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Go European: Discover European products and services

goeuropean.org

141–150 of 402 posts

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#141
post #38

I'm always sad that very successful European companies got fully incorporated in the US: datadog, algolia, dataiku, dashlane, etc. Also it seems to be missing some techs company: pigment, aircall, contentsquare (but not sure if it's a mistake)

The difference between US and Europe: - In Europe, getting funding is literally like pulling teeth. Just to get a measly hundred thousands of € in funding you're expected to provide a comprehensive business plan, financials, etc. that would rival M&A due diligence other places. In Silicon Valley you can get more funding by simply meeting the right angel investor, and providing a good pitch - done deal. - In Europe, t…

Isn't funding at that extreme level pretty much localized to a few areas in the US, like Silicon Valley/Bay Area, Portland/Seattle area, New York and maybe Colorado. It is probably easier than in the EU, but I don't think may start ups in Alabama are getting crazy funding.

As for getting acquired, that's the same in the US. Either you goal is total dominance on your own or getting acquired by Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle or Salesforce.

You do have a point, start ups doesn't have access to the same level of uncritical funding. The SV model also isn't ideal, but it should be possible to find somewhere in the middle.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#144
post #3

If you are advocating for European products, I would expect you to use Plausible or similar products instead of Google Analytics. This would allow you to avoid displaying the cookie banner.

> This would allow you to avoid displaying the cookie banner. That isn't actually true (or at least is only allowed in the "it's a small enough violation of the law that the enforcers have bigger fish to fry" sense). Cookie banners are required to gather informed consent, which is relevant for two EU legislations: the ePD, which requires it to access or store _any_ data from terminal equipment, and the GDPR which req…

I would like to turn this comment into a gold plaque and point to it any time an HN commenter repeats the “EU privacy regs and GDPR are actually super simple!” narrative.

As someone living in Europe who watches the EUs best and brightest mostly go to work in consulting firms because the only growth industry in the EU is “companies spending money on regulatory compliance,” it pains my soul.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#145
post #38

I'm always sad that very successful European companies got fully incorporated in the US: datadog, algolia, dataiku, dashlane, etc. Also it seems to be missing some techs company: pigment, aircall, contentsquare (but not sure if it's a mistake)

The difference between US and Europe: - In Europe, getting funding is literally like pulling teeth. Just to get a measly hundred thousands of € in funding you're expected to provide a comprehensive business plan, financials, etc. that would rival M&A due diligence other places. In Silicon Valley you can get more funding by simply meeting the right angel investor, and providing a good pitch - done deal. - In Europe, t…

> Good VC cultures

I say this as proud European: the problem isn't just VC culture, it's European culture. In Europe there's an extreme risk aversion to trying things that have nonzero risk of failing.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#146
The problem with buying European is that shipping between countries is nightmarishly expensive.

If Brussels wants to try something useful - instead of bottle caps create a proper shipping network that can ship from Malaga to Vilinus in 2 days for 0.5 euro per KG. It is not that we don't have national postal companies. It is absurd to buy something for 15 euro in italy and pay 30 euro shipping to romania.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#147
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America loves investing in risky ventures, and startups love money so they go to fish where the fish are. If Europe would invest into local startups instead of propping up the real estate bubble, they wouldn't sell themselves to the US for money. Our downfall is by our own design here. Governments don't create startups but they can 100% create the right legal, monetary and tax incentives to steer private capital and…

Or America's advantage is by its own design. Rich people can invest relatively small amounts in hundreds, if not thousands of startups through preferentially treated retirement funds and pay no (or little) tax on the ones that make it big. This is what has made it so easy to secure funding in the US. Should Europe do the same? There's definitely an ethical dilemma in making the rich, richer for the sake of innovation…

>There's definitely an ethical dilemma in making the rich, richer for the sake of innovation.

What do you mean? The European rich have always been getting richer via inheritance regardless of innovation. That's a monetary and legal policy hack that's been in place for decades/centuries here which is how the richest families are centuries old.

Investing in innovation instead would be a much needed breath of fresh air and give current generation of youth some skin in the game instead of a defetist mentality that there's no point in working hard because the zero sum game is rigged. So I don't get your point.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#148

Today I learned that DeepL was German. It's hands down the best Japanese to English translator (according to my Japanese coworkers) and I was surprised how many used it in office. (never used it myself as a trilingual)

How does it compare to 4o? I used to use deepl but not since the later chatgpt versions came out.

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think law would be such a highly sought-after and highly-compensated field if it was that easy?

That’s cynical and edgy, but misses the mark. There are several reasons why rules tend to be more specific about the outcomes than the ways to get there. This decreases the attack surface for loopholes. What is desirable is the end result, not the technical details. The law is actually clearer because the intent is clearly spelt out. The point of the law is to protect privacy, not cover every screen with cookies bann…

So covering every screen with cookie banners is a form of malicious compliance?

Re: Go European: Discover European products and services

#150

Economic nationalism is bad when Trump does it and bad when Europe does it too. We should have unilateral free trade. Ricardo showed this was better over 200 years ago.

I think some Game Theory 101 might be relevant here. Yes it's good to cooperate initially but after that, tit for tat is the thing to do:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

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