12 ms·

Why Silicon Valley Can’t Find Europe

141 points by panarky 13y ago

raverbashing 13y ago
Well, I'm more used to the European side of things, so this is how I see it: 1 - Europeans, though are certainly enthusiastic, are not going to go for 80h/week workloads, not even as founders. 2 - Some sense of Naiveté in the European site, in part because of the less restrictive laws and stronger regulations (beats me how Soundcloud started in Germany, anyone who has tried to use Youtube there can relate - at the same time Soundcloud is "the exception that proves the rule") 3 - Less "hacking" spirit. 4 - A more stable social foundation "discouraging" entrepreneurship (debatable) On the other hand, here's what I think Europe has to offer 1 - More opportunities to fill niches and offer new services 2 - Good education and people with a strong theoretical foundation 3 - Smaller costs than SV (and more affordable salaries, smaller healthcare costs) 4 - Easier to find talent amongst the whole EU, and easier to bring talent from outside (like Eastern Europe) 5 - Shorter distances between tech centers in Europe
- abbasaamer 13y ago
  On #1, I will say that the finance and consulting people I know in Europe (particularly Germany, Switzerland, and the UK) seem to work just as hard as their U.S. counterparts. I don't see why entrepreneurship can't be the same.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "1 - Europeans, though are certainly enthusiastic, are not going to go for 80h/week workloads, not even as founders." This assumes that to be successful startups need to be working 80h/weeks. There are plenty of successful tech companies working much less than that. Treehouse for example works a 4 day week. Long hours are important when building the MVP and getting it out but after that I think you can work normal hours. >> "4 - A more stable social foundation "discouraging" entrepreneurship (debatable)" Doesn't this encourage entrepreneurship? It enables you to take the risk without fear of ending up homeless. For example if I were to start a new company there are programs I can sign up for which would give me £60 per week for 6 months + I believe I would still qualify for housing assistance (basically my rent would be paid for me). So as a single guy I could easily bootstrap a company with little-no risk.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    "This assumes that to be successful startups need to be working 80h/weeks." You are correct, and I don't assume it. But several people do. "Doesn't this encourage entrepreneurship? It enables you to take the risk without fear of ending up homeless" Yes, there are two sides to it. Edit: I'll reply here why does this discourage entrepreneurship and my fault for not making this obvious The sentiment of "failing at business" as a failure is much stronger. Yes, you won't end up homeless, but it doesn't mean the society (and the people close to you) "accepts" what happened. Because you went for "computer stuff nonsense" instead of going for a traditional job. The way this relates to the welfare structure is in their "origin" of having everything nice and square and predictable.
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      >> ""Doesn't this encourage entrepreneurship? It enables you to take the risk without fear of ending up homeless" Yes, there are two sides to it." What's the other side? I don't see how it could discourage entrepreneurship at all.
      - LambdaAlmighty 13y ago
        OP basically says people in Europe look at you weird for starting a business. Failing the business afterward is a social tragedy. It's about social/peer pressure. Having lived in many countries across Europe, I can attest. Some countries are worse than others of course (the worst being the ex-commie/socialist ones).
        k-mcgrady 13y ago
        I agree with that 100% but I don't think that has anything to do with a good social system.
        watwut 13y ago
        My experience was different. Failing the business is a social tragedy only if you took too much debt. If you simply find a job afterwards, then it is ok. At least among my friends.
- netcan 13y ago
  Without making any specific claims or predictions, I think it's reasonable to assume that expanding the EU's areas of free movement (eg Romania and Bulgaria a few weeks ago) opens up new opportunities, in labour/talent markets for sure.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jkaljundi 13y ago
  Some of the things you mention apply to subsets of Europe, but not all of them. With more than 50 countries, the cultures, work habits, legislations and economic levels are very different all around. Romania and Sweden, Estonia and France, Finland and Portugal, UK and Russia - yes, Russia, or Ukraine - are vastly different when compared on all the points. Even inside each country and age group people work and act differently. So many young founders all across those 50+ countries put in 80+ hour workweeks, hack or never mind the local legislative restrictions. They feel and act much more as a part of Silicon Valley than the economy and local culture their parents and non-tech friends share.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    Yes, I am more describing "the average" but there are people doing what you describe in several occasions. " They feel and act much more as a part of Silicon Valley than the economy and local culture their parents and non-tech friends share." True
- amix 13y ago
  Europe is ~800million people with very different cultures. You can find geniuses here. You can find entrepreneurs. You can also find people that are sloppy. You can find people that have built billion dollar tech companies. Stop generalizing.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    So please give whatever specificities you want, because your answer was more generic than mine. But maybe my experience living, working and studying in 3 different countries in the EU is worth nothing.
    - Dewie 13y ago
      > But maybe my experience living, working and studying in 3 different countries in the EU is worth nothing. I'm not really impressed, given how wide strokes you painted. I just think it's more constructive to at least state the countries you're talking about rather than just the continent that they share.
      - raverbashing 13y ago
        "I just think it's more constructive to at least state the countries you're talking about rather than just the continent that they share." If we're talking about startups, there's a limited set of places this can be about. I can assure you it's not the countryside of Spain. I mentioned the common aspects I've noticed, because the discussion is about Europe and not a specific city or a comparison between them. But I'm basing this on experiences in Ireland, France and Germany. Sure, they are not all exactly the same, but they end up having a lot in common.
        moocowduckquack 13y ago
        Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland Greece Hungary Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom
- mseebach 13y ago
  > Europeans, though are certainly enthusiastic, are not going to go for 80h/week workloads, not even as founders. I think it's more abstract. Europeans are much, much less likely to find understanding among friends and family for the idea of making sacrifice of any kind (of which long hours is only one kind) for "work". Europeans are much less likely to understand the idea that a startup isn't "a job" and that starting your own business isn't just something you do to work from home, have less hours and (especially) not have a boss. It's all on average and stereotyped, but it's definitely my feeling. Also, it's just very, very suspect to want to get ahead. It's impolite to admit, but I can't help but think it's a damper om ambition, and with no ambition, there can be no Silicon Valley scale startups.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    I think you're on the right direction. About the ambition aspect, it's not so much as "dampened" but also a dose of "they don't see a point in too much ambition" or of "doing it just to be n. 1", and they certainly want to reach the top, but enjoying the ride as well.
    - namenotrequired 13y ago
