"If you go to the south of France – our hope and prayers in the global AI race – and order a coffee there is a chance that the waitress doesn’t understand the word “coffee”, can’t explain you what’s in the salad – happened to me twice." Oh they'll understand. They will just pretend not to. It's France.
Oh no! Someone in a foreign country did not make any more effort than the author did to learn a foreign language! Not once, but twice ! That's it, I'm never leaving San Francisco again. And as for your snark, no, many French people do not speak English, and a fair number resent Americans going around like they own the place without making even a cursory attempt at being polite.
I speak French, German, and a small amount of Greek (enough to order a coffee and read a map). That's no use when I go to Italy or Spain or Poland or Latvia or Sweden of course, so we just speak English.
The big difference between europe and america is the market. The US is a homogenous culture with a single language and single desires with 350 million people. You can launch a product in the US based on US culture and assumptions and reach a massive economy
Launch it in Belgium and you've got a fragmented market. Not just the language, but also the culture -- expectations in Belgium, Romania and Norway are all very different.