Most highspeed train manufacturers are European, same is true for their deployment. Similar also holds for other „irrelevant“ technologies like Solar Cells. We‘re sourrounded by tech, Smartphones and Laptops are just one piece
Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
81–90 of 121 posts
Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
#82Earlier 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?
Mostly banking and finance gigs. UBS, Credit Suisse, Swiss Re, Zurich, etc. Not necessarily cutting edge tech jobs though. Also, Zug, near Zurich has turned into a hotspot for blockchain-related startups and fintech companies.
Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not really defining the safety nets. It isn't as if the USA has exactly none either. Example [1] If you're referring to the safety net that you get government money after you get unemployed, that's to ensure that you don't become homeless or get lured into crime. It has reinforcement to get you back to work ASAP. [1] https://www.ssa.gov/disability/
It also means you don't work as hard to succeed.
Or it means you don't get homeless the moment you don't succeed. Those who don't work aren't living in wealth; all they have is basic necessities. The system stimulates people to work. Which, incidentally, is easier when you're not homeless and when you can afford food and toilet paper (which I happen to know you cannot buy with food stamps).
Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
#84We 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%…
Mind if I inquire, what civil rights does a European have that an American doesn't ?
Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
Greece
You can extend that to any place east of Berlin or south of Milan, with the potential exception of Rome.
Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
#86Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
#87Earlier 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…
Becoming a millionaire is harder, yes, but so is also crash down to poverty. Safety nets such as cheap/free education, free healthcare, public retirement funds, more protective labor laws and such make it easier for everybody to avoid falling and/or getting out of poverty when times are bad. Your example of putting 3-4 months of US paychecks only work if you get paid a lot already, but not if you're poor or have high…
How come people keep repeating that ... and yet ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCg9htpWf0A
For example. A few searches yields plenty of recent movies about large amounts of homeless. But more specifically, if you go to Amsterdam, Brussels or Paris by train you will have no trouble whatsoever finding lots of homeless people. Granted, Amsterdam has a few, Brussels a pretty sizeable lot and Paris has tens of thousands at least.
In each of those cities, by the way, homeless are persecuted by the local police, and nothing ever seems to make any difference. Knowing the inclination of Dutch people (protestant, or to put it more bluntly "it's their own fault, obviously"), I don't envy the Dutch ones.
And whilst the poor people in the Netherlands live in extremely shabby apartment blocks riddled with crime rather than trailer parks, other than that there is little difference : garbage everywhere. Many youth gangs that have no option but to turn to crime and prey on their own community. Immigrants being the large majority of those people.
Oh and if you talk to them you will immediately find out, especially in the Netherlands : if you actually use the social safety net, you have to submit to the government "running your life". That "help" the government provides seems to have more than a few people who abuse the power they have (to, for instance, take away child care, or any children, require you to undergo psychological internment or take away your unemployment insurance). There's no end of complaints about that, especially in the Netherlands (less, but certainly present in Brussels and less in Paris).
Brussels and paris have homeless tent cities (maybe Amsterdam has them too, I don't know. Not in the inner city it seems. Both brussels and Paris have them in the inner city.
So there seem to be plenty of ways to "fall through" the social safety net in Europe. And this is the situation in the richest, most prosperous parts of Europe. There can be little doubt that the situation in Romania, for example, is far worse.
Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
#88Met a bunch of entrepreneurs in Germany.
They are either too conservative or too liberal.
So they don't do much really new or drown in chaos.
But well, being a founder probably needs extreme traits.
Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
I honestly don't know why you got down-voted for this: I can confirm from first hand experience that everything you wrote is a fact. This place often makes no sense whatsoever in what is considered good or bad.
I didn't downvote, but the post is not very informative, at least for someone who doesn't already know what they're talking about, like you. It's not very clear what's the relationship being implied between bureaucracy and grants, which grants are those, or how do they differ between the US vs EU.
For reference, I've worked at a couple of EU startups, and we didn't get any grants. It's not like you just get money for incorporating.
Re: Why Can’t Europe Do Tech?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Germany, and Austria. Getting a grant in Austria essentially guarantees that the hunger you need to survive in the tech world today will be quenched by that sweet, sweet, government handout.
You are seriously arguing that the threat of starving is how you want to motivate people to work for you? Sorry but I doubt European bureaucracy is what’s holding your companies back.