      Yes - the general culture in the Netherlands is that being successful is great, but trying to be successful is naive until you have anything to show for it. And if you are successful, you better be modest - arrogance is widely looked down upon. Neglecting work/life balance is looked down upon, too. I'm sure some European founders have interesting stories to tell about that time when they "came out" as ambitious :) EDIT: I just realised the difference is probably in the "forward thinking" culture of the USA vs. the "living in the now" culture here. If you aren't successful now, why worry about success?
    - reinhardt 13y ago
      Not so sure about the want to reach the top: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
  - coldtea 13y ago
- watwut 13y ago
  Isnt working 80 hours a week ineffective due to you being tired soon and burned out after few years? Assuming that really work those 80 hours instead of chatting, browsing or mindlessly staring into screen. I read some studies about that. Maybe I believe them cause I am European. Or maybe cause I did worked a lot in the past and my experience confirmed studies.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    If you put those 80 hours/week into a high-growth startup that takes off, a few years are all you need. After that, the expectation is that you'll be a multi-millionaire and can practically retire.
- memossy 13y ago
  1. There are a large number of Europeans working 80h/week workloads at investment banks, private equity firms etc. Many go into these roles from graduate school and I can't think of any that match Stanford etc in entrepreneurial spirit. Intriguingly enough, although grad school is a fraction of the cost of the US, expectations that one should go into an "established" firm after are, if anything, even higher 2. In the UK at least laws and regulations are in many cases better than the US, certainly from a tax perspective
  - walshemj 13y ago
    Yes at least in the UK you cannot end up with a huge un-payable tax bill for worthless options.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  1. I know a fair few europeans that do those sort of workloads, some are founders but most of them doing it by working several jobs. 2. I'm not sure you even made an argument there. Less restrictive laws and stronger regulations? What? 3. Linux? 4. Are you using 'debatable' in a new and exciting way here to mean 'not'?
- ptr 13y ago
  > 2 - Some sense of Naiveté in the European site, in part because of the less restrictive laws and stronger regulations (beats me how Soundcloud started in Germany, anyone who has tried to use Youtube there can relate - at the same time Soundcloud is "the exception that proves the rule") SoundCloud actually started in Stockholm and moved to Berlin. Maybe because of the music scene there. > 3 - Less "hacking" spirit. I can only talk about Sweden, and I certainly think there's a culture like that here. Lots of old demo coders, etc. Probably one reason why there are quite a few game companies. As I see it, the startup scene is real and has the same kind of "glorification" here, maybe because of the country's past with entrepreneurs and large companies. Or maybe because of success stories like Minecraft, Spotify, Skype, etc. People will certainly not look down on you for going your own path. What's lacking though are VCs willing to spend money, I think it's harder to get funding.
- vidarh 13y ago
  > 1 - Europeans, though are certainly enthusiastic, are not going to go for 80h/week workloads, not even as founders. First of all, yes, we do. Been there, done that. That said, I don't think it is/was beneficial - I've had to send people home to rest because they became a net drain on the team. I think your points are highly dependent on where in Europe - I don't recognize myself in any of your top four points.
- Dewie 13y ago
  > 2 - Some sense of Naiveté in the European site, in part because of the less restrictive laws and stronger regulations (beats me how Soundcloud started in Germany, anyone who has tried to use Youtube there can relate - at the same time Soundcloud is "the exception that proves the rule") It proves (tests) the rule and the rule doesn't hold for them, which is an argument against the general validity of the rule. I don't understand why you write "at the same time..." because then it looks like the fact that it proves a rule is in fact an argument for the general validity of the rule.
- Dewie 13y ago
  > 2 - Some sense of Naiveté in the European site, in part because of the less restrictive laws and stronger regulations (beats me how Soundcloud started in Germany, anyone who has tried to use Youtube there can relate - at the same time Soundcloud is "the exception that proves the rule") It proves (tests) the rule and the rule doesn't hold for them, which is an argument against the general validity of the rule. I don't understand why you write "at the same time..." because then it looks like the fact that it proves a rule is in fact an argument for the general validity of the rule.
tinbad 13y ago
Ambitious entrepreneurs don't move to SV because they just want to raise money or have access to a bigger market. It's because they can be among like minded individuals in a competitive and inspiring environment. As a European entrepreneur that moved to Silicon Valley I can only say culture, culture, culture. You can look at VC activity, amount of startups, even bring on Skype all you want but this is the one thing you can't change and unfortunately The European culture is not as flexible nor open to new ideas, innovation, risk taking, etc. I do agree with the author that Nordic and new European states have a much better environment for successful tech startups to flourish.
- presty 13y ago
  Exactly. It's not <just> the money, it's the culture.
- mjn 13y ago
  My impression of Scandinavian startups (though I could be wrong) is that those who move to the U.S. really are mostly concerned about the business side of things (investment, customers, vendor/partner relationships, and at strategic times, capital-gains taxes). You can see that in the fact that they often do a half-move, where they move everything except the technical part of the company. Unity3d is one prominent example: the headquarters officially moved from Copenhagen to San Francisco, and any kind of announcement that makes headlines comes out of the SF office, but the core engine devs are all still in Copenhagen. If it were about the technical culture, you'd expect them to want to move the actual technology work to Silicon Valley too, but it was mainly the business side.
kroger 13y ago
You may find the book "European Founders at Work" interesting: http://www.amazon.com/European-Founders-Pedro-Gairifo-Santos/dp/1430239069 http://www.amazon.com/European-Founders-Pedro-Gairifo-Santos... I've read "Founders at Work" but I didn't know about this one until a few months ago. (and now I see they have "VCs at Work", "CTOs at Work", "Gamers at Work", and "CIOs at Work")
cmarschner 13y ago
If a startup wants to reach a similar customer base as a startup in the US it will always have to deal with 50 different markets with 50 different legal systems, 50 different marketing channels, and 50 different social networks. Starting a complete web-based company like Spotify or Soundcloud may still be possible because itunes has paved the way to organize media rights efficiently, but as soon as you touch the bricks and mortar world it becomes a different story. The startups I know were first of all focused on their home country and became international only much later, after building local representations in the different countries, and then they had to deal with the local competitors and became successful in only a subset of these countries.
- antr 13y ago
  I don't think you understand how the EU works. You don't have to "deal with... 50 different legal systems" just the one you are based in. That's the beauty of the EU, free movement of goods, people and capital. You can manufacture a car in Austria and sell it in Portugal without there being ANY barriers, except those imposed in Austria... which is the same legal framework as in Portugal and the rest of EU countries. The EU economic and trade integration is in many cases more homogenous than that in the US between states.
