8 ms·

This is nice but if Europe doesn't fix their tech salaries situation (half US' in most cases, if not lower), I don't think it's sustainable.

s_dev 9mo ago
High US salaries come from US VCs having to bid against other to capture talent. US VCs have more capital than EU VCs. This is why. The EU is now going to start pumping money in to building European alternatives. EU software dev salaries are going to increase. All 27 states agreed to establish the saving and investments union. Nothing will happen overnight but you'll see this start to play out over the next 5 years. It will take decades to catch up but we are starting.
yodsanklai 9mo ago
I suspect China or Russia don't have higher salaries, they still manage to build their own alternatives. And Airbus builds better planes than Boeing with European salaries. I'm sure that with a bit of protectionism, we would build our tech as well as anybody else.
- u8080 9mo ago
  Tech jobs in IT in Moscow are paid(net) relatively similar to what you could get in EU.
  - nazgob 9mo ago
    So not US salaries.
    - u8080 9mo ago
      Indeed, but cost of life is different as well. People usually compare US Bay area net salaries to Western EU salaries - but there are so many different things to consider as well(rent, insurances, taxes, etc) which imo spoils any constructive comparasion.
kmac_ 9mo ago
It's not just about salaries, but also the lack of a culture for seeding and financing. The fear of failed investments really dominates. Government and EU-backed financing is a joke, and I'm not even talking about the terms or amounts, but who actually gets them. It's pure waste of taxpayer money and should be abandoned.
- kaffekaka 9mo ago
  I am not saying you are wrong, but Trump has shown exactly how quickly a "culture" can crumble down. Despite "checks and balances" the American democracy has done nothing to slow down the slide into dictatorship. So how long will the culture last?
Tade0 9mo ago
I wouldn't want US salaries with US costs of living. Also working for companies located in Ireland[0] or Switzerland you can have your US salary, it's just that the pool of jobs is limited. [0] Provided it's a company in the first of Ireland's two economies.
- lostmsu 9mo ago
  Not sure about Ireland, but Switzerland used to be true, but now it is also far behind since 5+ years. See, Google Zurich vs Seattle https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater-zurich-area?search=google https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater... https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater-seattle-area?search=google https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater... Hm, after carefully reviewing the entries seem more or less the same, Zurich slightly lower.
  - ragall 9mo ago
    Considering the low taxes and lower cost of living in Zurich (yes, lower than Seattle), and the much higher quality of life, Zurich is a no-brainer.
    - alberto-m 9mo ago
      I'd say if you get a job in the same company, Zurich is competitive. The problem is that if you lose your job at Google in Seattle there are several hundreds of FAANG positions and probably thousands of other 200k$+ SWE jobs you can reapply to. In Zurich you will maybe see a dozen of openings in the small subsidiaries of Apple, Microsoft & Co., and maybe some individual job offers from small AI companies, and applying to any of these positions basically means competing against the whole rest of the continent.
      - palata 9mo ago
        > and applying to any of these positions basically means competing against the whole rest of the continent Which should not be an issue, if as I read a lot in this page, "all good European engineers move to the US". It means that you only have to compete against the "bad ones" that stayed back, right? /s
tene80i 9mo ago
But why? What's unsustainable about an email service, for example, run by competent European engineers at European salaries?
- gtirloni 9mo ago
  The huge influx of competent European engineers to the US is a real thing.
  - kaffekaka 9mo ago
    Will this continue?
  - celsoazevedo 9mo ago
    That might not be the case any more if things get to the point where someone in Europe must use a European alternative.
  - ragall 9mo ago
    That was true a few years ago, but not any more. Covid made a lot of US-based companies sack local developers and actually open offices in Europe. I have friends in Italy who, between 2022 and 2023, moved from local companies to US companies opening offices in Rome and Milano, and got a salary bump from ~30-35k to 80-90k plus bonus and RSUs. Same thing happening all over Europe.
  - mrweasel 9mo ago
    I don't think that's motivated by money. The US companies simply solved more interesting problems. Working for a start up in the Bay area trying to invent a new industry, or scale systems to global is generally more interesting than working on a CRM system for mid-size lumberyards in Sweden. The CRM system pays well enough to have a comfortable lifestyle and provide for your family, but it's a little boring if you're 25 with a shiny new CS degree.
  - palata 9mo ago
    Because many European engineers move to the US does not mean at all that most European engineers move to the US. There are many engineers in Europe. I hear that argument a lot, and honestly it sounds uninformed and downright disrespectful. Some kind of "I am a US developer, we US developers are the best, and the few good European engineers come here. The remaining ones in Europe are dumb". Not to mention that I have talked to quite a few European engineers who could earn a lot more by moving to the US, but just really don't want to live in the US. Maybe there is a reason for that?
