I agree, there are actually bucket loads of smart people here, but there is one blocker, which is that whoever wants to build the next European cloud alternativ

I agree, there are actually bucket loads of smart people here, but there is one blocker, which is that whoever wants to build the next European cloud alternatives, has to do it in English first. Germans speak English well, but they have a different attitude to English than say the Dutch. One other issue is funding. Germans don't much like risk. Startups are risky, and if German investors were able to stick their necks out a little further they could find a happy medium between the current risk adversity and the craziness that is SIlicon Valley.