  - matthewmacleod 13y ago
    That's not really true. While there are EU-wide standards for many products and regulations, which can make this job easier, there's not a true single legal framework. Look at Google in Germany for example.
    - antr 13y ago
      Do not confuse the right and freedom to do business and sell your products/services with lawsuits (not established laws & regulation) that may arise from specific regions. Lawsuits != law & regulations. In the US, when Google got sued for tracking Safari users when they had opted out, Google didn't have to settle in all US states but only some. This "Germany example" is no different.
kyro 13y ago
People should keep an eye on the middle east. I think it's a part of the world that's going to explode with innovation. There's a ton of money and western influence there, and the people running the show are very business/entrepreneurial-minded, like the Sheikhs leading the development of the UAE. And the markets there are significantly less saturated than they are here in the US.
memossy 13y ago
I find the UK a particular anomaly from the fund-raising perspective as: 1. High net worth angels can invest up to £100,000 into a startup and the UK government will offer capital protection of up to 86.5%. 86.5%! Startups can take £150,000 that way, then there is another scheme that allows them to take up to £5,000,000 and the UK government offers up to 61.5% capital protection. Crazy. If you look at pre-money valuations in this light for angel-funded rounds, UK startups tend to raise at a 10-20x lower valuation than Silicon Valley startups.. 2. Startups that make money of their patents only need to pay 10% tax on that money 3. Companies can get back 25% of their R&D costs from the government 4. Government grants of up to £250,000 (matched funding) for proof of concept, development of prototype etc on original, innovative products If you had the above in the US, things would be far, far crazier than they are now. That about half of European venture capital funds are from local governments despite tailwinds like this certainly points to a deeper cultural issue.
- pcrh 13y ago
  My experience in the UK is that despite these "tailwinds", interest in supporting new technology is quite weak. My own experience is that this is primarily due to a lack of technological education in the upper echelons of VC, who mostly appear to come from a finance or City background. Attempting to persuade City types of the technical advantages of an innovation inevitably leads to a simplification of the issue and a lower level of insight and willingness to invest.
- thinkersilver 13y ago
  The government incentives are certainly there but like you have already pointed out the culture is vital and sadly absent here (London,UK). It also feels like there is no money here either. When it does come, it's paltry and requires you to give up so much control.If we had a few successful high profile exits, talented engineers working for the Banks and Media companies may be more willing to take the risk. As it stands, I know few people willing to leave their cushy 6 figure salaries.
- vvvVVVvvv 13y ago
  Truth is, the UK is certainly the most liberal country of Western Europe. Good luck trying to get your business (startup or else) in France for example.
ExpiredLink 13y ago
The EU is the world's largest economy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nom... ). Reason enough to invest there.
squirejons 13y ago
europeans are more homogeneous and more united, with a solid culture to back them up, which gives them some leverage against the corporations. The corps thus know it is harder to exploit them. Also, because western europe is more united against Capital, western europe does not allow as much cheap 3rd world labor into their nations. Thus, capital prefers to exploit american workers via mass immigration and H1Bs etc
- desas 13y ago
  EU expansion gives us cheap 2nd world labour instead...
- davidw 13y ago
  > more homogeneous and more united Uh... errr... how do you figure? Do you know how many languages are spoken in the European Union alone?
The_Double 13y ago
I think one of the largest things holding back startups in europe is the fact that there still isn´t one Europe. You still can´t offer your service to all 400.000.000 people from one office, rules are different across borders, languages, etc. If you have a service you expect 1 in a million people to use, you can have a userbase of 300 in the US, but to get the same number of users in Europe you will need multiple translations, manuals in multiple languages, knowledge of the regulations in multiple countries, etc. Even if on paper Europe is a larger and richer market.
midhem 13y ago
Bcause also americain companies think UK is Europe and install HQ in UK instead of Western Europe which is the European main homogeneous market.
jd 13y ago
As a EU founder I think the article misses the two primary reasons Europe isn't doing well with startups. 1) Target market USA: natural target market of 320 million people with a very high level of (disposable) income. Established businesses are happy to buy products from startups. There is a positive feedback loop where businesses try to grow fast and therefore want to outsource the stuff they're not good at so they can focus on their core skills. This means startups can pop up to take care of everything else (HR/Invoicing/Data crunching/etc-as-a-service). EUROPE: you have to deal with dozens of languages and cultures. Although the and Germanic countries are OK with English-only products, the rest of Europe wants their products translated. Salaries are much lower here and businesses are much more conservative. Businesses that grow slowly have to care much more about operating expenses, which means they will try to do everything in-house to cut costs. As a consequence we get the vast majority of our revenue from the US, even though people all across the world try our software. 2) Culture A lot of people talk about starting a startup, but nobody seems to want it badly enough. Perhaps this is because there are so few success stories over here in the Netherlands. People tend to focus on the negative (what if you fail? what about work-life balance? what if you get sued?), but it's hard to say if that matters. The US has only one Silicon Valley. There is nothing comparable on the east coast, even though the east and west coast have a lot in common. If we figure out why Silicon Valley works and other places fail to really take off we should be able to create startup hubs all across the world.
- tinbad 13y ago
  I agree with most, except the last part. I came to SV from the Netherlands myself and i had the pleasure to meet Neelie Kroes (highly respected EU politician from Dutch origin) here in SF in the first month after I moved to the US. She was saying how Europe could learn from SV and how she was getting billions of EU funding to recreate SV in Europe and setup 'startup hubs' in places like Strasbourgh and Brussels. I think there's some flawed thinking here: you shouldn't want to recreate the success of SV by just copying it. It will fail. Europe should figure out what would work for them. It doesn't have to be the same as SV.
  - kintamanimatt 13y ago
jmspring 13y ago
It is interesting to read this from Sten having heard him speak a few times about improving work relations between the US and Europe (ostensibly Estonia) while at Skype. Having spent significant time working at Nokia (and interacting with Finns, Estonians, and Germans) as well as living in Helsinki and Germany for a period of time, I usually found his prior discussions missing something -- but maybe I was coming at it from a different perspective than the typical Silicon Valley engineer. I will need to reread this. Personally, I would like to hear more from entrepreneurs in Berlin, London, and Helsinki on how they view the interaction. Berlin is a current hotbed, Helsinki has a few more international startups, and London is english speaking and a tech center as well. I'd like to see more interaction between the Valley and Europe with startups originating cross culturally. Build on the strengths of both regions and less of things like the Samwer brothers that basically copycat things. Locally, there is certainly an echo chamber in the Valley. Lots of press/blog inches dedicated to social and the hip/popular startups in San Francisco. In other parts of the Valley (Fremont down to Almaden Valley) you have many startups working more internationally with components in Asia and Europe depending on their focus -- hardware, etc.