kuon 9mo ago
I might get lower salary, but if I break my leg I pay nothing and I am paid during my leave.
- gtirloni 9mo ago
  I doubt you break your leg every year though. The kind of companies that we're talking about (big tech that are national champions) offers health insurance (among other benefits) and 200-500k USD/year salaries. I think culture and quality of life not withstanding, the raw numbers simply don't favor the EU becoming a tech leader with the current incentives.
  - Juliate 9mo ago
    The thing is that in Europe, you don't need your employer to have health insurance. It's more beneficial for everyone in the end (well, obviously not for the private health insurance companies who care more about their margins than public wellness).
  - palata 9mo ago
    > I think culture and quality of life not withstanding, the raw numbers simply don't favor the EU becoming a tech leader with the current incentives. But maybe culture and quality of life should not be ignored :-).
    - pageandrew 9mo ago
      Quality of life in places like San Francisco and New York is very high, and you get the insane salaries, and your healthcare is oftentimes mostly if not completely covered by your employer (I pay literally $0 out of pocket for high quality healthcare here in San Francisco).
      - palata 9mo ago
        > Quality of life in places like San Francisco and New York is very high Quality of life is also a cultural thing. I know it's hard to understand for US people (I truly believe it is the case for cultural reasons), but many people really don't want the lifestyle of the US for all sorts of reasons. For some people, quality of life means easy access to healthy food, or to nature, seeing trees instead of giant concrete parking lots or 6-lanes highways, etc.
skrebbel 9mo ago
You simply don’t need such inflated salaries if schools are free, roads are not broken, trains exist, healthcare is affordable, grocery stores are in biking distance, parks are good and free and plenty, labor laws are in your favour, utilities markets mostly aren’t dysfunctional and a 2-bedroom apartment doesn't cost $10000/m. Americans compare their salaries to European ones but never stop to imagine the insane high “taxes” they pay for stuff that we get cheaply or for free. I'm not even saying the one is better than the other. There's a lot to be said for the American system of only paying for what you need. It's just.. you can't just compare dollars/euros like that. There's reddit posts of people who earn $900k/y and openly wonder whether that's enough to live in NYC and that shit is equally unfathomable to the average European as the idea of a dev earning €70k/y is to the average American.
- lmf4lol 9mo ago
  True. But the systems are more and more breaking down. Its unsustainable. At least what I can tell from Germany and the Netherlands. to see a healthcare specialist, you wait 3-6months in some cases. Not talking about the trains. Germany DB runs on time in only 50% of the cases. So thats a big problem
  - maigret 9mo ago
    The trains that are 10 min late in Germany mostly not exist in many other countries. Sure Switzerland is the best, but Germany is pretty high up. It’s just less good than it used to be. Oh and you can ride almost everywhere for 60 EUR / month. For healthcare if you get an IT salary you can either move to private insurance, or buy additional insurance, or just pay a consultation yourself for a fee that US people won’t believe.
    - lmf4lol 9mo ago
      Last 7 times i took the ICE, i had 5 delays. 3 times the restaurant wasnt available. 2 times they didnt stop at my destination and I had to rent a car. so yeah. I try to travel now either by car or plane. But even by car is terrible, especially in the south. More construction sites every year and none are finishing. . Health care is totally broken if you dont have private insurance. My step dad, who has, gets an appointment 1 day after he calls. my grand ma, who worked all her life and is now on public needs to wait 5 months IN PAIN. the system is breaking down in front of our very eyes. i am not living in Germany. i moved to fthe NL, but the situation is very similiar.
Teever 9mo ago
This talking point went out the window After America threatened to invade Greenland. After that I bet some people would actually pay to develop software to defang the American threat.
toomuchtodo 9mo ago
The higher US salaries are a bug, not a feature, in this context.
mrweasel 9mo ago
Assuming that people are solely motivated by money, which most aren't. You can't pay me enough to put my children into a school system that has "active shooter" drills. After a certain point money stops being a motivation, that point is well within the average EU tech salary band (perhaps excluding places like Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia and that general area).
wolvoleo 9mo ago
Personally it's not all about money. I even moved to a lower wage country in Europe for better quality of life. Having enough is what I care about and things are a lot cheaper here too. Not to mention free healthcare, social security. I don't need a car and a public transport pass is 25€ a month. That alone saves me so much money. The time till the next metro train counts down in seconds here. When I had a car in the past it would cost me hundreds per month and it was such a headache. I'd never move to the US even if I could make 3x as much. In fact I got an offer from a FAANG once (with the whole H1B managed by some agency I think) but I declined. I only applied because they advertised it as a local job but then when the offer came it was in California. Nope.
