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Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

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Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#251

Post by mschuster91 »

pluma wrote: post #215
andreamazz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as gadget goes, "newer is better" is a dominant factor in Europe too. The problem lays in the enterprise world. One time a client told me "you call this Visual Basic application old, but it's not. It's consolidated". Can't argue with that logic. As for the second point, you're right on the money. I can't count the amount of engineers that make less than 25/30k€ here.

It's 2015 and I'm happy I finally have clients that let me set the baseline of Internet Explorer support to IE 8. Not long ago I still had to support IE 6. I have no idea how American start ups can get away with demanding users live on the bleeding edge but apparently cultures can be very different.

> I have no idea how American start ups can get away with demanding users live on the bleeding edge but apparently cultures can be very different.

Most of the startups have private customers, not corporate!

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#252

Post by noelsusman »

andreamazz wrote: post #56

Unicorns? Ha! It's hard to survive, let alone be successful. No investors, convoluted laws, high taxes and complete lack of startup mentality. I'm a cofounder of an italian startup, and the road is on an unbearably steep slope. The bureaucracy is insane, the cost of running a small business is daunting. Other companies refuse to work with you because in their eyes you're a scrub (I heard so many times bullshit like "…

>I heard so many times bullshit like "I don't know if you'll be alive in a year or two, so I can't adopt your technology")

That's a completely valid reason to not take your business, and it's a problem that US startups face just as much. Personally I don't touch products from startups with a ten foot pole unless the benefit is overwhelmingly massive (very rare) or it's designed as a one time purchase with little necessary long term support.

If you're selling to businesses then longevity is going to be a top concern no matter where you go. Whatever benefit they get over your mainstream competitor is likely not worth it compared to the risk of incurring the cost of switching technologies twice in a short amount of time.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#253

Post by mschuster91 »

verybitter92 wrote: post #240
verybitter92 wrote: post #168

Why is there no Silicon Valley of Europe? Because programmers and other IT professionals are paid laughably low wages and shown even less respect than they are in the US. It's a similar situation in Japan and Australia. Yet whenever politicians talk about the need for startups to compete with Silicon Valley, you never hear them say a word about the insultingly low wages that are the norm in Germany, France, UK, Belgi…

Why was I downvoted? Everything I said is the truth. Why would someone want to be a programmer in Europe when the pay and respect is so bad, and with what money can a programmer be expected to start a startup when they're only being paid a €3000 a month salary?

Upvoted you, I agree. Also, for the non-Germans, take-home cash (after taxes and mandatory medical insurance), depending on your tax class, may be as low as 1.800€ from said 3.000€.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#254

Post by laurencerowe »

OJFord wrote: post #107

I certainly agree that "Europe has no Silicon Valley", but I'm not so sure about "or New York". What part of "the full stack entrepreneurial ecosystem and access to funding" does London lack that New York has? (Genuine question - I don't know NY well)

In terms of tech activity, London is much closer to New York than New York is to Silicon Valley. Their dominant industry is finance not tech.

By number of 'unicorns':

69 Silicon Valley 16 New York City 10 London 9 Beijing 8 Boston

http://tech.co/top-global-startup-scenes-vc-firm-2015-08

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#255

Post by mschuster91 »

aianus wrote: post #239
kuschku wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over regulation is not really a thing – the US has under regulation, especially in regards to data safety. Over regulation is what the US does with taxis. Which is why in Germany companies that do essentially the same as Uber (but legal[1]) already existed before Uber was even founded. What I see the "issue" is that as soon as some size is reached, we don't really care about expanding further. Why take a risk when yo…

> UberPop is only banned because they did not want to insure the drivers. Do you have a source for this? Uber insures its UberX drivers in both Canada and the U.S. so I don't see why they would be opposed in Germany. There must be something else.

Yes there is, the fare is regulated - no matter the demand, the area of the source or destination, or how drunk the passenger is.