eonil 13y ago
U.S. itself is a big huge startup from Europe. Maybe that's why startup people are all in U.S.
ahomescu1 13y ago
Silicon Valley has the following three: 1) Stanford (a top research university, with world-class students and professors) 2) Money (investment money, from a lot of people who got rich from tech) 3) A high concentration of geeks/techies/developers/whatever you want to call them No place I know of in Europe has all three of these (in fact, I don't think any place in Europe has 3) alone).
- werner34 13y ago
  London and Berlin have 3).
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    London and Berlin have a lot of people in general, from different fields (finance and government as much as tech). Is the number of programmers/capita higher in those two cities than average? I think Silicon Valley is the highest you can get (that's my guess at least). EDIT: IMHO, the closest thing Europe has to these is actually Zurich: it has top universities, money and big companies all in a small geographical area.
    - justincormack 13y ago
      Zurich is a tenth the size of silicon valley by population though, and it is a big financial centre too. There are other comparable tech-specific places, like Sophia Antipolis, Toulouse. By github usage, which seems a decent proxy [1], London is second after San Francisco, followed by Paris, and Berlin is only 7 (much smaller city though, so density could be higher). [1] http://www.itworld.com/cloud-computing/376551/where-world-are-github-users http://www.itworld.com/cloud-computing/376551/where-world-ar...
  - wisty 13y ago
    Unfortunately, London and Berlin are national capitals. Silicon Vally (even if you extend it to San Francisco) isn't even a state capital. National capitals have defence contracts and government IT, which so lucrative it sucks a lot of talent away from industry. London is also a financial centre, so that's even more competition.
shitgoose 13y ago
Startups are essentially a high risk casino, that collects cash from muppets (individual investors and funds with more money than brains) and redistributes it with ratio about 100:1. Like musical chairs - 100 people and one chair. Most of these 100 people don't even know where the chair is and can barely hear the music. One person close to the chair collects the payout and shares it with few others who helped him to push the muppets away. It seems that Europe either doesn't like this game, or just doesn't know to play it.
pinaceae 13y ago
"Europe" as an entity does not exist in the sense the USA does. The EU is trying, but from a company perspective, there is not single market when it comes to marketing and selling a product. It's all individual target groups, with big differences in language, culture, etc. They do not share a common cultural background. Simple example: In the US, you can make a pop cultural reference and everyone will get it. Take a German reference/joke and try it anywhere else. At best people won't get it, at worst they'll be deeply offended. There are big French software vendors that do not bother to post job listings on their careers page in any other language than French. Europe consists of individual markets, some a single country, some a group. DACH, Nordics, UK+Eire, but then Spain, Italy, France,... Universities are not European. There is no European MIT. Each country has their own elite tech uni, some truly good, some mediocre. ETH Zurich? Awesome. TU Vienna? Meh. etc etc etc
LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
Hungry, risk-taking pioneer is better for start-up world than theory-oriented family guy with a state sponsored safety-net. Than the former will be better at liberal arts, philosophy or literature, design, luxury goods production. Expecting to see SV in Europe is akin to expecting to see Ferrari production in the States. Some things derive from the culture and I'm a strong believer that SV is one of them.
midas007 13y ago
With Europe, at least on the enterprise and VC/IB side, you still have to deal with people that will only do business with their official business friends and so lose out on deals because of their own inability to get out of their comfort zone. Sure it's smart to have a long relationship with financiers, but being too hard to get a meeting with is stupid. With SV, a similar thing is happening. It's basically like going to an event and only talking to your friends... and not meeting new people. This translates into missing opportunities. The other signal is that people in the valley aren't non-tourist living abroad enough to understand elsewhere. That's a fail-at-life in so many ways.
novaleaf 13y ago
show me a payment system able to accept any form of currency, payable to any person/entity anywhere in the world, then SV will find the rest of the world pretty quickly. Or more accurately, the rest of the world will finally be on an equal financial footing.
1rs 13y ago
I agree with Sten that it's a pitty that Europe doesn't receive more attention from SV. But most Europeans don't care. Most people don't want to be like SV. We don't care that there isn't as many startups. We're happy about living a balanced life and that most people here can do that (Most think it's ok to be taxed hard so that so many don't have to suffer and at least get healthcare and shelter...). People just don't strive to be financially hugely successful. Doing good is enough so that you can focus on what's important for you, which for most europeans isn't work. The ones that love to push their intellectual boundaries all the time and devote themself to work find their niche in Europe or move to the Valley. That's ok. I've heard from friends in SF that a lot of people there are "depressed" because of their high ambitions that they're not reaching. Europeans are often considered a bit boring. We don't have the same highs as in SF of pushing something amazing forward every day. There are good and bad sides to both of these places.
mschuster91 13y ago
I believe the biggest problem by far is a lack of VC money in Europe. In the US, it seems like you can show up at a VC with nothing more than an idea written on a bar tab and a pot-smoking coder and you get tens of thousands of VC money (obviously exaggerated). In the EU "startup scene", if such a thing exists, the only chance to get meaningful amounts of money is if you take loans on something (your house, car, whatever) or clone a US-proved concept/site/technology. THIS is what needs to change. Europe badly needs VC firms/banks which can readily supply capital! Edit: also, we (ESPECIALLY Germans, badly burned by the Deutsche Telekom IPO desaster, and now the Prokon scandal) do not have a large stock market. Stock trading here is for the dead rich and banks only, I believe. And without private (stock) capital, no VCs...
b0rsuk 13y ago
Maybe it's just a sign of something in the big picture - of America turning inward, like the falling Roman empire and isolationist China ?
LBarret 13y ago
Didn't read the article but so there are so much clichés in the comments that it makes me sad...
mgreschke 13y ago
I've written a pretty long blog post on the entire topic some time ago. It's about my experience as a founder and entrepreneurial student in the US, Asia and Europe and the cultural differences.. Here's the link http://www.mgreschke.com/view/entry/1?locale=en#disqus_thread http://www.mgreschke.com/view/entry/1?locale=en#disqus_threa... Getting easy capital (even from private angels, its already hard to get more than 25-50k Euros from a German business angel) is one side of the deal, but at least in Europe I cant help but think that the social environment has been holding entrepreneurship back for the last decades. Although that seems to be changing slowly.