Fischgericht 9mo ago
Before we closed our office in Mountain View years ago, every time we went over there: - I could not get out of my San Francisco Hotel to get to a deli across the road without having to step over at least 5 homeless people. - I could not fail to notice that even those people who did have jobs and not lost their homes to tech bros had a surprisingly low number of healthy teeth for a modern western first-world society - An apartment with noisy air conditioning, dirty carpets and questionable building codes would cost more in rent than a villa at the Côte d’Azur. - The air quality during fire season was a nightmare. During my time there I developed asthma. - Everybody hated the arrogant ignorant tech people that invaded their communities, forced them out of their houses to then have to commute into the city or valley to serve tech bros. Yes, as a European I am not that well trained to constantly ignore that my privilege are causing the community around me to suffer. That I do not "earn" this gigantic salary, I am just grabbing the resources pretending the "normal" people don't deserve to have any of that. You are getting paid so much because you in exchange are living in a sh*thole country without education, healthcare, public transport, clean air, or anything else that I as a "wealthy" developer person would expect to receive in exchange for my work. Take your US salary, and invest it into a travel into some of the more up-to-date regions of the world. Those with clean air, education, healthcare. Places I have visited that are better than the Valley in this regard include: - Pretty much all of Europe. Maybe with the exception of Greece and Spain, when they are now burning thanks to the "drill drill drill" people. - China - Iran - New Zealand - Australia - Canada ... Yes, the amount of zeros on your US salary might look soooooooooooooooo impressive. But they are zeros. They don't buy you a livable live in a modern civilization. Right now you are just bribed with money not to see the civil war getting ignited in minnesota. Oh oh oh, now I remember! I have even been to two countries with civil wars a while ago, who had clean air, education and healthcare. And I think even directly after the civil war, all of Kosovo had a lower percentage of homeless people than the US has today. Yes, another one of my drastic postings. But you will survive. Be brave: With someone who clearly is being paid a lot for being clever, I can assume that you think this through again, to calculate what the better deal is. You know the average amount of student debt people who want to become programmers have? Zero. You are not getting more VALUE out of working in the US in high-tech compared to other places. There are places on this world, where being a good programmer buys you a wonderful life with nobody around you being poor, or without healthcare, or homeless. Try Estonia. They have a lovely tech community, a fully digital government. You can become a digital citizen, open your own company in minutes. And you will have a far better life.
surgical_fire 9mo ago
Why not? I had offers from companies across the pond, and likely could make about 2x-3x what I make here. What for? I live a comfortable life here.
ggm 9mo ago
Over what period of time do you predict economic downfall for European tech because of salaries? Please explain your working. These last 40 years or more there has been a cliff of money, but Europeans continue to live and work in europe. You have to have an incredibly narrow definition of "only good people work for more money and only poor/ineffective people work for less" to say people who don't chase the millions in a US company are somehow failures.
rhubarbtree 9mo ago
Not true. Plenty of European products are better. Consumer example: Spotify is better than Apple Music. Business example: Attio is better than every American CRM at SME/early stage startup stage. Biggest problem has been talent going to US. This problem is rapidly being solved by the US government. The startup I work for was planning to raise next round in the US. This will not happen as the CEO refuses to travel to the US. It’s the best time to build in the EU or UK there has ever been. I don’t expect America to pull out of this nose dive. The future of western software is in europe now, and globally I expect China to be the lead beginning with AI.
pickleRick243 9mo ago
The actions of the current US administration seem to have provoked intense negative reactions, or perhaps caused long simmering resentment to boil over. I hope some of this energy goes towards cultivating a more entrepreneurial, less risk-averse culture in Europe. As much as you may detest all the other great powers jostling for position with seemingly cursory attention paid to moral considerations, making your core identity the cultured "nice guy" is likely a trap. I'd love to see the resurgence of a strong Europe. I think this will require some introspection and more action than simply boycotting Google and Amazon.
deaux 9mo ago
It very much is sustainable. See China, Russia, Korea and Japan, all varying degrees of being much less dependent on US tech than the EU is.

