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Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

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Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#341

Post by nicbou »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #273
bluecmd wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you mention regulation, I think it is something to be proud of. GDPR, Germany saying hell-no to forced Facebook accounts, etc. As for innovation? US isn't even top 10 when it comes to Nobel prize per capita ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Nobel_l... ). IKEA, SAP, Beretta, Airbus, Spotify, Linux, Prometheus, Grafana, Booking.com just from the top of my head of things that are proof of Euro…

GDPR is the perfect example for OPs point. The whole thing is just stupid, protects nobody and thought millions of people to just click on Okay on any modal they are presented with.

There is a lot more to GDPR than cookie warnings. It ensures among other things that random companies won't get access to your data because of a purchase you made or a toll bridge you've crossed.

I go to the US every 2 or 3 years for a few days, and that's enough to end up on a bunch of American marketing lists. GDPR is here to prevent things like that.

It also prevents companies from holding my data hostage, and gives me a way to delete it.

There are other privacy-related laws that prevent companies from publishing a mugshot of me and extorting money from me to remove it.

There's more, but I think you get the point.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#342

Post by cultus »

saalweachter wrote: post #328
irrational wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could the one common language be? English would seem to be the logical choice, but there is no way France would agree to that.

Latin is tanned, rested and ready.

Proto-indo-european would be a better unity option so as to not show favor to Romance-speaking countries.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#343

Post by mytherin »

jeswin wrote: post #321
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning monopolies (not just foreign ones) may also have worked, and is probably the smartest plan for the planet as a whole. I'd say the main US advantage is that it's set up to create stagnant monopolies that can then leverage that power into other areas. Microsoft is now one of the players in gaming consoles, but they basically bought their way in on the back of monopoly rents from Office and OS.

That's not monopolistic abuse; what you described is just investment in a new sector with profits from an existing one. Companies, investors and funds do it all the time. Abuse would be when a company leverages a monopoly to enter or influence another market, such as bundling Internet Explorer with Windows.

Perhaps monopoly abuse is not the right term, but Microsoft did buy their way into the gaming industry by selling millions of consoles at a loss. There is no way for any company that is not already a multi-billion dollar company to compete with that. The same happens in many other areas where large tech companies use their inertia and tons of existing capital to make it impossible for anyone but other tech giants to compete with them. This is extremely problematic because these companies almost win “by default” just by swinging their weight around, even if their product might not be the best product in that area.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#344

Post by ZeroGravitas »

jeswin wrote: post #321
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning monopolies (not just foreign ones) may also have worked, and is probably the smartest plan for the planet as a whole. I'd say the main US advantage is that it's set up to create stagnant monopolies that can then leverage that power into other areas. Microsoft is now one of the players in gaming consoles, but they basically bought their way in on the back of monopoly rents from Office and OS.

That's not monopolistic abuse; what you described is just investment in a new sector with profits from an existing one. Companies, investors and funds do it all the time. Abuse would be when a company leverages a monopoly to enter or influence another market, such as bundling Internet Explorer with Windows.

If the profits come from a monopoly, I'd argue that it's monopolistic abuse. If they weren't abusing the monopoly, they wouldn't have the profits to do whatever the next thing is, which often involves losing money in the short term to tie up a market in the longer term (i.e. further abuse of monopoly).

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#345

Post by MikusR »

emsy wrote: post #195

Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

They are also building roads, making houses more energy efficient and building small scale particle colliders.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#346

Post by sanp »

88840-8855 wrote: post #248
fvdessen wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was still not that long ago an incredible amount of innovative companies and products in Europe. But at that time companies were still built for their home markets first and on that regard the USA is big and unified. Since software is mostly winner takes all it means that when the USA companies came to Europe they had already won the USA and could steamroll the local competition There is for example no way a sw…

I like your points and agree on your conclusion. Further, I would like to add a few ideas: - innovation in Europe can only scale if we achieve a higher degree of unity in Europe, including one common language, one common jurisdiction and law framework. Localization is just too expensive in Europe and hinders scaling. - a certain degree of protectionism is good. I am a big fan of how China made it. They have a really…

This! The EU needs to be more cohesive and create an alternative to the U.S. (with it's increasing anti-intellectualism) or China.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#347

Post by jeroenhd »

0xfaded wrote: post #306
AsyncAwait wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is nowhere as culturally unified as the U.S is. So the pool of resources available isn't as large. I'd also not be so quick on the regulation front. Looking at the (lack of) environmental regulation in the US right about now or the absolute astonishing cost of any medical emergency, I'd say they went too far in the other direction.

The lack of cultural unity thing is a curtain to hide behind. There's no reason Europe can't have a powerful federal government, other than it would result in transfers from the "export based economies" to the others.

The lack of cultural unity is the reason people don't want a powerful federal government.

With the turn the democratically elected Hungarian and Polish governments have taken the past few years, I sure hope there won't be a powerful federal EU government any time soon.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#348

Post by puranjay »

fvdessen wrote: post #217
emsy wrote: post #195

Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

There was still not that long ago an incredible amount of innovative companies and products in Europe. But at that time companies were still built for their home markets first and on that regard the USA is big and unified. Since software is mostly winner takes all it means that when the USA companies came to Europe they had already won the USA and could steamroll the local competition There is for example no way a sw…

Europe isn't able to compete with American tech salaries, plain and simple. American tech salaries, on the other hand, are inflated by exaggerated tech stock valuations.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#349

Post by mattalex »

Aerroon wrote: post #232
matthewmacleod wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What metric are you basing this determination on? Is it purely about “big tech”? It seems from my perspective that most European countries are pretty decently innovative, in particular with a variety of companies offering advanced engineering and technology services. Is there actually a lack of innovation, or is it specifically a lack of “innovation” in the “there is no Airbnb so Europe sucks” sense?

I think it's more of a case of "most electronics and everything that runs on it is not made in Europe". I'm a European posting on an American company's forum using a browser made in the US running on an operating system made by an American company running on a phone designed and built in China with components made in a variety of countries that aren't in Europe. The same goes for using a desktop PC. Even most of the…

I think that comparing only the technology sector gives a wrong perspective on the amount of research being done: According to the National Science Foundation of the USA https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20206/publication-output-by-re... The EU actually produces more research papers than China or the US. (of course that isn't a perfect metric, but it's still an indicator)

I think that many people conflate "innovation" with "big companies" which isn't the case: You don't need a google/Apple/Facebook equivalent to innovate (and having such towering companies may hurt in the long run, but wether or not big "googlesque" companies are a good thing is an entirely different question)

There are also a lot of unknown companies that have huge influence on the overall market by being global leaders in very narrow non-consumer facing areas, so called "hidden champions". These companies have become more important due to globalisation. To give a concrete example: While your phone wasn't built in the EU, odds are that it was at least partially produced with machines by ASML, a company that produces lithography machines for ~80% of chip manufacturers.

Also, due to this site here literally being "hackernews" and the pervasiveness of digital systems in normal life, we are getting a pretty skewd look at the industry as a whole: For example, the biggest chemical company in the world is BASF, a european company and the chemical company Bayer now owns a majority share of agricultural chemistry.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#350

Post by bogwog »

Anyone else find it ironic that Google is the subject of one of the biggest anti-trust cases in recent history, and now Schmidt is blaming the US for not innovating enough?

Maybe if so much of the tech industry's wealth and resources weren't pooled together into a handful of massive monopolists who have nearly complete control over whether any competitor lives or dies, the US (and really, the entire world) would have more opportunity to innovate.

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