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Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

bloomberg.com

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Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#51

Post by skummetmaelk »

sparkling wrote: post #42
eahman00 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>becoming financially independent in the US is a matter of years [2], not decades (European here) I don't care about being financially dependent on the state, because the state is not my enemy. The state gave me healthcare, the state gave me a free education, the state takes care of stuff. I don't care about "freedom".

You may want to talk to some people in Greece...

This way of thinking is so obnoxiously stupid. Yes some states failed in providing for their citizens. Greece was never a perfect system, the government was always corrupt, overly bureaucratic and nepotistic. That doesn't mean having and devloping trust in your government is always a bad thing. Especially if you live in Germany or Scandinavia. Treating the government as your enemy when it is actively trying to help you and the rest of its citizens is just dumb. Somehow people who hate government trust industry moguls to have their interests in mind more than the government. What the fuck?

Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#52

Post by Roritharr »

Fnoord wrote: post #26
sparkling wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> obsess about pipe dreams that come through for one in a million people? Speaking as someone from Europe... I don't have any first hand experience, but when browsing HN or Reddit, developer salaries above $150k seem to be the norm [1], not the "one in a million people" exception. As you may know, such salaries are unheard in Europe. It seems to me that becoming financially independent in the US is a matter of years…

You can't compare a US salary with a EU salary 1:1. In the EU you get retirement money, you get health insurance, and all kind of other benefits. You need to calculate all these positive and negative and then compare. And that's a lot of work!

The problem with this is that neither retirement nor health insurance has a guaranteed quality level, if the government reaches a slump or decides to refocus on other things, you can't get a refund/reinvest.

If I look at my governmental retirement projections, although i have been working and paying into it since age 20 it's depressing how little inflation adjusted retirement money I'll receive, although I earn a good tech-salary for our region.

Same with healthcare, in my city, Frankfurt/Germany, it's very hard to find a cardiologist that accepts patients that are publicly insured and even then the wait times can be scary for this type of situation. Hospitals have started rejecting patients that want to circumvent this by going to the emergency room.

The biggest issue for me is one of age-restriction. I'm fairly certain that my possibilities to earn this much more elsewhere will shrink over time and then I won't have a comparable cushion my US counterpart could have built, although we do the same thing. That is the equation that keeps me up at night at the moment.

Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#53

Post by Annatar »

buboard wrote: post #21
l0b0 wrote: post #2

Maybe because most Europeans are happy with a good work/life balance, and don't constantly obsess about pipe dreams that come through for one in a million people? Obviously such obsessives exist, but I bet they are a lot less common than in countries with a, let's say, get big or go home attitude. Also, state funded safety nets means it's less urgent to have $lots saved up to survive the next crisis.

> because most Europeans are happy with a good work/life balance That is the common trope but the truth is there is no other option. There are whole countries which are destined to end up as tourist destinations.

You mean like Croatia? They've had 1000 years of servitude and have only begun their 1000 years long dream of being their own masters. They will have to learn how to do that and it will take them a long time, but they are already on the top in the weapons, pharmaceuticals and auto industries ("HS Produkt", "Belupo", "Pliva" and "Rimac") and might someday become a ship building power once again. They won't be just a tourist destination forever.

Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#54

Post by blattimwind »

close04 wrote: post #41
nunobrito wrote: post #23

We do tech. There are more startups on my city (which is small) than what the article is mentioning as average. The article assumes that "doing tech" needs to be something like a facebook or google and sell customer data like there is no tomorrow. It's a bit different around here, we like it that way.

The title is clickbaity, as is the norm these days. The reason it's so blunt and "polarizing" is that Bloomberg is a US publication. You think they'd ever dare publish an article asking "Why can't the US do civil rights?", an arguably more important topic than tech? Europe can do tech but they don't really make it an important target. Also many of the good people in tech choose to go Silicon Valley (which is now ~60%…

> an article asking "Why can't the US do civil rights?", an arguably more important topic than tech?

But the US has the correct kind of free speech which is the only civil right any good American requires.

Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#55

Post by dejv »

So what is tech? It seems like for author of this article it means highly scalable software startups (prefably consumer) which are highly visible and you have it on your personal devices. On this turf the US is clear leader at least for people living outside of China.

But tech is everywhere and there are huge amounts of billion /100s of M dollars companies you never heard off anywhere in (at least developed) world. In my small town (~ 300k of people) there are at least three pure tech companies that were build from nothing to 1B of valuation and I am sure you can point finger anywhere on map and it is going to be same.

Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#56

Post by Annatar »

sparkling wrote: post #47
koevet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Switzerland, for contractors (actually more than 150k/year)

Care to elaborate? What kind of gigs yield that kind of money and how is taxation for freelancers in Switzerland?

Gigs where people have very specialized knowledge, like SAP consulting, or where they have 20-30 years of system engineering and IT architecting experience. Taxation is low compared to the rest of the world, but since Switzerland is closed off to immigration and currently working on clamping down on it even more with all their might, it's pointless to discuss freelancing there. Which means that freelancers who work there live there, and that in turn means that you get an entire tax bill and have to cash out large sums of money on taxes in one go.

Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#57

Post by RBerenguel »

carlesfe wrote: post #12

Oh, Europe can do tech indeed. The article is spot on: imagine two startups, one in Barcelona and another in Boston, developing a very similar product. The first one raises €2M, the second one $50M. Which one is going to beat the other to market? Yes, there are other factors; work/life balance, heterogeneous markets/languages, collaboration vs competition mindset, etc. But here in Europe we also have workaholics that…

Good luck in your seeding!

Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#58

Post by icebraining »

fit2rule wrote: post #10
l0b0 wrote: post #2

Maybe because most Europeans are happy with a good work/life balance, and don't constantly obsess about pipe dreams that come through for one in a million people? Obviously such obsessives exist, but I bet they are a lot less common than in countries with a, let's say, get big or go home attitude. Also, state funded safety nets means it's less urgent to have $lots saved up to survive the next crisis.

>state funded safety nets Ding ding ding: this is the answer: those safety nets are also a cage. Disclaimer: have started many businesses around the world, including the US and Europe. Europeans don't proceed to the glory and glamor of US startups because they have to deal with government bureaucracy, and alas such bureaucracy is contagious. The moment you wade into the grant-getting territory, you become a grant-get…

Can you give a flavor of that extra government bureaucracy you had to deal in Europe vis-a-vis the US? And in which European countries was that?

Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#59

Post by sparkling »

skummetmaelk wrote: post #51
sparkling wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may want to talk to some people in Greece...

This way of thinking is so obnoxiously stupid. Yes some states failed in providing for their citizens. Greece was never a perfect system, the government was always corrupt, overly bureaucratic and nepotistic. That doesn't mean having and devloping trust in your government is always a bad thing. Especially if you live in Germany or Scandinavia. Treating the government as your enemy when it is actively trying to help y…

Good intentions of government programs do not mean good outcomes. Rent control is a classic example. Also i really wish we would stop calling out other opinions and ideas as "dumb" and "stupid".

Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?

#60

Post by tomaha »

sparkling wrote: post #47
koevet wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Switzerland, for contractors (actually more than 150k/year)

Care to elaborate? What kind of gigs yield that kind of money and how is taxation for freelancers in Switzerland?

Can't tell much about contractors but e.g. Google pays you 10-15% more in Zurich than in Mountain View and you pay much less taxes (and you don't have capital gains here). It's more expensive to live here but you'll still have much more left because of the tax advantages here.
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