141 points by panarky 13y ago

Well, I'm more used to the European side of things, so this is how I see it: 1 - Europeans, though are certainly enthusiastic, are not going to go for 80h/week workloads, not even as founders. 2 - Some sense of Naiveté in the European site, in part because of the less restrictive laws and stronger regulations (beats me how Soundcloud started in Germany, anyone who has tried to use Youtube there can relate - at the same time Soundcloud is "the exception that proves the rule") 3 - Less "hacking" spirit. 4 - A more stable social foundation "discouraging" entrepreneurship (debatable) On the other hand, here's what I think Europe has to offer 1 - More opportunities to fill niches and offer new services 2 - Good education and people with a strong theoretical foundation 3 - Smaller costs than SV (and more affordable salaries, smaller healthcare costs) 4 - Easier to find talent amongst the whole EU, and easier to bring talent from outside (like Eastern Europe) 5 - Shorter distances between tech centers in Europe

abbasaamer 13y ago
On #1, I will say that the finance and consulting people I know in Europe (particularly Germany, Switzerland, and the UK) seem to work just as hard as their U.S. counterparts. I don't see why entrepreneurship can't be the same.
k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "1 - Europeans, though are certainly enthusiastic, are not going to go for 80h/week workloads, not even as founders." This assumes that to be successful startups need to be working 80h/weeks. There are plenty of successful tech companies working much less than that. Treehouse for example works a 4 day week. Long hours are important when building the MVP and getting it out but after that I think you can work normal hours. >> "4 - A more stable social foundation "discouraging" entrepreneurship (debatable)" Doesn't this encourage entrepreneurship? It enables you to take the risk without fear of ending up homeless. For example if I were to start a new company there are programs I can sign up for which would give me £60 per week for 6 months + I believe I would still qualify for housing assistance (basically my rent would be paid for me). So as a single guy I could easily bootstrap a company with little-no risk.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  "This assumes that to be successful startups need to be working 80h/weeks." You are correct, and I don't assume it. But several people do. "Doesn't this encourage entrepreneurship? It enables you to take the risk without fear of ending up homeless" Yes, there are two sides to it. Edit: I'll reply here why does this discourage entrepreneurship and my fault for not making this obvious The sentiment of "failing at business" as a failure is much stronger. Yes, you won't end up homeless, but it doesn't mean the society (and the people close to you) "accepts" what happened. Because you went for "computer stuff nonsense" instead of going for a traditional job. The way this relates to the welfare structure is in their "origin" of having everything nice and square and predictable.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    >> ""Doesn't this encourage entrepreneurship? It enables you to take the risk without fear of ending up homeless" Yes, there are two sides to it." What's the other side? I don't see how it could discourage entrepreneurship at all.
    - LambdaAlmighty 13y ago
      OP basically says people in Europe look at you weird for starting a business. Failing the business afterward is a social tragedy. It's about social/peer pressure. Having lived in many countries across Europe, I can attest. Some countries are worse than others of course (the worst being the ex-commie/socialist ones).
      - k-mcgrady 13y ago
        I agree with that 100% but I don't think that has anything to do with a good social system.
      - watwut 13y ago
        My experience was different. Failing the business is a social tragedy only if you took too much debt. If you simply find a job afterwards, then it is ok. At least among my friends.
netcan 13y ago
Without making any specific claims or predictions, I think it's reasonable to assume that expanding the EU's areas of free movement (eg Romania and Bulgaria a few weeks ago) opens up new opportunities, in labour/talent markets for sure.
deleted 13y ago
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jkaljundi 13y ago
Some of the things you mention apply to subsets of Europe, but not all of them. With more than 50 countries, the cultures, work habits, legislations and economic levels are very different all around. Romania and Sweden, Estonia and France, Finland and Portugal, UK and Russia - yes, Russia, or Ukraine - are vastly different when compared on all the points. Even inside each country and age group people work and act differently. So many young founders all across those 50+ countries put in 80+ hour workweeks, hack or never mind the local legislative restrictions. They feel and act much more as a part of Silicon Valley than the economy and local culture their parents and non-tech friends share.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  Yes, I am more describing "the average" but there are people doing what you describe in several occasions. " They feel and act much more as a part of Silicon Valley than the economy and local culture their parents and non-tech friends share." True
amix 13y ago
Europe is ~800million people with very different cultures. You can find geniuses here. You can find entrepreneurs. You can also find people that are sloppy. You can find people that have built billion dollar tech companies. Stop generalizing.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  So please give whatever specificities you want, because your answer was more generic than mine. But maybe my experience living, working and studying in 3 different countries in the EU is worth nothing.
  - Dewie 13y ago
    > But maybe my experience living, working and studying in 3 different countries in the EU is worth nothing. I'm not really impressed, given how wide strokes you painted. I just think it's more constructive to at least state the countries you're talking about rather than just the continent that they share.
    - raverbashing 13y ago
      "I just think it's more constructive to at least state the countries you're talking about rather than just the continent that they share." If we're talking about startups, there's a limited set of places this can be about. I can assure you it's not the countryside of Spain. I mentioned the common aspects I've noticed, because the discussion is about Europe and not a specific city or a comparison between them. But I'm basing this on experiences in Ireland, France and Germany. Sure, they are not all exactly the same, but they end up having a lot in common.
      - moocowduckquack 13y ago
        Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland Greece Hungary Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom
mseebach 13y ago
> Europeans, though are certainly enthusiastic, are not going to go for 80h/week workloads, not even as founders. I think it's more abstract. Europeans are much, much less likely to find understanding among friends and family for the idea of making sacrifice of any kind (of which long hours is only one kind) for "work". Europeans are much less likely to understand the idea that a startup isn't "a job" and that starting your own business isn't just something you do to work from home, have less hours and (especially) not have a boss. It's all on average and stereotyped, but it's definitely my feeling. Also, it's just very, very suspect to want to get ahead. It's impolite to admit, but I can't help but think it's a damper om ambition, and with no ambition, there can be no Silicon Valley scale startups.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  I think you're on the right direction. About the ambition aspect, it's not so much as "dampened" but also a dose of "they don't see a point in too much ambition" or of "doing it just to be n. 1", and they certainly want to reach the top, but enjoying the ride as well.
  - namenotrequired 13y ago
    Yes - the general culture in the Netherlands is that being successful is great, but trying to be successful is naive until you have anything to show for it. And if you are successful, you better be modest - arrogance is widely looked down upon. Neglecting work/life balance is looked down upon, too. I'm sure some European founders have interesting stories to tell about that time when they "came out" as ambitious :) EDIT: I just realised the difference is probably in the "forward thinking" culture of the USA vs. the "living in the now" culture here. If you aren't successful now, why worry about success?
  - reinhardt 13y ago
    Not so sure about the want to reach the top: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
- coldtea 13y ago
watwut 13y ago
Isnt working 80 hours a week ineffective due to you being tired soon and burned out after few years? Assuming that really work those 80 hours instead of chatting, browsing or mindlessly staring into screen. I read some studies about that. Maybe I believe them cause I am European. Or maybe cause I did worked a lot in the past and my experience confirmed studies.
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  If you put those 80 hours/week into a high-growth startup that takes off, a few years are all you need. After that, the expectation is that you'll be a multi-millionaire and can practically retire.
memossy 13y ago
1. There are a large number of Europeans working 80h/week workloads at investment banks, private equity firms etc. Many go into these roles from graduate school and I can't think of any that match Stanford etc in entrepreneurial spirit. Intriguingly enough, although grad school is a fraction of the cost of the US, expectations that one should go into an "established" firm after are, if anything, even higher 2. In the UK at least laws and regulations are in many cases better than the US, certainly from a tax perspective
- walshemj 13y ago
  Yes at least in the UK you cannot end up with a huge un-payable tax bill for worthless options.
moocowduckquack 13y ago
1. I know a fair few europeans that do those sort of workloads, some are founders but most of them doing it by working several jobs. 2. I'm not sure you even made an argument there. Less restrictive laws and stronger regulations? What? 3. Linux? 4. Are you using 'debatable' in a new and exciting way here to mean 'not'?
ptr 13y ago
> 2 - Some sense of Naiveté in the European site, in part because of the less restrictive laws and stronger regulations (beats me how Soundcloud started in Germany, anyone who has tried to use Youtube there can relate - at the same time Soundcloud is "the exception that proves the rule") SoundCloud actually started in Stockholm and moved to Berlin. Maybe because of the music scene there. > 3 - Less "hacking" spirit. I can only talk about Sweden, and I certainly think there's a culture like that here. Lots of old demo coders, etc. Probably one reason why there are quite a few game companies. As I see it, the startup scene is real and has the same kind of "glorification" here, maybe because of the country's past with entrepreneurs and large companies. Or maybe because of success stories like Minecraft, Spotify, Skype, etc. People will certainly not look down on you for going your own path. What's lacking though are VCs willing to spend money, I think it's harder to get funding.
vidarh 13y ago
> 1 - Europeans, though are certainly enthusiastic, are not going to go for 80h/week workloads, not even as founders. First of all, yes, we do. Been there, done that. That said, I don't think it is/was beneficial - I've had to send people home to rest because they became a net drain on the team. I think your points are highly dependent on where in Europe - I don't recognize myself in any of your top four points.
Dewie 13y ago
> 2 - Some sense of Naiveté in the European site, in part because of the less restrictive laws and stronger regulations (beats me how Soundcloud started in Germany, anyone who has tried to use Youtube there can relate - at the same time Soundcloud is "the exception that proves the rule") It proves (tests) the rule and the rule doesn't hold for them, which is an argument against the general validity of the rule. I don't understand why you write "at the same time..." because then it looks like the fact that it proves a rule is in fact an argument for the general validity of the rule.
Dewie 13y ago
> 2 - Some sense of Naiveté in the European site, in part because of the less restrictive laws and stronger regulations (beats me how Soundcloud started in Germany, anyone who has tried to use Youtube there can relate - at the same time Soundcloud is "the exception that proves the rule") It proves (tests) the rule and the rule doesn't hold for them, which is an argument against the general validity of the rule. I don't understand why you write "at the same time..." because then it looks like the fact that it proves a rule is in fact an argument for the general validity of the rule.

