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468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

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Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#61
post #34
post #9

The problem Europe has isn't that they lack money, the problem is that all the things US tech companies do to get ahead are illegal in Europe. Out of FAANG, European regulators are decidedly against the F/G and probably have reservations about at least one of the As. I wouldn't feel off guard if it turns out Netflix were impractical in the EU due to challenges both regulatory and linguistic.

There have been quite a few social networks in Europe, some of which were more or less direct copies of Facebook at the time. Their decline started around the time Facebook became popular in there. There have been european streaming services years before Netflix was available there and there still are some, mostly owned by TV corporations. I think a lot of european startups focused to much on their starting country,…

> The only counterexample I can think of is Spotify as they seem to have never really focused on just one country.

Spotify was only available in Sweden for the initial 3 years, and after that they launched in the UK as well. 5 years after the local launch, they expanded into the US.

Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People rarely make 80k/year here and everything here is expensive af. The thing is, you earn less on paper than in the US, but your total cost of living (and thus, your "available" income) is way lower, too: - healthcare is cheap and universally available, no need to stuff away money in HSAs to account for a sudden 100k$ bill from a broken leg or a million dollar bill from cancer - public education for your childre…

I think the main factor is how many kids you have. No kids: USA > Europe 1 kid: they are similar 2 kids or more: Europe > USA In the USA each kid is an extra 3000 usd a month expense at least, more if one goes private and include university tuition. How parents can pay for two or more kids’s education in USA (or UK) is beyond me. With two or more kids in USA you essential force your children into wage slavery by goin…

Where did you get that 3k USD a month expense per kid from?

Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#63
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main factor is how many kids you have. No kids: USA > Europe 1 kid: they are similar 2 kids or more: Europe > USA In the USA each kid is an extra 3000 usd a month expense at least, more if one goes private and include university tuition. How parents can pay for two or more kids’s education in USA (or UK) is beyond me. With two or more kids in USA you essential force your children into wage slavery by goin…

Where did you get that 3k USD a month expense per kid from?

Day care for infants and toddlers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/cqegh2/daycar...

Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#64
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get that 3k USD a month expense per kid from?

Day care for infants and toddlers. https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/cqegh2/daycar...

You said "extra". Where in EU daycare is free for 9 month olds ($2200 in your link)?

Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#65
post #34
post #9

The problem Europe has isn't that they lack money, the problem is that all the things US tech companies do to get ahead are illegal in Europe. Out of FAANG, European regulators are decidedly against the F/G and probably have reservations about at least one of the As. I wouldn't feel off guard if it turns out Netflix were impractical in the EU due to challenges both regulatory and linguistic.

There have been quite a few social networks in Europe, some of which were more or less direct copies of Facebook at the time. Their decline started around the time Facebook became popular in there. There have been european streaming services years before Netflix was available there and there still are some, mostly owned by TV corporations. I think a lot of european startups focused to much on their starting country,…

Berlin’s Zalando is another counter example being now bigger than the US original Zappos.

Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#66
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Day care for infants and toddlers. https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/cqegh2/daycar...

You said "extra". Where in EU daycare is free for 9 month olds ($2200 in your link)?

It’s about 150 eur/month in some places in Europe (all inclusive)

https://www.reddit.com/r/breakingmom/comments/qtk3d8/how_we_...

So the difference is conservatively 2000 extra per month per child.

The point is this scales linearly so two kids is 4000, three is 6000.

The amount of child expenses in Europe goes up hundreds per month. In USA it goes up by thousands a month. That’s an order of magnitude difference.

More kids, the better Europe becomes compared to USA.

Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#67
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People rarely make 80k/year here and everything here is expensive af. The thing is, you earn less on paper than in the US, but your total cost of living (and thus, your "available" income) is way lower, too: - healthcare is cheap and universally available, no need to stuff away money in HSAs to account for a sudden 100k$ bill from a broken leg or a million dollar bill from cancer - public education for your childre…

way less commute expenses I doubt that, or at least it is very dependent on where you live. Both cars, gas and parking (as most employers in the US seem to offer free parking for employees) is generally much cheaper in the US. And while most places in Europe have (more or less) working public transport it is quite expensive. In the US I've used public transport in New York City, Chicago and Washington DC and they all…

> In the US I've used public transport in New York City, Chicago and Washington DC and they all had significantly cheaper public transport than here in Sweden for example.

This doesn't seem to be true. A 30 day commuter pass in New York costs $127. https://new.mta.info/fares

In stockholm a similar pass costs 970 SEK, or about $100.

https://mitt.sl.se/sv/kop-biljett/#/periodbiljett

So public transit seems to be significantly cheaper in Stockholm than New York at least.

Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland you can get an amount equal to basic unemployment benefits to start a business for a year. You can get last resort social benefits basically forever if you aren’t actively working much or don’t run a business.

That's really interesting. I'm naturalised now and we've considered moving to Finland because Ireland's schools seem inferior. among other reasons. One problem is that we've heard it's very hard to make friends, would you say that's true? We've been lucky to build a great friend network here. Incidentally I bought a Muurikka from a Finnish friend last summer and it's the most amazing thing I've ever cooked with. I do…

Piva00 covered the making friends aspect well.

On top of that, integrating, learning and making friends in Finnish is playing life on hard level. There are also very few English language schools in Finland.

Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really interesting. I'm naturalised now and we've considered moving to Finland because Ireland's schools seem inferior. among other reasons. One problem is that we've heard it's very hard to make friends, would you say that's true? We've been lucky to build a great friend network here. Incidentally I bought a Muurikka from a Finnish friend last summer and it's the most amazing thing I've ever cooked with. I do…

Piva00 covered the making friends aspect well. On top of that, integrating, learning and making friends in Finnish is playing life on hard level. There are also very few English language schools in Finland.

I'd actually want my kids to learn Finnish if we moved - but the clock is ticking! They're two and four. I've also talked to Jason Slaughter of NotJustBikes fame and Utrecht is on the short list.

Re: 468 Capital raises $400M to back European startups

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piva00 covered the making friends aspect well. On top of that, integrating, learning and making friends in Finnish is playing life on hard level. There are also very few English language schools in Finland.

I'd actually want my kids to learn Finnish if we moved - but the clock is ticking! They're two and four. I've also talked to Jason Slaughter of NotJustBikes fame and Utrecht is on the short list.

Having kids helps with getting friends as you end up hanging out with the other parents.

The hardest part is likely to get jobs for both parents, unless you are both in in demand fields like IT.

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