Uber does heavy demand-based price adjusting, and well, fuck that. Better have the assurance of always paying 20€ for my trip home, than the variability of an Uber with 10-50€.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#256

Post by t1lthesky »

Silhouette wrote: post #193
exelius wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the EU is too protective of its economy to allow the kind of innovation Silicon Valley is famous for. The EU has a default assumption of "you have to prove that this will not be harmful before you can do it" where the US has a default assumption of "someone else has to prove that this will be harmful before we will stop you". The important part is that this burden of proof in the US is not placed on a company at…

Something like Uber could never have come out of Europe. A large company that is breaking the law while competing with regulated taxis and remaining unregulated themselves? That would never fly in the EU, This is a feature, not a bug. We do tend to regulate some areas more in Europe than the US, but from various on-line discussions about Uber in recent months, I have come to the conclusion that the original problem t…

I dont know about this. I've used uber in multiple cities in the US and taken cabs in multiple cities across the EU, and the uber experience beats cabs hands down. Everything is more convenient - some cities you can only get cabs in certain areas, or its really hard to find a cab, or some cab drivers are very unfriendly, and if you dont know the city the ability to specify a destination on the map is great. Not to mention the price is usually cheaper, but even if it was the same price I'd still say hands down uber wins in terms of customer experience.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#257

Post by adventured »

KaiserPro wrote: post #160
SneakerXZ wrote: post #148

It is quite easy question actually. In short, US is unified market with one language, laws for business are same across all states, one currency, one culture, low taxes, no social system and a lot of money. In EU you have 28 countries, 24 languages which equals to same amount of cultures. 11 currencies. Every country got own laws so once you make business across many countries, you have taxation and law hell. EU trie…

There is one currency, there are no import taxes, VAT is per country. (assuming EEC) This ofcourse assume that you are operating in one country and providing goods to another. Employment is another issue. Thats almost the same as in the US(excluding employment). The issue of low taxes is frankly utter bollocks, yes the US's taxes might be lower but so is your life expectancy, and productivity. The main issue with sta…

US productivity is among the highest on earth.

Alabama's GDP per capita, is higher than Italy.

US economic growth is routinely far beyond that of Europe. UK, Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Russia, Austria, Poland - haven't net grown their economies since 2007.

US unemployment is almost half that of the EU (and is half that of the Eurozone).

Life expectancy is on par with the EU, and is higher than Europe as a whole. Russia - by far Europe's biggest country - only has a life expectancy of 70 years.

You would invest into start-ups, because the few that succeed produce vast returns, and even among the failures the ecosystem as a whole produces massive knock-on benefits that spur innovation and overall economic growth.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#258

Post by aianus »

mschuster91 wrote: post #255
aianus wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UberPop is only banned because they did not want to insure the drivers. Do you have a source for this? Uber insures its UberX drivers in both Canada and the U.S. so I don't see why they would be opposed in Germany. There must be something else.

Yes there is, the fare is regulated - no matter the demand, the area of the source or destination, or how drunk the passenger is. Uber does heavy demand-based price adjusting, and well, fuck that. Better have the assurance of always paying 20€ for my trip home, than the variability of an Uber with 10-50€.

> variability of an Uber

You know when booking the trip what the cost is, it's not a mystery.

> the fare is regulated - no matter the demand, the area of the source or destination

Does Germany not have supply problems caused by this policy?

I know it's impossible to get a cab in Toronto on New Year's, whether you're coming home from a party or your wife is going into labour. I'd personally rather know for sure there is a ride available if I need it than be stranded by the side of the road because nobody is allowed to take my money.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#259

Post by kuschku »

mschuster91 wrote: post #255
aianus wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UberPop is only banned because they did not want to insure the drivers. Do you have a source for this? Uber insures its UberX drivers in both Canada and the U.S. so I don't see why they would be opposed in Germany. There must be something else.

Yes there is, the fare is regulated - no matter the demand, the area of the source or destination, or how drunk the passenger is. Uber does heavy demand-based price adjusting, and well, fuck that. Better have the assurance of always paying 20€ for my trip home, than the variability of an Uber with 10-50€.

Well, that’s not necessarily true. Uber can offer chauffeur services at any price, but as soon as they pick people off of the streets, it becomes a taxi service, which has the maximum fare limitation. Well, at least according to what I could find about the rules and regulations in Kiel.

Re: Why Is Europe Failing to Create More $1B Startups?

#260

Post by kuschku »

aianus wrote: post #258
mschuster91 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is, the fare is regulated - no matter the demand, the area of the source or destination, or how drunk the passenger is. Uber does heavy demand-based price adjusting, and well, fuck that. Better have the assurance of always paying 20€ for my trip home, than the variability of an Uber with 10-50€.

> variability of an Uber You know when booking the trip what the cost is, it's not a mystery. > the fare is regulated - no matter the demand, the area of the source or destination Does Germany not have supply problems caused by this policy? I know it's impossible to get a cab in Toronto on New Year's, whether you're coming home from a party or your wife is going into labour. I'd personally rather know for sure there…

There are almost never supply problems, but this is to make sure taxi companies don't scam people as it's usual in southern europe.
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