s_dev 9mo ago

High US salaries come from US VCs having to bid against other to capture talent. US VCs have more capital than EU VCs. This is why. The EU is now going to start pumping money in to building European alternatives. EU software dev salaries are going to increase. All 27 states agreed to establish the saving and investments union. Nothing will happen overnight but you'll see this start to play out over the next 5 years. It will take decades to catch up but we are starting.

yodsanklai 9mo ago

I suspect China or Russia don't have higher salaries, they still manage to build their own alternatives. And Airbus builds better planes than Boeing with European salaries. I'm sure that with a bit of protectionism, we would build our tech as well as anybody else.

u8080 9mo ago
Tech jobs in IT in Moscow are paid(net) relatively similar to what you could get in EU.
- nazgob 9mo ago
  So not US salaries.
  - u8080 9mo ago
    Indeed, but cost of life is different as well. People usually compare US Bay area net salaries to Western EU salaries - but there are so many different things to consider as well(rent, insurances, taxes, etc) which imo spoils any constructive comparasion.

kmac_ 9mo ago

It's not just about salaries, but also the lack of a culture for seeding and financing. The fear of failed investments really dominates. Government and EU-backed financing is a joke, and I'm not even talking about the terms or amounts, but who actually gets them. It's pure waste of taxpayer money and should be abandoned.

kaffekaka 9mo ago
I am not saying you are wrong, but Trump has shown exactly how quickly a "culture" can crumble down. Despite "checks and balances" the American democracy has done nothing to slow down the slide into dictatorship. So how long will the culture last?

Tade0 9mo ago

I wouldn't want US salaries with US costs of living. Also working for companies located in Ireland[0] or Switzerland you can have your US salary, it's just that the pool of jobs is limited. [0] Provided it's a company in the first of Ireland's two economies.

lostmsu 9mo ago
Not sure about Ireland, but Switzerland used to be true, but now it is also far behind since 5+ years. See, Google Zurich vs Seattle https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater-zurich-area?search=google https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater... https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater-seattle-area?search=google https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/greater... Hm, after carefully reviewing the entries seem more or less the same, Zurich slightly lower.
- ragall 9mo ago
  Considering the low taxes and lower cost of living in Zurich (yes, lower than Seattle), and the much higher quality of life, Zurich is a no-brainer.
  - alberto-m 9mo ago
    I'd say if you get a job in the same company, Zurich is competitive. The problem is that if you lose your job at Google in Seattle there are several hundreds of FAANG positions and probably thousands of other 200k$+ SWE jobs you can reapply to. In Zurich you will maybe see a dozen of openings in the small subsidiaries of Apple, Microsoft & Co., and maybe some individual job offers from small AI companies, and applying to any of these positions basically means competing against the whole rest of the continent.
    - palata 9mo ago
      > and applying to any of these positions basically means competing against the whole rest of the continent Which should not be an issue, if as I read a lot in this page, "all good European engineers move to the US". It means that you only have to compete against the "bad ones" that stayed back, right? /s

tene80i 9mo ago

But why? What's unsustainable about an email service, for example, run by competent European engineers at European salaries?

gtirloni 9mo ago
The huge influx of competent European engineers to the US is a real thing.
- kaffekaka 9mo ago
  Will this continue?
- celsoazevedo 9mo ago
  That might not be the case any more if things get to the point where someone in Europe must use a European alternative.
- ragall 9mo ago
  That was true a few years ago, but not any more. Covid made a lot of US-based companies sack local developers and actually open offices in Europe. I have friends in Italy who, between 2022 and 2023, moved from local companies to US companies opening offices in Rome and Milano, and got a salary bump from ~30-35k to 80-90k plus bonus and RSUs. Same thing happening all over Europe.
- mrweasel 9mo ago
  I don't think that's motivated by money. The US companies simply solved more interesting problems. Working for a start up in the Bay area trying to invent a new industry, or scale systems to global is generally more interesting than working on a CRM system for mid-size lumberyards in Sweden. The CRM system pays well enough to have a comfortable lifestyle and provide for your family, but it's a little boring if you're 25 with a shiny new CS degree.
- palata 9mo ago
  Because many European engineers move to the US does not mean at all that most European engineers move to the US. There are many engineers in Europe. I hear that argument a lot, and honestly it sounds uninformed and downright disrespectful. Some kind of "I am a US developer, we US developers are the best, and the few good European engineers come here. The remaining ones in Europe are dumb". Not to mention that I have talked to quite a few European engineers who could earn a lot more by moving to the US, but just really don't want to live in the US. Maybe there is a reason for that?

