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Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

reuters.com

141–150 of 157 posts

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#141
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you don't, but someone offering to make you a multi-millionaire is hard to say no to. I imagine. I've never been in the situation unfortunately.

It certainly is, but in the US there have apparently been enough incentives for some founders not to accept an offer at that level. Some of those founders have gone on to build their businesses up to billion-dollar valuations, with dominance in their field, and now they've become the ones doing the investing and acquiring for the next generation of tech businesses. We have almost none of that in Europe, and I think i…

Name some in the EU

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#142
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There no massive capital flow like in the US because nobody's putting their entire life savings and pensions on the markets.

Interesting, where do retirement savings go? I don't know much about the European context beyond the S = I identity from my intro macro courses back in the day.

Real estate, guns, oil.

And we’ll they actually cannot pay what they promised, so they keep upping the pension age etc.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#143
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the country of the European Union

Frankly, given the primacy of EU law it's strange to me that EU members feel like they really are countries anymore.

I'm guessing you're not European from this comment. This is not meant as an attack; it just seems like your comment lacks the perspective of actually living in the EU.

EU law makes news. It doesn't make many obvious appearances in day to day life when you're living there, however.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#144
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the EU would be better off if it just deleted its technology funding apparatus and tried to rebuild something like DARPA, while focusing on procurement like the poster suggested. There is a huge amount of money available, but it's locked behind layers and layers of bureaucracy. It is a huge waste of time on both sides, for some anecdotal I'm procrastinating from an application as I type. I should be coding…

But why is a high stock value the ultimate goal? Shouldn't the goal be producing tech that's beneficial?

That’s the purpose of a commercial company. To return money to shareholders.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this comment a lot but I have never seen any evidence for this. While this is not intended as a criticism of you personally, you have ironically just demonstrated a big part of the problem. I might reply that I have seen this response a lot, no matter how often I have previously given detailed examples, sometimes even in the same forum. A lot of people who haven't themselves tried to run a business in this envi…

Agree with all of these. In the US there are multiple turnkey schemes for #2, though, albeit at some cost. Is there a gap in the EU?

In NL, you can’t fire someone. Only in certain cases, after a long buildup of cases about this person. So you do temporary contracts, but after 3 periods, it will be indefinite. People are “sick”, and you get to keep paying them for a couple of years.

Now combine this with self funded companies, and 1 bad hire can kill your company

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#146
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU invests massive amounts in technology (in regards to its paltry investment budget, but that's another debate) The problem is that the EU invests. Small businesses are taxed to death and swamped with bureaucracy. From that you can clearly see where this is going.

IMO the issue isn't so much the taxation, although this has a big impact on hiring since you need to be very certain about anyone you keep past their trial period. The bigger issue is that the US has a massive advantage, in that a US tech company can launch in one language (their native language) to 300+ million potential customers, and hire from the same pool with minimal bureaucracy (the laws are largely the same,…

Reality is different. The EU just loves to talk to Amazon. The politicians are in awe of anyone from big tech. Star struck. It’s disturbing to have seen this from up close

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It certainly is, but in the US there have apparently been enough incentives for some founders not to accept an offer at that level. Some of those founders have gone on to build their businesses up to billion-dollar valuations, with dominance in their field, and now they've become the ones doing the investing and acquiring for the next generation of tech businesses. We have almost none of that in Europe, and I think i…

Name some in the EU

Some of what?

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#148
post #6

How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? Ban Oracle and Microsoft from public procurement and start supporting the European equivalent of Baidu or Yandex. With ARM (prior to the acquisition), Linux, MariaDB, etc. - Europe was in a great position to do this. We need to stop this digital colonialism where massive, monopolistic US corporations pay no taxes in E…

I wonder what would HN say if we switch roles here. "Ban EU services in the US" would not fly well both, with Americans and Europeans alike.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#149
post #19
post #6

How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? Ban Oracle and Microsoft from public procurement and start supporting the European equivalent of Baidu or Yandex. With ARM (prior to the acquisition), Linux, MariaDB, etc. - Europe was in a great position to do this. We need to stop this digital colonialism where massive, monopolistic US corporations pay no taxes in E…

>How about actually supporting the European Tech industry instead of just adding endless bureaucracy? Why do you make it sound like they don't? The EU invests massive amounts in technology (in regards to its paltry investment budget, but that's another debate). One does not prevent the other. And calling regulations against clear abuse "endless bureaucracy" is insidious at best.

It really doesn't. The EU invests massive amounts of money into bureaucracy and companies that go through it. But we don't need companies sucking of the EU teat, we need tech companies.

Re: Big tech face EU blow in national data watchdogs ruling

#150
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the EU would be better off if it just deleted its technology funding apparatus and tried to rebuild something like DARPA, while focusing on procurement like the poster suggested. There is a huge amount of money available, but it's locked behind layers and layers of bureaucracy. It is a huge waste of time on both sides, for some anecdotal I'm procrastinating from an application as I type. I should be coding…

But why is a high stock value the ultimate goal? Shouldn't the goal be producing tech that's beneficial?

This kind of institution does exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation
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