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Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

economist.com

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Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#51

Post by passerby1 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #8

Why are European companies so unambitious ? My whole civilian career I've had to work for North American companies because the European alternatives aren't even attempting to be competitive.

I'm not an economist, but in my opinion a progressive taxation (for employees wages) can be a main limiting factor to this. Ambitions needs motivated employees. They need better wages to work harder. But it's really a steep curve after mid-wage, because taxes are _very_ progressive. So ambitions are just not worth trying.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#52

Post by chrisseaton »

ferdowsi wrote: post #19

Is it really so grim? This report has London, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin in the top 20 startup global ecosystems. https://cdn.startupgenome.com/sites/5c98cab2fb6681000470c58c...

'in the top 20' sounds like scraping the barrel.

London is second. There isn't an EU country until 10. There isn't really a lot of Europe on that list, is there? Europe is generally outperformed by regional US cities.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#53

Post by passerby1 »

wrnr wrote: post #11

I live in a small EU country, sometimes it feels like I live in a total state. Government and universities glued together by big consulting firms following some innovation management framework with people that don't know what they are talking about ranking stuff by points scored on some technology readiness index. It just laks any soul, feels like i'm stuck here, would move if I could but where would I go.

What country is it, mind sharing the name?

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#54

Post by sdenton4 »

Renaud wrote: post #28
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully we can improve at that while keeping worker protections This is how Europeans defend their system - better worker protections. But I get far better pay, conditions, and work-life balance at a North American company than I could possibly expect working for a local company. I'm not sure this defence really works anymore.

It's not just better worker protection. It's the whole system that has more social safeties for everyone. You might be better off with better conditions working for a top American company but you are not most people, you are part of a privileged few who had the capacity (opportunity, financial, intellectual) to be part of a a select who can enjoy this position. You're also dependent on your company to provide these b…

Yeah, sure, but the US is basically an Oryx and Crake LARP at this point.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#55

Post by wrnr »

passerby1 wrote: post #53
wrnr wrote: post #11

I live in a small EU country, sometimes it feels like I live in a total state. Government and universities glued together by big consulting firms following some innovation management framework with people that don't know what they are talking about ranking stuff by points scored on some technology readiness index. It just laks any soul, feels like i'm stuck here, would move if I could but where would I go.

What country is it, mind sharing the name?

Belgium, Flanders

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#56

Post by alanbernstein »

_s wrote: post #21
chrisseaton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hopefully we can improve at that while keeping worker protections This is how Europeans defend their system - better worker protections. But I get far better pay, conditions, and work-life balance at a North American company than I could possibly expect working for a local company. I'm not sure this defence really works anymore.

If you’re a “professional” (engineers, lawyers, doctors etc) in any capacity; you will be given more - but for the majority of the workforce in retail, hospitality, services - you are much worse off; the European social support is geared towards a more even society.

That aligns with the Steve jobs unicorn story; a more even society sacrifices the extreme high outliers like him. Interesting to think about it as trading social welfare for the chance at more successful moonshots. If you believe in always-increasing returns on technological progress, it probably sounds like a fair trade...

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#57

Post by rsj_hn »

passerby1 wrote: post #48
rsj_hn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

East Asia industrializing does not somehow diminish Europe or the U.S., so measures like "global share of GDP" for the continent have nothing to do with the subject matter at hand, which is why Europe, with certainly a sufficiently large GDP, is not able to give birth to large corporations at the same rate as the U.S. Now we can argue whether being able to do this is a good thing or a bad thing. But for some reason c…

Does the work-life balance shifted towards life just mean that people work less in Europe? Can it contribute to a lesser global GDP share?

Again, the subject under discussion is not GDP share but why the top 100 firms in Europe are growing less quickly than the top 100 firms in the US, and why there are fewer rapidly growing firms. As these are exceptional situations, they should not show up in aggregate data like average hours worked or GDP shares. It's a bit like asking whether there is a relationship between overall literacy rates and the number of Nobel Prizes awarded. It is all about the tail of the distribution, not the mean.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#58

Post by Proven »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #20
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #18

A point not made in the article: American consumers are better at consuming and driving growth than European consumers: When the article mentioned Starbucks and Tesla, I immediately thought, those would never have taken off in Europe. Americans are just much better consumers. Americans spend more on luxury and value convenience to a greater deal. American consumers are also more adventurous and willing to try new thi…

Europe has plenty of "luxury" brands, although few in the tech sector, admittedly. But consumer-facing brands aren't everything. Germany's industry is famously reliant on "hidden champions": specialist mid-sized companies you've never heard of, producing, say, industrial pumps, chewing-gum wrapping machines, or large curved glass panels.

[dead]

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#59

Post by nxc18 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #8

Why are European companies so unambitious ? My whole civilian career I've had to work for North American companies because the European alternatives aren't even attempting to be competitive.

I have wondered this. I work at an American company with many European employees and it is just really hard to see a complete lack of ambition/competitiveness.

At some point being on vacation so much must hurt, I know projects are delayed when folks just can’t be expected to be there and will randomly disappear for 4+ weeks at a time. But that really doesn’t explain the extreme cultural conservatism towards effort/ambition more generally.

I feel like a Martian speaking an alien language when I try to get coworkers onboard with the idea of creating a competitive product or trying to be innovative at all. They just don’t want to do more than the bare minimum to compete. The concept of taking pride in the work and wanting to create something great is totally foreign. It seems like work is just a way to earn money for Europeans, which I sort of get, but I thought humans were supposed to be intrinsically motivated by pursuit of mastery/excellence?

I get that baguettes and wine and croissants and endless Mediterranean vacations are more enjoyable than work but ffs someone needs to put effort towards advancing society.

Re: Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing?

#60

Post by smaug7 »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #20
mustafa_pasi wrote: post #18

A point not made in the article: American consumers are better at consuming and driving growth than European consumers: When the article mentioned Starbucks and Tesla, I immediately thought, those would never have taken off in Europe. Americans are just much better consumers. Americans spend more on luxury and value convenience to a greater deal. American consumers are also more adventurous and willing to try new thi…

Europe has plenty of "luxury" brands, although few in the tech sector, admittedly. But consumer-facing brands aren't everything. Germany's industry is famously reliant on "hidden champions": specialist mid-sized companies you've never heard of, producing, say, industrial pumps, chewing-gum wrapping machines, or large curved glass panels.

The article points out that the industries that the European companies are in have slow growth rates. I can't imagine industrial pumps, chewing gum wrapping machines, large curved glass panels can have the same growth rates (or profit margins) as some of america's top mid sized companies.

https://www.forbes.com/lists/best-mid-cap-companies/#66cd8f8...

Here's a list to get a gauge of what's out there

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