tinbad 13y ago

Ambitious entrepreneurs don't move to SV because they just want to raise money or have access to a bigger market. It's because they can be among like minded individuals in a competitive and inspiring environment. As a European entrepreneur that moved to Silicon Valley I can only say culture, culture, culture. You can look at VC activity, amount of startups, even bring on Skype all you want but this is the one thing you can't change and unfortunately The European culture is not as flexible nor open to new ideas, innovation, risk taking, etc. I do agree with the author that Nordic and new European states have a much better environment for successful tech startups to flourish.

presty 13y ago
Exactly. It's not <just> the money, it's the culture.
mjn 13y ago
My impression of Scandinavian startups (though I could be wrong) is that those who move to the U.S. really are mostly concerned about the business side of things (investment, customers, vendor/partner relationships, and at strategic times, capital-gains taxes). You can see that in the fact that they often do a half-move, where they move everything except the technical part of the company. Unity3d is one prominent example: the headquarters officially moved from Copenhagen to San Francisco, and any kind of announcement that makes headlines comes out of the SF office, but the core engine devs are all still in Copenhagen. If it were about the technical culture, you'd expect them to want to move the actual technology work to Silicon Valley too, but it was mainly the business side.

kroger 13y ago

You may find the book "European Founders at Work" interesting: http://www.amazon.com/European-Founders-Pedro-Gairifo-Santos/dp/1430239069 http://www.amazon.com/European-Founders-Pedro-Gairifo-Santos... I've read "Founders at Work" but I didn't know about this one until a few months ago. (and now I see they have "VCs at Work", "CTOs at Work", "Gamers at Work", and "CIOs at Work")

cmarschner 13y ago

If a startup wants to reach a similar customer base as a startup in the US it will always have to deal with 50 different markets with 50 different legal systems, 50 different marketing channels, and 50 different social networks. Starting a complete web-based company like Spotify or Soundcloud may still be possible because itunes has paved the way to organize media rights efficiently, but as soon as you touch the bricks and mortar world it becomes a different story. The startups I know were first of all focused on their home country and became international only much later, after building local representations in the different countries, and then they had to deal with the local competitors and became successful in only a subset of these countries.

antr 13y ago
I don't think you understand how the EU works. You don't have to "deal with... 50 different legal systems" just the one you are based in. That's the beauty of the EU, free movement of goods, people and capital. You can manufacture a car in Austria and sell it in Portugal without there being ANY barriers, except those imposed in Austria... which is the same legal framework as in Portugal and the rest of EU countries. The EU economic and trade integration is in many cases more homogenous than that in the US between states.
- matthewmacleod 13y ago
  That's not really true. While there are EU-wide standards for many products and regulations, which can make this job easier, there's not a true single legal framework. Look at Google in Germany for example.
  - antr 13y ago
    Do not confuse the right and freedom to do business and sell your products/services with lawsuits (not established laws & regulation) that may arise from specific regions. Lawsuits != law & regulations. In the US, when Google got sued for tracking Safari users when they had opted out, Google didn't have to settle in all US states but only some. This "Germany example" is no different.

