The plans described are a good start, but what I think we need is more a mentality change than anything else. Starting a tech company in Europe is, usually, ea

The plans described are a good start, but what I think we need is more a mentality change than anything else. Starting a tech company in Europe is, usually, easy enough. The paperwork is more complex and expensive than in the US, but easy enough to navigate. Looking at the startup hubs in Europe (London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Dublin...), getting early stage or seed money is also relatively easy. But we find the first difference with the US here. Getting a bit of money is easy enough, maybe something below 500K€ is feasible. But there's no way you are going to get the valuations and the money raised by similar startups in the valley. Most VCs here are pretty risk-averse, so that's an extra hurdle, but there's a lot of other VC operating on both sides of the ocean that are sometimes more approachable and the networks of angel investors work really well. For me, the real problem is growth. Converting a startup into a big company requires a lot of changes. Sometimes the founders are able to step up their game and continue to run the big company, but more often than not you need senior executives, people that have done this before and have the set of skills, knowledge and contacts to manage a big monster. There's plenty of people with those skills in Europe, but the mentality is totally different from the US. In the US you can find one of these guys that is bored, contemplating retirement and sees this process as an exciting opportunity. In Europe is more common for these people to be afraid of losing their position. All this IMHO, of course and based of my experiences. By the way, I find it funny that the article talks about simplifying tax structures just after they've approved MOSS, which is a headache for most companies selling virtual goods.