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Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

blogs.wsj.com

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Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#11

Post by wobbleblob »

> A single digital market could bring in €340 billion to European GDP, create 3.8 million jobs,

Automation was never about creating jobs. In my experience it's mainly about two things:

- Doing the same or more work with fewer people

- Doing things a person cannot safely or accurate or affordably (or at all) do in person

Compare the number of people employed by a major software company compared to a major oil company with a similar market cap. We are not in the business of creating jobs, our job is to save customers money by making jobs redundant.

> Geo-blocking of online content – the geographical fencing in of video services like Netflix NFLX -1.24%, for instance – across the EU should be abolished, the strategy paper says. Copyright law should be updated and harmonized.

That sounds good to me, but the content that's blocked to me is almost never from inside the EU, it's content from American IP owners I'm not allowed to watch / listen to. I don't think this is because of copyright laws, but simply because the content owners insist on selling their IP on a per country basis.

The only thing that stops me from accessing European content are the 23 different official languages.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#12

Post by guard-of-terra »

solve wrote: post #9
guard-of-terra wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, they are creating a largest uniform digital goods landscape in the world with wealthiest customers. It they are successful we are bound to see quite a few new spotifys. UPD: And VAT is smaller than e.g. 30% iTunes cut, which they can now regulate with a wave of hand.

Just adding more taxes does nothing to create a more uniform landscape. For the Europeans, consider that Amazon & other US web companies got to charge 0% sales tax for almost their entire customer-base in the US, until they were far beyond the startup stage. For many of their US customers, they still get to charge 0%. That's what promoting small businesses looks like. VAT adds tons of problems, especially for service…

They're not "just adding taxes"; they enforce existing ones and also create a more uniform landscape.

It's not so important to me whether they worship small or big companies, I prefer medium sized ones anyway :)

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#13

Post by hikz »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #2

"Europe" competing with a small neighborhood on the west coast where the vast majority of the world's tech capital lives? Sorry I don't see it. Combined with the gloomy pessimism and fear of failure even in Europe's brightest areas (London and Berlin) and the absolute, spineless pathetic nature of European VC's (no not bitter at all ;) Europe will NEVER compete on any meaningful level with Silicon Valley. edit: spell…

Here in Denmark IT companies are extremely elitist. Tons of simple ASP.NET and Java EE jobs require a master's degree in CS or CE.

Contrast this with the coding bootcamps and "everyone can learn to code" culture in the US and you can see why innovation is so slow here in Denmark.

I am a CS student genuinely interested in compiler construction, distributed systems and programming language design so I don't feel I'm being forced to take a CS degree to get an IT job.

But I still think it's sad that you need an advanced degree to get CRUD web/business app development jobs.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#14

Post by danmaz74 »

One big problem is that a European "Silicon Valley" would have to grow in one of the EU states - Silicon Valley is a locality, not a distributed phenomenon.

But with our current EU system, only the state hosting this tech hub would really benefit from it: We don't have federal taxes as in the US, each country has its own "social security" and pension system to which the new jobs would contribute, and this naturally brings more competition than cooperation.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#15

Post by coolsebz »

> “The message Europe is sending its entrepreneurs now is: stay at home” As an european, working remotely with various US companies, my response is: Completely not! There is no reason to stay and create IP in Europe right now. At least not in my opinion. Both Asia and the US are better alternatives for starting up than doing so here.

I honestly think that a change in mindset is needed for attracting entrepreneurs or making them stay. This goes from the said entrepreneurs themselves to VCs and whatnot.

If they don't change their methods, I'm afraid in some time, things will start to go downhill for the entrepreneurial environment here.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#17

Post by BSousa »

scrollaway wrote: post #6
guard-of-terra wrote: post #3

I hope they get something out of it, lots of tech jobs in a nice and accessible area is a good thing for the whole web ecosystem and me personally.

Question: What places in Europe would someone recommend an ambitious EU techie with no ties to move to (and possibly settle)? I figure the country needs to have fairly good internet and a decent political climate at the very least.

I'm Portuguese so maybe I'm biased, but seems Lisbon is becoming quite an attractive startup hub where the cost of living isn't too high (compared to London/Paris/etc) and you have nice weather, people, good quality of life and lots to do.

If you are thinking of starting something and need investment, London is hard to beat, with Berlin coming up second.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#18

Post by kriro »

dagw wrote: post #8
scrollaway wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: What places in Europe would someone recommend an ambitious EU techie with no ties to move to (and possibly settle)? I figure the country needs to have fairly good internet and a decent political climate at the very least.

Berlin seems to be the most 'happening' place at the moment

I've always wondered why the Ruhr Valley isn't marketed/established as a techhub of sorts. Well connected infrastructure means it's essentially one big city and there are a few universities with decent tech departments. Berlin makes sense but come on...Valley in the title already ;P

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#19

Post by iagooar »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #2

"Europe" competing with a small neighborhood on the west coast where the vast majority of the world's tech capital lives? Sorry I don't see it. Combined with the gloomy pessimism and fear of failure even in Europe's brightest areas (London and Berlin) and the absolute, spineless pathetic nature of European VC's (no not bitter at all ;) Europe will NEVER compete on any meaningful level with Silicon Valley. edit: spell…

Could you elaborate on the nature of European VC's (as compared to American ones)? I'm genuinely curious.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#20

Post by solve »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #12
solve wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just adding more taxes does nothing to create a more uniform landscape. For the Europeans, consider that Amazon & other US web companies got to charge 0% sales tax for almost their entire customer-base in the US, until they were far beyond the startup stage. For many of their US customers, they still get to charge 0%. That's what promoting small businesses looks like. VAT adds tons of problems, especially for service…

They're not "just adding taxes"; they enforce existing ones and also create a more uniform landscape. It's not so important to me whether they worship small or big companies, I prefer medium sized ones anyway :)

No, the existing laws do not always force you to pay VAT for customers in other countries in the EU. This, according to the article, would. It's adding additional taxation.

> I prefer medium sized ones anyway

Infuriating, short sighted, but typical line of thinking.

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