kyro 13y ago

People should keep an eye on the middle east. I think it's a part of the world that's going to explode with innovation. There's a ton of money and western influence there, and the people running the show are very business/entrepreneurial-minded, like the Sheikhs leading the development of the UAE. And the markets there are significantly less saturated than they are here in the US.

memossy 13y ago

I find the UK a particular anomaly from the fund-raising perspective as: 1. High net worth angels can invest up to £100,000 into a startup and the UK government will offer capital protection of up to 86.5%. 86.5%! Startups can take £150,000 that way, then there is another scheme that allows them to take up to £5,000,000 and the UK government offers up to 61.5% capital protection. Crazy. If you look at pre-money valuations in this light for angel-funded rounds, UK startups tend to raise at a 10-20x lower valuation than Silicon Valley startups.. 2. Startups that make money of their patents only need to pay 10% tax on that money 3. Companies can get back 25% of their R&D costs from the government 4. Government grants of up to £250,000 (matched funding) for proof of concept, development of prototype etc on original, innovative products If you had the above in the US, things would be far, far crazier than they are now. That about half of European venture capital funds are from local governments despite tailwinds like this certainly points to a deeper cultural issue.

pcrh 13y ago
My experience in the UK is that despite these "tailwinds", interest in supporting new technology is quite weak. My own experience is that this is primarily due to a lack of technological education in the upper echelons of VC, who mostly appear to come from a finance or City background. Attempting to persuade City types of the technical advantages of an innovation inevitably leads to a simplification of the issue and a lower level of insight and willingness to invest.
thinkersilver 13y ago
The government incentives are certainly there but like you have already pointed out the culture is vital and sadly absent here (London,UK). It also feels like there is no money here either. When it does come, it's paltry and requires you to give up so much control.If we had a few successful high profile exits, talented engineers working for the Banks and Media companies may be more willing to take the risk. As it stands, I know few people willing to leave their cushy 6 figure salaries.
vvvVVVvvv 13y ago
Truth is, the UK is certainly the most liberal country of Western Europe. Good luck trying to get your business (startup or else) in France for example.

ExpiredLink 13y ago

The EU is the world's largest economy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nom... ). Reason enough to invest there.

squirejons 13y ago

europeans are more homogeneous and more united, with a solid culture to back them up, which gives them some leverage against the corporations. The corps thus know it is harder to exploit them. Also, because western europe is more united against Capital, western europe does not allow as much cheap 3rd world labor into their nations. Thus, capital prefers to exploit american workers via mass immigration and H1Bs etc

desas 13y ago
EU expansion gives us cheap 2nd world labour instead...
davidw 13y ago
> more homogeneous and more united Uh... errr... how do you figure? Do you know how many languages are spoken in the European Union alone?

The_Double 13y ago

I think one of the largest things holding back startups in europe is the fact that there still isn´t one Europe. You still can´t offer your service to all 400.000.000 people from one office, rules are different across borders, languages, etc. If you have a service you expect 1 in a million people to use, you can have a userbase of 300 in the US, but to get the same number of users in Europe you will need multiple translations, manuals in multiple languages, knowledge of the regulations in multiple countries, etc. Even if on paper Europe is a larger and richer market.

midhem 13y ago

Bcause also americain companies think UK is Europe and install HQ in UK instead of Western Europe which is the European main homogeneous market.

jd 13y ago

As a EU founder I think the article misses the two primary reasons Europe isn't doing well with startups. 1) Target market USA: natural target market of 320 million people with a very high level of (disposable) income. Established businesses are happy to buy products from startups. There is a positive feedback loop where businesses try to grow fast and therefore want to outsource the stuff they're not good at so they can focus on their core skills. This means startups can pop up to take care of everything else (HR/Invoicing/Data crunching/etc-as-a-service). EUROPE: you have to deal with dozens of languages and cultures. Although the and Germanic countries are OK with English-only products, the rest of Europe wants their products translated. Salaries are much lower here and businesses are much more conservative. Businesses that grow slowly have to care much more about operating expenses, which means they will try to do everything in-house to cut costs. As a consequence we get the vast majority of our revenue from the US, even though people all across the world try our software. 2) Culture A lot of people talk about starting a startup, but nobody seems to want it badly enough. Perhaps this is because there are so few success stories over here in the Netherlands. People tend to focus on the negative (what if you fail? what about work-life balance? what if you get sued?), but it's hard to say if that matters. The US has only one Silicon Valley. There is nothing comparable on the east coast, even though the east and west coast have a lot in common. If we figure out why Silicon Valley works and other places fail to really take off we should be able to create startup hubs all across the world.

tinbad 13y ago
I agree with most, except the last part. I came to SV from the Netherlands myself and i had the pleasure to meet Neelie Kroes (highly respected EU politician from Dutch origin) here in SF in the first month after I moved to the US. She was saying how Europe could learn from SV and how she was getting billions of EU funding to recreate SV in Europe and setup 'startup hubs' in places like Strasbourgh and Brussels. I think there's some flawed thinking here: you shouldn't want to recreate the success of SV by just copying it. It will fail. Europe should figure out what would work for them. It doesn't have to be the same as SV.
- kintamanimatt 13y ago

jmspring 13y ago

It is interesting to read this from Sten having heard him speak a few times about improving work relations between the US and Europe (ostensibly Estonia) while at Skype. Having spent significant time working at Nokia (and interacting with Finns, Estonians, and Germans) as well as living in Helsinki and Germany for a period of time, I usually found his prior discussions missing something -- but maybe I was coming at it from a different perspective than the typical Silicon Valley engineer. I will need to reread this. Personally, I would like to hear more from entrepreneurs in Berlin, London, and Helsinki on how they view the interaction. Berlin is a current hotbed, Helsinki has a few more international startups, and London is english speaking and a tech center as well. I'd like to see more interaction between the Valley and Europe with startups originating cross culturally. Build on the strengths of both regions and less of things like the Samwer brothers that basically copycat things. Locally, there is certainly an echo chamber in the Valley. Lots of press/blog inches dedicated to social and the hip/popular startups in San Francisco. In other parts of the Valley (Fremont down to Almaden Valley) you have many startups working more internationally with components in Asia and Europe depending on their focus -- hardware, etc.

