Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
#2Is it true that in France it is extremely difficult to fire someone?
Are there similar regulatory headaches in other European nations?
I’m curious if any founders there have experienced this / can comment.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
#3Is it true that in France it is extremely difficult to fire someone? Are there similar regulatory headaches in other European nations? I’m curious if any founders there have experienced this / can comment.
I guess it depends on your definition of 'extremely difficult', but I can confirm that in many European countries, you can't 'just' fire someone.
You either have to have firm proof that the person is severely underperforming (building up a dossier over months or years), or firm proof that the company needs to lay off people. When laying off you can't choose who to lay off, but it has to be on a "last in first out" basis (within interchangeable jobs).
Re: Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
#4What a long winded article. I learned about how their office looks like, and how inspiring it is, in the age of remote. I learned about the genders of his team that makes investments. I heard about Klarna and Lilium... I'm going to go ahead and call this a marketing piece for his fund, not any prognosis for how things actually go.
As a former CTO for a European startup that started in Eastern Europe, moved to Western Europe and then across the seas to the USA, I think we have a long way to go before we can beat Silicon Valley at its own game, European style. It was only three years ago that European investors had us create a new company in the US so that we can get funded; in Europe, by European investors. It was only three years ago that we scheduled a meeting with a potential big customer and we had to schedule it 3 - 6 months in advance; compared to a quick call to a Fortune500 CEO in the US.
So I'm sorry my Swedish friend, you might have running money over there, but it's not just about being socially equitable and having an inspiring office, it's also about what kind of innovation that money funds, the landscape where companies are working in (how many languages and laws do we have across the board?) and the access to customers that we might have. Good luck selling disruptive tech to 60yr old managers in Berlin.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
#5It’s a nice idea but it’s just…not going to happen. And only a small set of Europeans want it anyway.
Source: Am American who worked SV for a loooong time that now lives in Europe.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
#6No post body was provided.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
#7What a long winded article. I learned about how their office looks like, and how inspiring it is, in the age of remote. I learned about the genders of his team that makes investments. I heard about Klarna and Lilium... I'm going to go ahead and call this a marketing piece for his fund, not any prognosis for how things actually go. As a former CTO for a European startup that started in Eastern Europe, moved to Western…
No post body was provided.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
#8Is it true that in France it is extremely difficult to fire someone? Are there similar regulatory headaches in other European nations? I’m curious if any founders there have experienced this / can comment.
I guess it depends on your definition of 'extremely difficult', but I can confirm that in many European countries, you can't 'just' fire someone. You either have to have firm proof that the person is severely underperforming (building up a dossier over months or years), or firm proof that the company needs to lay off people. When laying off you can't choose who to lay off, but it has to be on a "last in first out" ba…
The implication being that if you’re an average performer with tenure you’re basically impossible to fire.
Re: Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
#9[deleted]
Re: Europe’s Plan to Beat Silicon Valley at Its Own Game
#10I suspect that for the next several months, Europe will be more focused on surviving the winter than in unicorns.
Even without this, it doesn’t change the fundamental problem. In the USA you have a relatively homogenous market of 330 million people. Europe is split into dozens of different countries/languages/cultures/regulations. This greatly increases the cost and reduces the upside of a startup.