are even operating at a loss) and, like many other Web 2.0 companies, are being held up by a promise that "with this many users, we will make money". Yet, even when you reach the size of these companies--Facebook and Twitter are both larger than the entire possible network connected market in 1998 when these dreams were so horribly vivid--you still are in a horrible position of "ok, but how do we make money? we were told there was money :(". Now, I'm not from Europe, but I get the impression talking with some people I know from there (who may just be biased or romanticizing) that this sort of insanity simply doesn't play as well in that market: that people think through their monetary decisions a little longer, and are less likely to be tricked. Meanwhile, people in Europe really do seem to care more about information retention issues, and have passed numerous laws (sometimes ones that people consider quite over-the-top) that indicate a mindset in opposition to this "share everything about you as fast as possible so it can be monetized" concept. So, if you are wording your statement or in any way reacting to this premise from a "how dare you insult other countries like that" mentality, you might should attempt to recast the position as "what about these other countries makes them better than us and less likely to waste their time building these things?". (The same argument applies to the other example: many people consider the ideals that lead to Hollywood to be founded on a combination of narcism and rent-seeking; a ton of people go there and spend their lives in pursuit of something that will never work out for them, slowly violating more and more of their personal morals and boundaries in the hope of getting a little closer to their dream.)

by Zenst 14y ago

omd 14y ago

Investors are frustrated that they can't replicate the success of Silicon Valley here in Europe, but our governments aren't the ones to blame. The environment here is different because the people want it that way. It's a different culture with different priorities and different goals. Just as Hollywood could only have become what it is in the US because it fits the (West Coast) American mentality, so too could a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram only come out of the American way of doing business. I don't see anything wrong with that and I've been able to do business here for almost 20 years. The trick is to not treat the environment here as something it's not and has no intention to become.

im3w1l 14y ago
>a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram only come out of the American way of doing business. I find this statement hard to believe. There are many successful companies from other countries. What about F/T/I is different, and could only have come from the US?
- toyg 14y ago
  Europeans are very skeptical about backing businesses without a clear and short path to monetization, something that businesses like twitter or facebook did not have until very late. Maybe it's due to our history (lots of revolutions, lots of people going broke from one day to the next, etc) but people over here are much more conservative when evaluating potential investments. Also, the whole data-mining / reselling business, which is "the backer of last resort" for most "free" startups in the States, is probably less developed over here (and is subject to fairly strict regulation).
  - LaGrange 14y ago
    It doesn't really have to be a short path. Sometimes things like highways and similar are intended to be profitable, but the up-front investments is so high, that the break-even point is far in the future. Sometimes the investments are clearly non-profitable monetarily -- like, say, regional public transportation. The point is that the investment either has to be profitable within a predictable future, and then it's a business, or it must be significantly beneficial to the society as a whole, and then it's a state matter. I don't think this is universally recognized in EU (I think the OP confuses Europe with EU), of course, nor do I think nobody in US thinks that way, but general attitudes towards the statement that started this paragraph seem to differ. The effect is that if you apply for e.g. any of the EU innovation funds, you actually have to come up with a business plan that states what are you doing, how is it similar to others, how and when are you going to ultimately turn profit. It's reasonable for VC to do the same.
- saurik 14y ago
  All three of these companies are built on a foundation of a bunch of users frantically sharing lots of content with each other, as fast as possible, for free; the result is something that may or may not actually have any value at all, despite insanely high valuations from investments and acquisitions. In a way, the question of whether these companies are even "successful" at all is actually an important one to consider: they aren't terribly profitable (or are even operating at a loss) and, like many other Web 2.0 companies, are being held up by a promise that "with this many users, we will make money". Yet, even when you reach the size of these companies--Facebook and Twitter are both larger than the entire possible network connected market in 1998 when these dreams were so horribly vivid--you still are in a horrible position of "ok, but how do we make money? we were told there was money :(". Now, I'm not from Europe, but I get the impression talking with some people I know from there (who may just be biased or romanticizing) that this sort of insanity simply doesn't play as well in that market: that people think through their monetary decisions a little longer, and are less likely to be tricked. Meanwhile, people in Europe really do seem to care more about information retention issues, and have passed numerous laws (sometimes ones that people consider quite over-the-top) that indicate a mindset in opposition to this "share everything about you as fast as possible so it can be monetized" concept. So, if you are wording your statement or in any way reacting to this premise from a "how dare you insult other countries like that" mentality, you might should attempt to recast the position as "what about these other countries makes them better than us and less likely to waste their time building these things?". (The same argument applies to the other example: many people consider the ideals that lead to Hollywood to be founded on a combination of narcism and rent-seeking; a ton of people go there and spend their lives in pursuit of something that will never work out for them, slowly violating more and more of their personal morals and boundaries in the hope of getting a little closer to their dream.)