Yup, in my experience Europeans value quality of life over making their boss's richer.
Dear Europe, please wake up
181–190 of 323 posts
Re: Dear Europe, please wake up
#182Yup, in my experience Europeans value quality of life over making their boss's richer.
Read TFA.
Re: Dear Europe, please wake up
#183As an EU citizen in middle of Europe (Czechia) I see two major problems.
- Free market is crippled by EU economical politics. Basically, EU is trying to implement centrally planned economics and fund many useless things by grants. About half of grants (in my country) going to ideology driven nonprofit segment. Many EU citizens are very angry about wasting our money. Also, our government is not able to provide cheap energy. It has historically lowest trust since 90's.
- We solve problems by creating new regulations. Instead of amendment of laws we adding bunch on new ones. In my country, its about 50 000 new legislative regulation every year. System is full of unnecessary bureaucracy. It costs many resources thus make it collapse in near future because of lack of resources (financial, personal, even mental).
Those aspects affect motivation in business significantly.
Many don't believe in reformation of EU. I expect EU exits of few member states in near future.
Re: Dear Europe, please wake up
#184As an EU citizen in middle of Europe (Czechia) I see two major problems. - Free market is crippled by EU economical politics. Basically, EU is trying to implement centrally planned economics and fund many useless things by grants. About half of grants (in my country) going to ideology driven nonprofit segment. Many EU citizens are very angry about wasting our money. Also, our government is not able to provide cheap e…
I've had great experiences for past employers managing our Czechia office (heck, you might have even applied to us) and I agree with ya.
CEE (Germany+Austria excluded) has the right mix of regulation and ease of business for innovation to succeed, but French and German lobbying seems to be undermining it.
Maybe an EEC membership like Denmark's might be helpful down the line.
Re: Dear Europe, please wake up
#185Why should Europe care where they are amongst this myopic ranking of “best tech hub”? Western Europe is a great place to live, raise a family, and retire. None of the tech hub countries are even remotely comparable to Europe in this sense. If there are people in Europe who want to work in a high growth industry that desperately, they can move to USA or China.
Europeans live the way they do because of unbelievable amounts of wealth and innovation accumulated through centuries which is being spent. None of that is guaranteed in a failing , aging europe. It's not food-safe, nor energy-safe. Not thinking about a sustainable future is fatally myopic
Or because of unbelievable amounts of rights won through political struggle, which cannot be spent, only lost through getting complacent.
Europe was a lot poorer in the 80's. China today has a higher GDP-per-capita then the EU did in the 80's. India has a higher GDP-per-capita than the EU had in the 70's.
If you have a decent political culture, you don't need a lot of money to avoid the worst kinds of poverty.
Re: Dear Europe, please wake up
#186I have no idea whether Europeans work harder than Americans, but I do want to say that you can't extrapolate the overall work ethic of America by looking at the SF tech world. It's a very, very small (and very privileged) microcosm of the country.
To be fair, the author wrote about tech workers in SV specifically, not about the "overall work with of America" (which btw is a continent, not a country). The hero arc story is true and has to do with large Protestant population.
> (which btw is a continent, not a country)
North America is a continent. America is absolutely a country. What do you mean?
Re: Dear Europe, please wake up
#187Why should Europe care where they are amongst this myopic ranking of “best tech hub”? Western Europe is a great place to live, raise a family, and retire. None of the tech hub countries are even remotely comparable to Europe in this sense. If there are people in Europe who want to work in a high growth industry that desperately, they can move to USA or China.
I've been refraining from saying the same for fear of starting arguments, but I'm still glad you said it.
I've worked for an American tech company (and had a really good time doing so!) and visited the country. I can honestly say I'm immeasurably happier with my quality of life here in Europe.
Re: Dear Europe, please wake up
#188I have no idea whether Europeans work harder than Americans, but I do want to say that you can't extrapolate the overall work ethic of America by looking at the SF tech world. It's a very, very small (and very privileged) microcosm of the country.
I have to admit I raised an eyebrow at Greece being near the top of the list. That's going against stereotype hard.
Stereotypes aren't necessarily true. There's for example a stereotype about Mexicans being lazy, but anyone who's actually taken the time to look at the statistics - and gotten to know any number of Mexicans, for that matter - knows that to be a complete fabrication.
Re: Dear Europe, please wake up
#189Curiously China's very successful economic model - in which capital is more under state control than in private hands, but there's still a competetive market as industrial monopolies are discouraged - isn't brought up here - even though certain major European industrial sectors seem to be finding China more attractive these days, e.g. BASF; https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/basf-agrees-15-year-ga... Apparently th…
Too productive by absolute terms yes- they are producing a shit ton of copied low quality junk including their cars. Not productive in value terms
Re: Dear Europe, please wake up
#190“The problem is not that regulation 1 or 100 is too much. The problem is that every country has different regulations, creating a mess of complexity if you want to act across a larger consumer market” If you’re building the next Uber sure, this might be a problem. But this is also a HUGE advantage if you’re not though. If you’re building the Workday for Estonia, or the LinkedIn for Germany (ie Xing) you have a huge a…
You re just building 27 different companies that are all reinventing the same wheel in their country, and they are all destined to never grow, until some US company localizes their offering and shuts them all down. Microsoft has done exactly that 100 times
I've rarely seen it work. Usually they come in, splash a lot of money around to learn the expensive lesson that Europe isn't America, and leave.