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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?

#501

Post by Sharlin »

systemvoltage wrote: post #461
dieortin wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You can check some objective data here - OECD Better Life Index: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

As expected, the US makes it to the top ten only if you very single-mindedly value housing (ie. huge suburban houses) and income above everything else such as safety, environment, work–life balance, and actual life satisfaction! Otherwise you see the usual suspects at the top: the Nordics, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands, then followed by the US, the UK, Germany etc. Some of the metrics also seem rather dubious: the US scores high in health despite the well-known failings of its healthcare system.

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

#502

Post by effie »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #442
berkes wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Just Eat Takaway. Booking.com are from the Netherlands too. Spotify is Swedish. As is Klarna and Mojang. SoundCloud is German. Mixcloud British. Several of the covid vaccines were develeoped in europe (albeit under the umbrella of US companies such as J&J). Volkwagen and Volvo are beating Tesla in sales numbers and in getting self driving to market hands down. There is lots of high tech in Europe. Just Because th…

Nothing you mentioned is high tech. Car companies haven't innovated anything in decades. Spotify is a perfect example of a company with lots of revenue that doesn't do anything interesting with it.

Ramp up of electric car production isn't innovation?

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

#503

Post by j_wtf_all_taken »

oytis wrote: post #495
j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The more-even distribution thus comes at the expense of quality of life. What are you talking about? We have fairer elections, better infrastructure, more social security, everyone's got health insurance, we're not getting shot in school, and also we're not on the way to be ruled by a fascist so ... how exactly are you measuring the quality of life?

Denmark legally discriminates agwinst "non-western" immigrants and officially aims at not taking any refugees at all. France is ruled by a rather right-wing government and has a chance to have a far-right one next. Germany hasn't seen a left-wing government for 16 years, will likely not see it for 4 more years (if ever). The rest can be easily compromised by economic stagnation, to have good social security you need…

I don't get your point. I mean, I agree with the danger of a far-right president in France in '22, and I'd like to see another party in power in Germany, but what does that have to do with the current quality of life?

Right now, the social security system works, does it not? Just from the perspective of a citizen ... I have health and unemployment insurance, good public transportation, I won't get shot in public, the police will less likely kill me, etc.

I really don't get your point. Because there's stuff that could go wrong, the good things we have are irrelevant?

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

#504

Post by oblio »

kortilla wrote: post #259
oblio wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The EU has a higher population than the US and it has many top notch universities. Europe tends to lose many of its tech talents to the US, but if you pay comparable salaries you'll keep them.

Because on average all of the top talent goes to the US companies that pay an order of magnitude more than the locals (FAANG).

My point was that there is local talent. Just pay US salaries and it will stay put.

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

#505

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #403
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…

>> 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…

>So Europe did a better job in distributing wealth more equally

False. Europe did a better job at distributing income due to high taxes but not wealth.

Most Europeans are rich due to accumulation of wealth (specifically old business and real estate) inherited across generations.

Due to that, statistically, Europe does worse than the US wealth inequality as wealth has pooled to the people whose families have been here the longest, the newcomers are just burdened with high income taxes and high property prices, that's why skilled immigrants in STEM who have options and can afford to "shop around" usually avoid Europe in favor of North America.

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

#506

Post by midasuni »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #327
laurent92 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end, one may talk about all the startups (when the BPI pumps billions into it, I sure hope there are some startups and medium companies), but EU has proven unable to build an Apple . It would be dismantled here, and CEO beaten up before reaching any interesting level. DailyMotion (French) was as big as Youtube. Many others like this. We always end up #2, and the Silicon Valley still decides what is ok to say o…

The EU doesn't build Googles or Amazons, because those companies are inherently unhealthy monopolies. But it has built numerous tech successes, including Nokia, Spotify, Wise, Airbus, and others. In reality the EU has curbed the imperial pretensions of aggressive US corporates numerous times - including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple, and (soon) Facebook.

5 of the 6 most valuable companies on the planet by market cap. Not doing a great job at curbing them.

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

#507

Post by j_wtf_all_taken »

zimpenfish wrote: post #487
systemvoltage wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can check some objective data here - OECD Better Life Index: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/

It's objective, perhaps, but not overly useful - e.g. the US gets 8.9 for health, partially because the life expectancy at birth is about the average. Except that completely ignores the quality of that life (ironic) and things like "going bankrupt because you broke your leg in a car accident", etc.

Just gotta be rich, then the health care system is awesome.

Its incredible how high maternal mortality is in the US. Like a development country.

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

#508

Post by j_wtf_all_taken »

okareaman wrote: post #431
j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every person that ever committed a patch to the Linux Kernel probably has more impact. Not because if the code itself but Linux is just so much more important than Apple, Facebook and Google altogether.

> What community? The one where you have to be rich to be a part of? Looks like HN hides the reply if we go back and forth too quickly so I'll just reply here to say quickly that these companies have friction with local communities so they try to be nice. I've been to Facebook event like Siesta day. They try to be nice but it doesn't always help with the locals.

The only nice thing to do is: pay their taxes, don't build surveillance systems just to show fascist ads to your users.

Actually, I don't expect companies to do these two things. I expect governments to prevent companies from doing those crappy things. And I expect voters to vote for politicians that do these things.

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

#509

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #498
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd argue if you say "the fact is", you should provide a source for that. So low-paying jobs in the service sector are not an immigrant thing in the US? Did you talk to enough Europeans to know we can only name the BionTech guy as an example of a successful immigrant?

>Did you talk to enough Europeans to know we can only name the BionTech guy as an example of a successful immigrant?

Please name some for me. Especially in Germany.

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

#510

Post by j_wtf_all_taken »

midasuni wrote: post #500
j_wtf_all_taken wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what has Whatsapp to do with innovation? There's nothing innovative about a messenger app. They only thing they did is degrade privacy even further.

Whatsapps original purpose wasn’t where it reached its niche. It was in the right place at the right time - it launched as it became easy to distribute apps, and it used free data (wifi or gprs) to undercut sms. This latter fact wasn’t valuable in the west, but was great in poorer countries. This built up the network, and unlike the European and academic way of building open networks and software (web, linux, email)…

> primarily driven by laziness of the consumer

oh yes :(

> unlike the European and academic way of building open networks and software (web, linux, email) it captured the walled garden

That's why politics should make sure those walled gardens have huge holes all around those walls. And no, its not the politicians fault, its the fault of the voters that they don't put politicians in power doing these things.

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