kuon 9mo ago

I might get lower salary, but if I break my leg I pay nothing and I am paid during my leave.

gtirloni 9mo ago
I doubt you break your leg every year though. The kind of companies that we're talking about (big tech that are national champions) offers health insurance (among other benefits) and 200-500k USD/year salaries. I think culture and quality of life not withstanding, the raw numbers simply don't favor the EU becoming a tech leader with the current incentives.
- Juliate 9mo ago
  The thing is that in Europe, you don't need your employer to have health insurance. It's more beneficial for everyone in the end (well, obviously not for the private health insurance companies who care more about their margins than public wellness).
- palata 9mo ago
  > I think culture and quality of life not withstanding, the raw numbers simply don't favor the EU becoming a tech leader with the current incentives. But maybe culture and quality of life should not be ignored :-).
  - pageandrew 9mo ago
    Quality of life in places like San Francisco and New York is very high, and you get the insane salaries, and your healthcare is oftentimes mostly if not completely covered by your employer (I pay literally $0 out of pocket for high quality healthcare here in San Francisco).
    - palata 9mo ago
      > Quality of life in places like San Francisco and New York is very high Quality of life is also a cultural thing. I know it's hard to understand for US people (I truly believe it is the case for cultural reasons), but many people really don't want the lifestyle of the US for all sorts of reasons. For some people, quality of life means easy access to healthy food, or to nature, seeing trees instead of giant concrete parking lots or 6-lanes highways, etc.

skrebbel 9mo ago

You simply don’t need such inflated salaries if schools are free, roads are not broken, trains exist, healthcare is affordable, grocery stores are in biking distance, parks are good and free and plenty, labor laws are in your favour, utilities markets mostly aren’t dysfunctional and a 2-bedroom apartment doesn't cost $10000/m. Americans compare their salaries to European ones but never stop to imagine the insane high “taxes” they pay for stuff that we get cheaply or for free. I'm not even saying the one is better than the other. There's a lot to be said for the American system of only paying for what you need. It's just.. you can't just compare dollars/euros like that. There's reddit posts of people who earn $900k/y and openly wonder whether that's enough to live in NYC and that shit is equally unfathomable to the average European as the idea of a dev earning €70k/y is to the average American.

lmf4lol 9mo ago
True. But the systems are more and more breaking down. Its unsustainable. At least what I can tell from Germany and the Netherlands. to see a healthcare specialist, you wait 3-6months in some cases. Not talking about the trains. Germany DB runs on time in only 50% of the cases. So thats a big problem
- maigret 9mo ago
  The trains that are 10 min late in Germany mostly not exist in many other countries. Sure Switzerland is the best, but Germany is pretty high up. It’s just less good than it used to be. Oh and you can ride almost everywhere for 60 EUR / month. For healthcare if you get an IT salary you can either move to private insurance, or buy additional insurance, or just pay a consultation yourself for a fee that US people won’t believe.
  - lmf4lol 9mo ago
    Last 7 times i took the ICE, i had 5 delays. 3 times the restaurant wasnt available. 2 times they didnt stop at my destination and I had to rent a car. so yeah. I try to travel now either by car or plane. But even by car is terrible, especially in the south. More construction sites every year and none are finishing. . Health care is totally broken if you dont have private insurance. My step dad, who has, gets an appointment 1 day after he calls. my grand ma, who worked all her life and is now on public needs to wait 5 months IN PAIN. the system is breaking down in front of our very eyes. i am not living in Germany. i moved to fthe NL, but the situation is very similiar.

Teever 9mo ago

This talking point went out the window After America threatened to invade Greenland. After that I bet some people would actually pay to develop software to defang the American threat.

toomuchtodo 9mo ago

The higher US salaries are a bug, not a feature, in this context.

mrweasel 9mo ago

Assuming that people are solely motivated by money, which most aren't. You can't pay me enough to put my children into a school system that has "active shooter" drills. After a certain point money stops being a motivation, that point is well within the average EU tech salary band (perhaps excluding places like Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia and that general area).

wolvoleo 9mo ago

Personally it's not all about money. I even moved to a lower wage country in Europe for better quality of life. Having enough is what I care about and things are a lot cheaper here too. Not to mention free healthcare, social security. I don't need a car and a public transport pass is 25€ a month. That alone saves me so much money. The time till the next metro train counts down in seconds here. When I had a car in the past it would cost me hundreds per month and it was such a headache. I'd never move to the US even if I could make 3x as much. In fact I got an offer from a FAANG once (with the whole H1B managed by some agency I think) but I declined. I only applied because they advertised it as a local job but then when the offer came it was in California. Nope.

