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Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

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Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#61

Post by afsina »

wpietri wrote: post #34
afsina wrote: post #4

State 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.)

We will never know the opposite wont we? It is not that state is not capable of investment on innovation. They are just terrible at it. There are many rebuttals on the issue of "government is necessary for innovation". Here is one of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbR4cjA-Few

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#62

Post by kuschku »

Shivetya wrote: post #22

Over regulation. He talks all around that word but its key to why. The barrier to entry becomes much more difficult to surmount.

Over regulation is not really a thing – the US has under regulation, especially in regards to data safety.

Over regulation is what the US does with taxis. Which is why in Germany companies that do essentially the same as Uber (but legal[1]) already existed before Uber was even founded.

What I see the "issue" is that as soon as some size is reached, we don't really care about expanding further. Why take a risk when you already have a pretty nice market?

[1] In Germany, where UberPop is currently banned, you can start a taxi company if your drivers are insured with commercial insurance. To make profit, your drivers need to have a 55€ license as taxi driver. Simple as that. UberPop is only banned because they did not want to insure the drivers (the license is less of an issue).

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#63

Post by dovereconomics »

Okay, everybody will hate me.

But, why are more unicorns a good thing? Yes, there are less VCs willing to throw money at 'SOCIAL APP n', but most startups will tend to have something more concrete.

Plus, assuming unicorns are 'natural forces of free market' is ignorance and hurts the economy in the long-term. These 'natural monopolies' use/abuse a financial system created by government. In a free market(no government intervention), they'd never be able to raise as much money and takeover as much market cap as they currently do.

Less monopolies is not a signal of a interventionist economy. Quite the opposite.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#64

Post by notNow »

atemerev wrote: post #17
atmosx wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about gun control? Does that stop innovation too?

Sure. More gun control -> more police expenses -> more taxes -> less innovation. Try opening a company in, say, France. (This was a cruel joke. Please don't, for the sake of your sanity).

Actually More permissive & lax gun laws -> More police militarization to preserve the competitive advantage -> More govt spending local or federal -> Less spending on other sectors such as health and education

BTW I'm centrist on the issue of gun ownership & carrying but I just wanted to point out the flaw in your deduction.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#65

Post by lumberjack »

>These are of course mostly older companies and not part of the Unicorn category, but at the end of the day that’s just semantics.

No, it's not just semantics. Look at the history of Siemens or any other of these old European companies. There's one aspect that is present all their history and that's government involvement. One could even say that their first venture capitalist that gave them a chance was the government. They all pretty much started out by getting contracts for building infrastructure or military hardware.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#66

Post by hodwik »

adaml_623 wrote: post #12

A more interesting question is: 'Are unicorns good for the economy and good for society'?

Why is that the more interesting question?

Is there anything you can add to the discussion of substance? Or, perhaps, is this drive-by FUD all you have in the content holster?

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#67

Post by lumberjack »

Shivetya wrote: post #22

Over regulation. He talks all around that word but its key to why. The barrier to entry becomes much more difficult to surmount.

Please give one example of a company that couldn't be setup in a European country because of over regulation but was successful setup in the US.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#68

Post by venomsnake »

Asbostos wrote: post #16

He 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…

Lets start that since that since the Cromwell times Britain has not been a part of Europe by its own choosing. The whole balance of power. Even today UK is a different beast than all the rest of Europe.

Also one of the huge benefits of post WWII order was the creation of homogeneous national countries. Which explains the abnormally long peace period. So nationalism and national identity are extremely strong in europe.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#69

Post by ericmarcos »

Shivetya wrote: post #22

Over regulation. He talks all around that word but its key to why. The barrier to entry becomes much more difficult to surmount.

I agree with that. And I would add: over regulation "imposed" by the old unicorns this article mentions. They don't want new, disruptive players enter their well stablished monopolies / oligopolies. In EU they have lots of administration levels they can lobby and it's easy to increase barriers to entry. I can assure this is absolutely true in Spain.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#70

Post by kavabean »

I wonder if the following could be relevant.

1. In my experience, Europeans are less dominated by the "newer is better" desire to constantly get the latest gadget/technology. I wonder if others agree.

2. European money appears to be more dominated by old money / aristocracy and that these people like to invest within that network. Engineers are less likely to be part of the aristocracy and are treated more like commodities than the enabling superstar athletes they are (at least the kind that make unicorns). I know quite a few engineers that make over $200k in SV but only one who makes over 100k GBP.

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