eonil 13y ago

U.S. itself is a big huge startup from Europe. Maybe that's why startup people are all in U.S.

ahomescu1 13y ago

Silicon Valley has the following three: 1) Stanford (a top research university, with world-class students and professors) 2) Money (investment money, from a lot of people who got rich from tech) 3) A high concentration of geeks/techies/developers/whatever you want to call them No place I know of in Europe has all three of these (in fact, I don't think any place in Europe has 3) alone).

werner34 13y ago
London and Berlin have 3).
- ahomescu1 13y ago
  London and Berlin have a lot of people in general, from different fields (finance and government as much as tech). Is the number of programmers/capita higher in those two cities than average? I think Silicon Valley is the highest you can get (that's my guess at least). EDIT: IMHO, the closest thing Europe has to these is actually Zurich: it has top universities, money and big companies all in a small geographical area.
  - justincormack 13y ago
    Zurich is a tenth the size of silicon valley by population though, and it is a big financial centre too. There are other comparable tech-specific places, like Sophia Antipolis, Toulouse. By github usage, which seems a decent proxy [1], London is second after San Francisco, followed by Paris, and Berlin is only 7 (much smaller city though, so density could be higher). [1] http://www.itworld.com/cloud-computing/376551/where-world-are-github-users http://www.itworld.com/cloud-computing/376551/where-world-ar...
- wisty 13y ago
  Unfortunately, London and Berlin are national capitals. Silicon Vally (even if you extend it to San Francisco) isn't even a state capital. National capitals have defence contracts and government IT, which so lucrative it sucks a lot of talent away from industry. London is also a financial centre, so that's even more competition.

shitgoose 13y ago

Startups are essentially a high risk casino, that collects cash from muppets (individual investors and funds with more money than brains) and redistributes it with ratio about 100:1. Like musical chairs - 100 people and one chair. Most of these 100 people don't even know where the chair is and can barely hear the music. One person close to the chair collects the payout and shares it with few others who helped him to push the muppets away. It seems that Europe either doesn't like this game, or just doesn't know to play it.

pinaceae 13y ago

"Europe" as an entity does not exist in the sense the USA does. The EU is trying, but from a company perspective, there is not single market when it comes to marketing and selling a product. It's all individual target groups, with big differences in language, culture, etc. They do not share a common cultural background. Simple example: In the US, you can make a pop cultural reference and everyone will get it. Take a German reference/joke and try it anywhere else. At best people won't get it, at worst they'll be deeply offended. There are big French software vendors that do not bother to post job listings on their careers page in any other language than French. Europe consists of individual markets, some a single country, some a group. DACH, Nordics, UK+Eire, but then Spain, Italy, France,... Universities are not European. There is no European MIT. Each country has their own elite tech uni, some truly good, some mediocre. ETH Zurich? Awesome. TU Vienna? Meh. etc etc etc

LekkoscPiwa 13y ago

Hungry, risk-taking pioneer is better for start-up world than theory-oriented family guy with a state sponsored safety-net. Than the former will be better at liberal arts, philosophy or literature, design, luxury goods production. Expecting to see SV in Europe is akin to expecting to see Ferrari production in the States. Some things derive from the culture and I'm a strong believer that SV is one of them.

midas007 13y ago

With Europe, at least on the enterprise and VC/IB side, you still have to deal with people that will only do business with their official business friends and so lose out on deals because of their own inability to get out of their comfort zone. Sure it's smart to have a long relationship with financiers, but being too hard to get a meeting with is stupid. With SV, a similar thing is happening. It's basically like going to an event and only talking to your friends... and not meeting new people. This translates into missing opportunities. The other signal is that people in the valley aren't non-tourist living abroad enough to understand elsewhere. That's a fail-at-life in so many ways.

novaleaf 13y ago

show me a payment system able to accept any form of currency, payable to any person/entity anywhere in the world, then SV will find the rest of the world pretty quickly. Or more accurately, the rest of the world will finally be on an equal financial footing.

1rs 13y ago

I agree with Sten that it's a pitty that Europe doesn't receive more attention from SV. But most Europeans don't care. Most people don't want to be like SV. We don't care that there isn't as many startups. We're happy about living a balanced life and that most people here can do that (Most think it's ok to be taxed hard so that so many don't have to suffer and at least get healthcare and shelter...). People just don't strive to be financially hugely successful. Doing good is enough so that you can focus on what's important for you, which for most europeans isn't work. The ones that love to push their intellectual boundaries all the time and devote themself to work find their niche in Europe or move to the Valley. That's ok. I've heard from friends in SF that a lot of people there are "depressed" because of their high ambitions that they're not reaching. Europeans are often considered a bit boring. We don't have the same highs as in SF of pushing something amazing forward every day. There are good and bad sides to both of these places.

mschuster91 13y ago

I believe the biggest problem by far is a lack of VC money in Europe. In the US, it seems like you can show up at a VC with nothing more than an idea written on a bar tab and a pot-smoking coder and you get tens of thousands of VC money (obviously exaggerated). In the EU "startup scene", if such a thing exists, the only chance to get meaningful amounts of money is if you take loans on something (your house, car, whatever) or clone a US-proved concept/site/technology. THIS is what needs to change. Europe badly needs VC firms/banks which can readily supply capital! Edit: also, we (ESPECIALLY Germans, badly burned by the Deutsche Telekom IPO desaster, and now the Prokon scandal) do not have a large stock market. Stock trading here is for the dead rich and banks only, I believe. And without private (stock) capital, no VCs...

b0rsuk 13y ago

Maybe it's just a sign of something in the big picture - of America turning inward, like the falling Roman empire and isolationist China ?

LBarret 13y ago

Didn't read the article but so there are so much clichés in the comments that it makes me sad...

mgreschke 13y ago

I've written a pretty long blog post on the entire topic some time ago. It's about my experience as a founder and entrepreneurial student in the US, Asia and Europe and the cultural differences.. Here's the link http://www.mgreschke.com/view/entry/1?locale=en#disqus_thread http://www.mgreschke.com/view/entry/1?locale=en#disqus_threa... Getting easy capital (even from private angels, its already hard to get more than 25-50k Euros from a German business angel) is one side of the deal, but at least in Europe I cant help but think that the social environment has been holding entrepreneurship back for the last decades. Although that seems to be changing slowly.