Europe had a crippling diversity deficit and so the US easily took the lead in tech, but under the guise of the so-called "refugee crisis" Europe is now executing a cunning Blitzkrieg assault on America's former advantage. D is for diversity, E is for EUgle!
Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
41–50 of 338 posts
Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
#42He mentions the multiple languages. I don't understand why Europeans stick to their local languages when they all know English anyway. Are they trying to keep foreigners out? Surely they realize there's a huge social cost of having your own minority language. This problem exists in China too but most people recognize the need to learn the standard Mandarin so they're largely bilingual. Dialect at home and Mandarin ta…
Not everyone in the USA speaks English either.
Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
#43"The third reason I hear is that the US market is bigger and therefore it’s easier to get traction. Yet there are 503 million Europeans living inside the EU vs. 319 million US living in the US"
Stopped reading after this line. So to this guy, a market is a geographic definition. Well, we're not in the 19th century anymore. We're not defined by hills and roads and river access.
IT startups identify markets from culture and language first and foremost. And you obviously won't market a product the same way in germany, france, or greece. It's the biggest issue with euro so far: same currency, 25 different cultures.
Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
#44German law makes the "out of the garage + Angel investor" start-up culture impossible. The only possible way is to make money AND start out with a huge amount of cash. I can't speak for other Euro countries.
What part? Is the incorporation of a company complicated\bureacratic? I know here in Czech Rep you pretty much need to have a local Czech speaker setup\registered\licensed with a certain status before you can create a new company. Or is there some capital requirements ("you must have €x,000 in the company accts to operate"), or lawyers fees that make it either tough\impossible for the early "ramen" stage?
Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
#45He mentions the multiple languages. I don't understand why Europeans stick to their local languages when they all know English anyway. Are they trying to keep foreigners out? Surely they realize there's a huge social cost of having your own minority language. This problem exists in China too but most people recognize the need to learn the standard Mandarin so they're largely bilingual. Dialect at home and Mandarin ta…
English is not useful for everybody outside of UK/Ireland so most people do not speak it or are really bad at it.
That's not true of the Netherlands, for example. Maybe Europe as a whole, but as time goes on English is becoming much more widely understood.
Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
#46I've posted this before, but since I think it's relevant here: People seem to forget that Europe is not a country. Europe does not have a single uniting language. What happens, is that every country starts their own smaller versions and they stay mostly within that country. If they want to move to another country, there's often already a major player there, and they might not have the means to kick them out. I think…
I really hope that I am actually addressing that in my essay.
I commented before reading the article, as I was having trouble loading it.
I've managed to read it and I see you did mention it. You other points do add some interesting ideas that I haven't considered before. Especially #3 is interesting.
Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
#47State intervention on innovation is considered harmful.
Yes, I'm so upset that the government funded all the initial development of the Internet, crushing things like Compuserve and AOL and AT&T's videotex offering. Who knows where we could be today if only those had been allowed to flower. (Well, I know the planet would be 3 inches deep in AOL promotional mailers. But besides that.)
Don't forget digital computers :)
No gubbermint funding and directing innovation then, no digital computer in your pocket now.
Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
#48He mentions the multiple languages. I don't understand why Europeans stick to their local languages when they all know English anyway. Are they trying to keep foreigners out? Surely they realize there's a huge social cost of having your own minority language. This problem exists in China too but most people recognize the need to learn the standard Mandarin so they're largely bilingual. Dialect at home and Mandarin ta…
I speak English very well. I have spoken it in professional environments for so long that, in a regular conversation, even accent barely reveals that I'm a non-native speaker anymore. However, my own native language is part of my cultural heritage, a heritage that I deeply appreciate, which is very dear to me and which cannot be adequately rendered in English any more than The Canterbury Tales can be adequately rendered in my own language.
We stick to our local languages because they're part of who we are. Europe would probably have a little more money if we stopped doing that, but it would be a lot poorer.
Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
#49I've posted this before, but since I think it's relevant here: People seem to forget that Europe is not a country. Europe does not have a single uniting language. What happens, is that every country starts their own smaller versions and they stay mostly within that country. If they want to move to another country, there's often already a major player there, and they might not have the means to kick them out. I think…
you're absolutely right.
successful examples that started in europe soon moved to the us to take off. qliktech/qlikview as a swedish example. intercom being spread across ireland and SF. etc.
the one market that could rival the US will be china. it is harmful to non-chinese investors though, but once they open it up a huge, homogenic market will pop up. wechat, baidu, alibaba already show what is possible there. apple and uber coming in with mature(rer) businesses. wonder when we'll see a mixed-background startup emerge in china.
as someone from austria that moved to the bay area - you must be bonkers to try ramping up a startup in most of europe. if your desire/plan is unicorn-scale of course.
Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?
#50He mentions the multiple languages. I don't understand why Europeans stick to their local languages when they all know English anyway. Are they trying to keep foreigners out? Surely they realize there's a huge social cost of having your own minority language. This problem exists in China too but most people recognize the need to learn the standard Mandarin so they're largely bilingual. Dialect at home and Mandarin ta…
A big difference in China is that the writing system is the same regardless of spoken language, so that works pretty well for the Internet. I think you also overestimate how many and how well people speak Mandarin in China. According to the Internet only about half of people in China can speak Mandarin:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838...