4 ms·

> 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 muc

> 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
>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. So, in essense, European don't believe in the gold-rush kind of startup culture. Seeing that only 1 in 100 or less companies ever make it, that's quite smart of them (well, us). For the "less hacking spirit" somebody else said, I disagree. Heck, tons of hackers are from and in Europe (from Guido to the core KDE guys, and from projects like VLC and Haskell to OcamL).
- raverbashing 13y ago
  "For the "less hacking spirit" somebody else said, I disagree." True, maybe they trade quantity for quality. Also, Fabrice Bellard.
- mseebach 13y ago
  > So, in essense, European don't believe in the gold-rush kind of startup culture. Seeing that only 1 in 100 or less companies ever make it, that's quite smart of them (well, us). Depends on your definition of smart. I think we (again, on average and stereotyped) prefer the comfort of a stable and secure job, rather than taking a shot at a one in a hundred startup. That's "smart" for the individual, but if no-one takes the shot, the hundred startups needed to get to the one that gets big doesn't get started. The essence is that the modern western European culture isn't very conductive to risk-taking. This is great for stability and comfort, but it doesn't get us much progress and we will suffer in the long term for it.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >That's "smart" for the individual, but if no-one takes the shot, the hundred startups needed to get to the one that gets big doesn't get started. True, but so what? What exactly have we gotten by those kind of startups that we couldn't have gotten better from stabler, long term, businesses? I mean, consider, as I do, things like Instagram and Twitter as essentially BS. The most valuable things I can think of is stuff like Google, Skype, PayPal et al. But those are not the kind of startups people pursue these days.
Dewie 13y ago
> Also, it's just very, very suspect to want to get ahead. This is where I suspected that you were Scandinavian... and surely enough your profile's email is Danish.
- namenotrequired 13y ago
  This is true (perhaps not to the same extent) in the Netherlands as well.
philwelch 13y ago
Ambition is a big part of it, and European attitudes can be incomprehensible to Americans. I remember one discussion that ended with the statement, "the Belgians had ambition once and the Congo is still suffering for it".
- mjn 13y ago
  As a foreigner observing Denmark (not sure about the rest of Europe), I think Danes are actually pretty ambitious, but often in a non-commercial way. It's definitely not cool to slack off and do nothing, so there is ambition in the sense that there's a strong cultural preference to better yourself, do interesting things, produce something. Even if you have a full-time day job, you're not "supposed" to just watch TV in your spare time, but should be an active member of an organization, have projects, something. But it's perfectly acceptable (perhaps even preferable) for your ambition not to be primarily about making money. In tech, for example, DIY hackerspace stuff, media art, nonprofits like Copenhagen Suborbitals, etc., all carry at least as much cachet as the startup sector does.
  - gbog 13y ago
    Yes, same in France, you can't be doing nothing but being explicitly looking after money is very much frowned upon. Meanwhile in the US people are happy to use yearly income as the scale to compare people. Which is certainly wrong: any nurse should be higher on the scale than Columbian mafia bosses, right?
    - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
      it's rather nurse shouldn't make more than a doctor. Mafia boss is a criminal and as you might know Americans just love to be "tough on crime" :-)
- 001sky 13y ago
  While I understand this, remember that there are entrpreneurs, and then there is the subset of 'tech'. You won't find Richard Branson to fit the 'tech-startup' mold, but he's certainly an entrepreneur. And a pretty good one at that. Many, many people in europe privately fund all sorts of high-end businesses. They just don't use VC money and nor do they always go public. So the data have some variation of "survivorship bias", but in the sense that these data (ie, true survivors) are invisible if you are using a tech/ipo screen. The only reason I mention this, is that its all-together quite likely that there are some very talented people out there, in europe, who will undoubtedly have what it takes to do what needs to be done. The better explanation as to why silicon valley does not exist in europe, however, is just cultural. The US has NASA, Los Alamos, White Sands, Area-51, and all kinds of massive experience with science/industry and the types of invention and "productisation" of technology that comes from having huge deserts to play with expensive toys (rockets, weapons). That does not exist in europe, neither the culture, the money, nor the geography. And as a point of history, that to me is a better explanation of why silicon valley is where it is in terms of leading the commoditization of technology, and being the lynchpin a broader market.[#] Tech entre-preneurialism is a sub-set of this market (ie, many SV firms are huge, or government centric). And thats why for tech-startups, you will always over-represent in SV, because of the larger ecosystem to which VC is a subset (of funding, to wall-street and the government...which underwirite BigCo tech still). The other thing that is relevant is culture. But in a different way than it is often portrayed here. The ambition of many middle-class people is to strike it rich... "to live like a european". Obviously, this won't motivate europeans...for two reasons. The less obvious reason is lack of social mobility; the more obvious reason is the obvious one (ie, they are more worried about keeping a good thing going, than rebuilding a good thing from scratch). This might not be a perfect explanation, but even as a straw man its worth considering that there is some truth in it. [#] While the wealth and brains exist in europe, the critical-density of (capital, expertise, experimental sandbox) does not.

