Europe is now a corporate also-ran. Can it recover its footing? • Hacker News Board

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

#451

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

tovej wrote: post #450

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US creating top paying tech jobs for the working class and not taxing them to death so they can grow into a flourishing middles class is also helping people. >large part of the US economy that consists of hurting people Source? If you're talking about the defense sector then you should also know that the UK and France were several years in a row number 2 and 3 worldwide in arms sales, including to the Saudi regime.

US upward social mobility is among the worst in the world. US workers are stuck in a rat race that simply doesn't exist to the same extent in Europe.

I beg to differ. The fact is hard working immigrants in the US have a much higher chance of becoming successful than in Europe.

Pretty much all the US tech companies are now run by immigrants of minority backgrounds while, for example, Eastern European and Turkish immigrants in Germany are still regarded as cleaners and kebab salesmen, with the only notable exception they can name being the Turkish CEO of BionTech.

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

#452

Post by dalbasal » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

satellite2 wrote: post #319

This article is truly bizarre. The main point it makes is that the top 500 US companies grew faster than the top 500 European ones in the last decade or so. But then it quickly mention, without any further analysis, that both their GDP actually grew at a similar pace. So the entire EU economy grew at the same speed than the US one but not its 500 bigger companies. So all else being equals it means that the smaller US…

The point of departure is market cap vs other measures. US companies have gained a lot of value, relative to their GDP contributions... hence the discrepancy.

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

#453

Post by tovej » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #434

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but doesn't Apple rely on European companies like Bosch for sensors and stuff? So, no iPhone without those crappy uninnovative European companies. Oh and Linux and the WWW were developed in Europe, if I remember correctly?

Yes, but how is Europe monetizing those things? Just because something was invented here is irrelevant if people can't use it to pay rent or create new well paying jobs.

Europe _has_ monetized these thing, through open source companies like MySQL and QT. But even if it hadn't they're still a net positive for society.

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

#454

Post by dieortin » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #413

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the entire EU economy grew at the same speed than the US one but not its 500 bigger companies > This is literally the article’s point. Europe and the U.S. grew similarly. The U.S. and China produced more large companies. (The Continent’s larger companies also being older than the other two’s.) So Europe did a better job in distributing wealth more equally, while in the US and China you got a massive concentration…

> Europe did a better job in distributing wealth more equally This assumes ex ante a similar quantity of wealth. Europe’s GDP per capita is lower than America’s. Where it’s higher, the growth is slower. The more-even distribution comes at the expense of quality of life or economic power. (Though not for Europe’s well-entrenched multi-generational and often legally-entitled wealthy.) To be clear, I don’t believe in mo…

I’d love to know why you think quality of life is higher in the US.

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

#455

Post by joelbluminator » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #275

rsj_hn wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because societies that promote innovation have higher quality of life and bless the entire world with technological advancement, while their own population benefits from lower prices, more goods, productivity growth, more jobs, more opportunity, and more fairness. It's strange how quick people are to condemn monopolies and yet in the same breath insist that starting businesses is not a social good. Of course it's a s…

According to the World Happiness Report for 2020 (which is a well-regarded and well-researched report as far as I know), 9 of the top 10 countries in the world for people's quality of life and well-being are all in the EU. The USA comes in 18th. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2020_re...

Devil's advocate here. They almost all have small populations: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Netherlands combined have less people than Spain which isn't that happy. On average I'd gamble the whole EU is about as happy as the U.S

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

#456

Post by Dudeman112 » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #285

davidgatti wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This description is UE startups in a nutshell :) Countries like Poland for example, get massive amount of money from the EU, and there are business that specialize only in getting grants for people, which then they use to make a "company" for a year or two, and when the money runs out they close it and reopen another one with the next grant. With no revenue stream idea what so ever. In this type of country's if you h…

> working a minimum of 16h a day, they look at you as a complete lunatic As they should.

I don't think op is gonna admit to being a lunatic, even if they do engage in such behaviors like thinking that working 16h per day isn't insanity

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

#457

Post by gizdan » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

bennybob wrote: post #220

sildur wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU built a Nokia. Until MS infiltrated and dismantled it, that is.

Until apple and Android made it irrelevant

Apple and Android didn't make Nokia irrelevant. Nokia made bad decisions and chose the losing player. After which said losing player gutted it.

Nokia had the might to a) build their own great OS, and b) continue to be a market leader. But when you have management making bad decisions, this is all you get. Whether you're in the EU or in the US, doesn't matter.

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

#458

Post by concordDance » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

thow-01187 wrote: post #430

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the entire EU economy grew at the same speed than the US one but not its 500 bigger companies This is literally the article’s point. Europe and the U.S. grew similarly. The U.S. and China produced more large companies. (The Continent’s larger companies also being older than the other two’s.) > supposedly more investment in R&D Not supposedly, factually. The article explicitly states this. It’s the Economist; if you…

Imho, what was happening in the Silicon Valley economy looks much more like displacement of value rather than creation of value (1). Google/Facebook have displaced other ad formats, redirecting money to themselves. AWS have displaced IT technicians in other corporations, redirecting money to themselves. Apple is selling overpriced commodity hardware, redirecting money to themselves. Uber is displacing taxis, redirect…

I think the ability to google things has provided immense, incalculable value, even if it's not value showing up in gdp figures.

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

#459

Post by riffraff » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:15 AM UTC

kentlyons wrote: post #186

sildur wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU built a Nokia. Until MS infiltrated and dismantled it, that is.

How much help did Nokia have from the EU?? Sure it was very Finnish, but not clear the EU helped. And it wasn't MS, it was Nokia itself in the face of Apple. I worked at Nokia and saw it first hand.

Europe gave us GSM[0]. At a time when everyone in Europe had a GSM phone penetration in the US was embarassingly low.

It's hard to remember now, but Nokia exploded in the consumer market at a time when mobile phones were still niche in the US.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM

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

#460

Post by dieortin » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 9:16 AM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #437

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it nice that a large part of the European economy consists of stuff helping people (the "state activities" you mention) vs. the large part of the US economy that consists of hurting people?

US creating top paying tech jobs for the working class and not taxing them to death so they can grow into a flourishing middles class is also helping people. >large part of the US economy that consists of hurting people Source? If you're talking about the defense sector then you should also know that the UK and France were several years in a row number 2 and 3 worldwide in arms sales, including to the Saudi regime.

The military industry does indeed have the objective of hurting people, and it’s an important part of the US economy.