Fischgericht 9mo ago

Before we closed our office in Mountain View years ago, every time we went over there: - I could not get out of my San Francisco Hotel to get to a deli across the road without having to step over at least 5 homeless people. - I could not fail to notice that even those people who did have jobs and not lost their homes to tech bros had a surprisingly low number of healthy teeth for a modern western first-world society - An apartment with noisy air conditioning, dirty carpets and questionable building codes would cost more in rent than a villa at the Côte d’Azur. - The air quality during fire season was a nightmare. During my time there I developed asthma. - Everybody hated the arrogant ignorant tech people that invaded their communities, forced them out of their houses to then have to commute into the city or valley to serve tech bros. Yes, as a European I am not that well trained to constantly ignore that my privilege are causing the community around me to suffer. That I do not "earn" this gigantic salary, I am just grabbing the resources pretending the "normal" people don't deserve to have any of that. You are getting paid so much because you in exchange are living in a sh*thole country without education, healthcare, public transport, clean air, or anything else that I as a "wealthy" developer person would expect to receive in exchange for my work. Take your US salary, and invest it into a travel into some of the more up-to-date regions of the world. Those with clean air, education, healthcare. Places I have visited that are better than the Valley in this regard include: - Pretty much all of Europe. Maybe with the exception of Greece and Spain, when they are now burning thanks to the "drill drill drill" people. - China - Iran - New Zealand - Australia - Canada ... Yes, the amount of zeros on your US salary might look soooooooooooooooo impressive. But they are zeros. They don't buy you a livable live in a modern civilization. Right now you are just bribed with money not to see the civil war getting ignited in minnesota. Oh oh oh, now I remember! I have even been to two countries with civil wars a while ago, who had clean air, education and healthcare. And I think even directly after the civil war, all of Kosovo had a lower percentage of homeless people than the US has today. Yes, another one of my drastic postings. But you will survive. Be brave: With someone who clearly is being paid a lot for being clever, I can assume that you think this through again, to calculate what the better deal is. You know the average amount of student debt people who want to become programmers have? Zero. You are not getting more VALUE out of working in the US in high-tech compared to other places. There are places on this world, where being a good programmer buys you a wonderful life with nobody around you being poor, or without healthcare, or homeless. Try Estonia. They have a lovely tech community, a fully digital government. You can become a digital citizen, open your own company in minutes. And you will have a far better life.

surgical_fire 9mo ago

Why not? I had offers from companies across the pond, and likely could make about 2x-3x what I make here. What for? I live a comfortable life here.

ggm 9mo ago

Over what period of time do you predict economic downfall for European tech because of salaries? Please explain your working. These last 40 years or more there has been a cliff of money, but Europeans continue to live and work in europe. You have to have an incredibly narrow definition of "only good people work for more money and only poor/ineffective people work for less" to say people who don't chase the millions in a US company are somehow failures.

rhubarbtree 9mo ago

Not true. Plenty of European products are better. Consumer example: Spotify is better than Apple Music. Business example: Attio is better than every American CRM at SME/early stage startup stage. Biggest problem has been talent going to US. This problem is rapidly being solved by the US government. The startup I work for was planning to raise next round in the US. This will not happen as the CEO refuses to travel to the US. It’s the best time to build in the EU or UK there has ever been. I don’t expect America to pull out of this nose dive. The future of western software is in europe now, and globally I expect China to be the lead beginning with AI.

pickleRick243 9mo ago

The actions of the current US administration seem to have provoked intense negative reactions, or perhaps caused long simmering resentment to boil over. I hope some of this energy goes towards cultivating a more entrepreneurial, less risk-averse culture in Europe. As much as you may detest all the other great powers jostling for position with seemingly cursory attention paid to moral considerations, making your core identity the cultured "nice guy" is likely a trap. I'd love to see the resurgence of a strong Europe. I think this will require some introspection and more action than simply boycotting Google and Amazon.

deaux 9mo ago

It very much is sustainable. See China, Russia, Korea and Japan, all varying degrees of being much less dependent on US tech than the EU is.