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Europe's Software Problem

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Re: Europe's Software Problem

#211

Post by wyager »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #12
thiago_fm wrote: post #4

This problem will never get fixed. The author forgot to mention in depth the main reason why EU isn't even in the game: culture. In order to be innovative and compete, we need very flexible working laws, people with a big growth mindset, a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people. A lot of third world countries are years ahead of the whole EU continent in that aspect. I say this because I live in Europe for the q…

> In order to be innovative and compete, we need very flexible working laws, people with a big growth mindset, a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people. The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1% and the indispensable knowledge worker class that can't be automated away or juiced dry for all the productivity they are capa…

> a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1%

The median American is much richer than the median European.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#212

Post by franciscop »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #179

I'm a European, living in Europe, developing software. Lack of imagination is not our problem. It's so good that we supply our best talent to the US where it does extremely well revolutionizing AI, designing hardware for Apple, developing games, stream online music, etc. E.g. Amazon's CTO is Dutch. Basically the person that has been running AWS. The people and the education system are fine. Europe does have a few iss…

I believe the article means "lack of imagination from business", for which I'll strongly agree as a European who migrated a while ago. In my personal experience you have either wannapreneurs trying to break through with minimal budgets, or large investments in established companies. They don't seem to mix though, business people go for safer things than trying to build the next Google. Raising money for a prototype, even if it's making some money, is almost impossible or at the very best will land you with very bad terms.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#213

Post by fvdessen »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #25

I take offense at such massive overgeneralizations as "Europe lacks imagination." What it lacks is freely flowing funding such that risky enterprises can be funded even if 1 out of ten or 1 out of hundred actually are successful. This kills business models which cannot show any profit whatsoever, and a large portion of the remainder are killed by data regulations forbidding "alternate paths of monetization" (to put i…

The reason the US has freely flowing funding is because the VC has an immense amount of cash from the previous generations of successful Unicorns. So why was it (and still is) easier to raise unicorns in the USA ?

The thing that separate the internet economy with the traditional is the massive network effects that makes it a winner take all game. And at that game the USA has a massive home advantage with a huge cultural, legal and financially unified market. In Europe you start in a small country then face big barriers to expand out of it, which slows growth enough that you never get to get competitive by the time the much better funded American competitor comes to crush you.

And then it's game over, because you only get one shot at being the monopoly. Once you have a Facebook, you can't have a second one, even with all the VC cash, talent & creativity in the world. Notice that the USA did not succeed in building a competitor to Google, Youtube, Facebook, or Amazon, so how could Europe, or anybody else ?

Well the Chinese and the Russian could, by banning American monopolies from their own markets, which let them built monopolies on their own, & then attempt to conquer the rest of the world with them.

The USA is perfectly aware of this dynamic because faced with TikTok, their first reflex was to try to ban them.

And that's what Europe should do, ban American Monopolies. If we would ban facebook, instagram, youtube, etc, we'd have solid equivalents in a year, and from there enough cash flow to fund a next generation of startups.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#214

Post by usaar333 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #179

I'm a European, living in Europe, developing software. Lack of imagination is not our problem. It's so good that we supply our best talent to the US where it does extremely well revolutionizing AI, designing hardware for Apple, developing games, stream online music, etc. E.g. Amazon's CTO is Dutch. Basically the person that has been running AWS. The people and the education system are fine. Europe does have a few iss…

Given the small country issue, a better comparison would be Israel. It has a thriving startup scene while only having 10 million people.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#216

Post by qznc »

pelorat wrote: post #181
pilsetnieks wrote: post #25

I take offense at such massive overgeneralizations as "Europe lacks imagination." What it lacks is freely flowing funding such that risky enterprises can be funded even if 1 out of ten or 1 out of hundred actually are successful. This kills business models which cannot show any profit whatsoever, and a large portion of the remainder are killed by data regulations forbidding "alternate paths of monetization" (to put i…

In some countries, if your startup fails you're legally obliged to pay back all money that was invested in it, and you won't be able to start another until you've done so.

It depends on what kind of company you start. One with limited liability often requires more upfront investment.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#217

Post by csomar »

pwthornton wrote: post #190
jcelerier wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... it's not the case in the US ? Wtf

It's not a loan from a bank. It's an investment, and the nature of investments are that some fail. It's pretty wild that founders would need to pay back this money. That would have a massive drag on any risk taking or innovation. The entire point of venture capital and similar funding mechanisms is that in exchange for a potential massive return on investment, funders are willing to lose everything.

Loans from the bank if they are tied to you personally. A delaware c-corp has pretty good protections.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#218

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

qsort wrote: post #78
selfhoster11 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order to be innovative and compete, we need very flexible working laws, people with a big growth mindset, a less relaxing lifestyle and AMBITIOUS people. The US has those things and it's turning into a "third world country with a Gucci belt" (as someone put it) for everyone except the 1% and the indispensable knowledge worker class that can't be automated away or juiced dry for all the productivity they are capa…

Not going to comment on anything else since "flexible working laws" and "less relaxing lifestyle" can mean anything, but "light a fire under their ass until they are forced to innovate" is unironically and unapologetically good. If there's one thing that consistently fosters innovation and progress it's competition. That's something that holds true everywhere. Software, industry, education, games, sports, you name it…

Innovation for innovation’s sake is meaningless. Innovation to improve quality of life is reasonable, so decreasing quality of life to increase innovation is like shooting yourself in the foot for faster access to healthcare.

And competition is not the only thing that breeds innovation. Just think back to all the HN articles about needing to make time for curious people to innovate.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#219

Post by tormeh »

My previous comment on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27508759

(Slightly edited) copy-paste:

Economist ran an article on this: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/06/05/once-a-corpora...

We're in the service economy now, and Europe has no real single market for services, due to all kinds of national regulations that differ throughout the block. Nor does it have well-developed financial and labor markets, partly also because they are currently partitioned by nationality. Its stock exchanges are too many and too small, etc. The list goes on.

For many big European companies, an astounding percentage of revenue comes from the US or China. But if you start a startup building for US/China from the start, why would you want the HQ to be somewhere in Europe?

This also means that the story is very very different for products that can be shipped in boxes. Europe does extremely well in cars, beverages, clothing, chemicals and that sort of thing. Also electrical utilities for some reason.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#220

Post by fvdessen »

usaar333 wrote: post #214
jillesvangurp wrote: post #179

I'm a European, living in Europe, developing software. Lack of imagination is not our problem. It's so good that we supply our best talent to the US where it does extremely well revolutionizing AI, designing hardware for Apple, developing games, stream online music, etc. E.g. Amazon's CTO is Dutch. Basically the person that has been running AWS. The people and the education system are fine. Europe does have a few iss…

Given the small country issue, a better comparison would be Israel. It has a thriving startup scene while only having 10 million people.

I'm working for a thriving startup in a European country of 11 million people. We had 100% growth per year until we had basically everybody in our own country and then it got massively harder. If we had started in the USA, we would have reached that point being 30x bigger, making billions of dollars, and much better prepared to conquer foreign markets.

So maybe Israel is doing quite well, but I know from experience that it would also do massively better if it had the size of the USA.

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