3 ms·

It's a reasonable way to compare successfulness. It's how Americans ended up providing us with search, phones, operating systems... pretty much all tech. Google

It's a reasonable way to compare successfulness. It's how Americans ended up providing us with search, phones, operating systems... pretty much all tech. Google dominates EU markets even more than it dominates at home. All that seemingly sensible regulation is exactly how we keep reducing ourselves to playing catch-up and not even very well. http://online.wsj.com/articles/galileo-satellites-launched-into-wrong-orbits-1408827462 http://online.wsj.com/articles/galileo-satellites-launched-i...

jacquesm 12y ago
> pretty much all tech. That's so incredibly off-base that I don't know where to start with the corrections. What you mean is 'the few large multinationals that dominate a few very visible segments'. You could (wrongly) turn that around just as easily and point to the WWW created in Switzerland (on a network stack created in the US), that Linus Torvalds is Finnish by birth and that his creation powers all those phones and that search engine (he's moved to the united states now) and so on. The world is a lot more interconnected and if the US economy goes down so does the EU and vice versa. There is no 'individual success' any more than there will be 'individual failure'. Facebook and Google are outliers from SV, by your standards the rest of the US should feel about as miserable as the EU. Where are all the great start-ups from Northern Michigan, from New York, from Washington DC? Sure there will be exceptions but they're not facebook or google or Apple for that matter. But neither are any of those BMW, Mercedes or VW. Nor are they TomTom (nl), Logitech (ch), nor Tata Steel (Indian, the world is larger than just the US or the EU). Economies are no longer disconnected and EU and US per-capita size of their respective economies is very comparable. It's just that in the US the economic output (and the wealth distribution) is less even and so you notice the outliers. If you cut California out there would be a severe imbalance. There are three major reasons web start-ups from the US have an easier time going to Europe than the other way around: Access to capital, a very large homebase speaking for the most part one language, and Europeans adapting easier to using English than US users adapting to using a website in a different language than their mother tongue. Copycats like the Samwer brothers capitalize handily on the discrepancy during the short window of opportunity between a successful launch of something States-side and the subsequent roll out to the rest of the world. And for the local hold-outs who do not wish to conduct business in a language not their own.
- spindritf 12y ago
  There's a lot of great thinking done here, yet rarely capitalized. My point is not that something in the water lowers IQs but rather that well-intentioned, seemingly sensible, common sense regulation is drowning entrepreneurs. Even Linus Torvalds left to run Linux, a non profit, from the US. BMW, Mercedes or VW Founded, respectively, in 1916, 1926, and 1937. Those are some great companies but from completely different times. Neither Saint Peter's Basilica nor the Colosseum tell you much about modern Italy. Those are vestiges of glorious (well, usually) past. Facebook, Google, Microsoft are outliers from among American startups and typical by being American. Luckily, the world is interconnected so we can buy their products.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Tom Tom was founded in very recent history, the WWW is of the last 3 decades and now powers a substantial amount of the world economy in one way or another (would you have preferred to buy access from a single huge American company, say AOL?), and Team Viewer (which you've probably never even heard of) was a German company until they exited for $1B+. Really, there is a ton going on in Europe, but it just isn't as much cult-of-personality oriented in as in the US, nor does it typically become a world wide brand. Things are slower, but just different, not worse. And if they would be worse then those per-capita-gdp's would be quite different. Another way to look at it is gdp per man/woman hour worked. And on that scale Europe comes out ahead. You can compare these two until the cows come home, in the end the differences are much smaller than the similarities. SV is an outlier for the world, not just for the US.
    - spindritf 12y ago
      the WWW is of the last 3 decades and now powers a substantial amount of the world economy in one way or another But it didn't happen here. Great invention and then nothing. Even something as simple as Geocities took off in the US. And TomTom is like 1/60th of Google. This whole company exemplifying European IT success is a side gig for Google. In GDP per hour worked the US also trumps pretty much every European country. Europe as a whole doesn't come close, not to mention ahead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_hour_worked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...
DanBC 12y ago
Please coukd you expand what you mean when you say that "Americans provide us with phones"?
- coldtea 12y ago
  He probably believes that Samsung, Nokia, HTC, Sony, etc are American... Heck, half of the iPhone is based on Samsung parts and other stuff created by Chinese etc manufacturers (talking about out-sourced parts, not the mere assembly).
andmarios 12y ago
I think most people see themselves as persons and not as companies and imo a person is better of living in Europe than in the US.