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

>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. So, in essense, European don't believe in the gold-rush kind of startup culture. Seeing that only 1 in 100 or less companies ever make it, that's quite smart of them (well, us). For the "less hacking spirit" somebody else said, I disagree. Heck, tons of hackers are from and in Europe (from Guido to the core KDE guys, and from projects like VLC and Haskell to OcamL).

raverbashing 13y ago
"For the "less hacking spirit" somebody else said, I disagree." True, maybe they trade quantity for quality. Also, Fabrice Bellard.
mseebach 13y ago
> So, in essense, European don't believe in the gold-rush kind of startup culture. Seeing that only 1 in 100 or less companies ever make it, that's quite smart of them (well, us). Depends on your definition of smart. I think we (again, on average and stereotyped) prefer the comfort of a stable and secure job, rather than taking a shot at a one in a hundred startup. That's "smart" for the individual, but if no-one takes the shot, the hundred startups needed to get to the one that gets big doesn't get started. The essence is that the modern western European culture isn't very conductive to risk-taking. This is great for stability and comfort, but it doesn't get us much progress and we will suffer in the long term for it.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >That's "smart" for the individual, but if no-one takes the shot, the hundred startups needed to get to the one that gets big doesn't get started. True, but so what? What exactly have we gotten by those kind of startups that we couldn't have gotten better from stabler, long term, businesses? I mean, consider, as I do, things like Instagram and Twitter as essentially BS. The most valuable things I can think of is stuff like Google, Skype, PayPal et al. But those are not the kind of startups people pursue these days.

Dewie 13y ago

> Also, it's just very, very suspect to want to get ahead. This is where I suspected that you were Scandinavian... and surely enough your profile's email is Danish.

namenotrequired 13y ago
This is true (perhaps not to the same extent) in the Netherlands as well.

philwelch 13y ago

Ambition is a big part of it, and European attitudes can be incomprehensible to Americans. I remember one discussion that ended with the statement, "the Belgians had ambition once and the Congo is still suffering for it".

mjn 13y ago
As a foreigner observing Denmark (not sure about the rest of Europe), I think Danes are actually pretty ambitious, but often in a non-commercial way. It's definitely not cool to slack off and do nothing, so there is ambition in the sense that there's a strong cultural preference to better yourself, do interesting things, produce something. Even if you have a full-time day job, you're not "supposed" to just watch TV in your spare time, but should be an active member of an organization, have projects, something. But it's perfectly acceptable (perhaps even preferable) for your ambition not to be primarily about making money. In tech, for example, DIY hackerspace stuff, media art, nonprofits like Copenhagen Suborbitals, etc., all carry at least as much cachet as the startup sector does.
- gbog 13y ago
  Yes, same in France, you can't be doing nothing but being explicitly looking after money is very much frowned upon. Meanwhile in the US people are happy to use yearly income as the scale to compare people. Which is certainly wrong: any nurse should be higher on the scale than Columbian mafia bosses, right?
  - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
    it's rather nurse shouldn't make more than a doctor. Mafia boss is a criminal and as you might know Americans just love to be "tough on crime" :-)
001sky 13y ago
While I understand this, remember that there are entrpreneurs, and then there is the subset of 'tech'. You won't find Richard Branson to fit the 'tech-startup' mold, but he's certainly an entrepreneur. And a pretty good one at that. Many, many people in europe privately fund all sorts of high-end businesses. They just don't use VC money and nor do they always go public. So the data have some variation of "survivorship bias", but in the sense that these data (ie, true survivors) are invisible if you are using a tech/ipo screen. The only reason I mention this, is that its all-together quite likely that there are some very talented people out there, in europe, who will undoubtedly have what it takes to do what needs to be done. The better explanation as to why silicon valley does not exist in europe, however, is just cultural. The US has NASA, Los Alamos, White Sands, Area-51, and all kinds of massive experience with science/industry and the types of invention and "productisation" of technology that comes from having huge deserts to play with expensive toys (rockets, weapons). That does not exist in europe, neither the culture, the money, nor the geography. And as a point of history, that to me is a better explanation of why silicon valley is where it is in terms of leading the commoditization of technology, and being the lynchpin a broader market.[#] Tech entre-preneurialism is a sub-set of this market (ie, many SV firms are huge, or government centric). And thats why for tech-startups, you will always over-represent in SV, because of the larger ecosystem to which VC is a subset (of funding, to wall-street and the government...which underwirite BigCo tech still). The other thing that is relevant is culture. But in a different way than it is often portrayed here. The ambition of many middle-class people is to strike it rich... "to live like a european". Obviously, this won't motivate europeans...for two reasons. The less obvious reason is lack of social mobility; the more obvious reason is the obvious one (ie, they are more worried about keeping a good thing going, than rebuilding a good thing from scratch). This might not be a perfect explanation, but even as a straw man its worth considering that there is some truth in it. [#] While the wealth and brains exist in europe, the critical-density of (capital, expertise, experimental sandbox) does not.