jacquesm 12y ago

> pretty much all tech. That's so incredibly off-base that I don't know where to start with the corrections. What you mean is 'the few large multinationals that dominate a few very visible segments'. You could (wrongly) turn that around just as easily and point to the WWW created in Switzerland (on a network stack created in the US), that Linus Torvalds is Finnish by birth and that his creation powers all those phones and that search engine (he's moved to the united states now) and so on. The world is a lot more interconnected and if the US economy goes down so does the EU and vice versa. There is no 'individual success' any more than there will be 'individual failure'. Facebook and Google are outliers from SV, by your standards the rest of the US should feel about as miserable as the EU. Where are all the great start-ups from Northern Michigan, from New York, from Washington DC? Sure there will be exceptions but they're not facebook or google or Apple for that matter. But neither are any of those BMW, Mercedes or VW. Nor are they TomTom (nl), Logitech (ch), nor Tata Steel (Indian, the world is larger than just the US or the EU). Economies are no longer disconnected and EU and US per-capita size of their respective economies is very comparable. It's just that in the US the economic output (and the wealth distribution) is less even and so you notice the outliers. If you cut California out there would be a severe imbalance. There are three major reasons web start-ups from the US have an easier time going to Europe than the other way around: Access to capital, a very large homebase speaking for the most part one language, and Europeans adapting easier to using English than US users adapting to using a website in a different language than their mother tongue. Copycats like the Samwer brothers capitalize handily on the discrepancy during the short window of opportunity between a successful launch of something States-side and the subsequent roll out to the rest of the world. And for the local hold-outs who do not wish to conduct business in a language not their own.

spindritf 12y ago
There's a lot of great thinking done here, yet rarely capitalized. My point is not that something in the water lowers IQs but rather that well-intentioned, seemingly sensible, common sense regulation is drowning entrepreneurs. Even Linus Torvalds left to run Linux, a non profit, from the US. BMW, Mercedes or VW Founded, respectively, in 1916, 1926, and 1937. Those are some great companies but from completely different times. Neither Saint Peter's Basilica nor the Colosseum tell you much about modern Italy. Those are vestiges of glorious (well, usually) past. Facebook, Google, Microsoft are outliers from among American startups and typical by being American. Luckily, the world is interconnected so we can buy their products.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Tom Tom was founded in very recent history, the WWW is of the last 3 decades and now powers a substantial amount of the world economy in one way or another (would you have preferred to buy access from a single huge American company, say AOL?), and Team Viewer (which you've probably never even heard of) was a German company until they exited for $1B+. Really, there is a ton going on in Europe, but it just isn't as much cult-of-personality oriented in as in the US, nor does it typically become a world wide brand. Things are slower, but just different, not worse. And if they would be worse then those per-capita-gdp's would be quite different. Another way to look at it is gdp per man/woman hour worked. And on that scale Europe comes out ahead. You can compare these two until the cows come home, in the end the differences are much smaller than the similarities. SV is an outlier for the world, not just for the US.
  - spindritf 12y ago
    the WWW is of the last 3 decades and now powers a substantial amount of the world economy in one way or another But it didn't happen here. Great invention and then nothing. Even something as simple as Geocities took off in the US. And TomTom is like 1/60th of Google. This whole company exemplifying European IT success is a side gig for Google. In GDP per hour worked the US also trumps pretty much every European country. Europe as a whole doesn't come close, not to mention ahead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_hour_worked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...

DanBC 12y ago

Please coukd you expand what you mean when you say that "Americans provide us with phones"?

coldtea 12y ago
He probably believes that Samsung, Nokia, HTC, Sony, etc are American... Heck, half of the iPhone is based on Samsung parts and other stuff created by Chinese etc manufacturers (talking about out-sourced parts, not the mere assembly).

andmarios 12y ago

I think most people see themselves as persons and not as companies and imo a person is better of living in Europe than in the US.