31–40 of 129 posts
In the early days of odnoklassniki and VKontakte there was a joke in Russia that KGB invented them as better version of its secret files on people. Now it does not look like a joke anymore.
Actually it was originally a serious concern with the Facebook where CIA originally invested through one of its tech funds. KGB is not that smart :)
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> Do you think those people starting companies would do any worse, if we placed them in, say, Denmark? Yes. Facebook, Apple, Google, Tesla, etc. would never have happened in Denmark. I'm really glad my parents did the annoying work of immigrating to the SF Bay Area from Germany when I was a kid. Otherwise I would have wasted years of my life doing it myself. Did you watch the Elon Musk interview posted here the other…
I don't see how you refuted my point. Have you tried anywhere else? Did Musk?
The US is set up to achieve the maximum amount of runaway breakout successes at the expense of average of quality of life.
The EU is set up to achieve the maximum amount of reasonably sustainable business providing for a decent quality of life.
Each type of business is much easier to start on the respective continent.
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replace "Russia" with "US" and "petro-chemical" with "military-industrial complex" or "financial" and your whole comment still makes sense as well
Except that the US isn't in a steep decline. The US doesn't start invasions and pretends it's someone else's military. The US doesn't cancel leases for pro-Snowden news outlets. The US doesn't send protesters against election-fraud away for 5 years. The US doesn't introduce laws making it illegal to support gays in public. The US doesn't forcefully remove protesters against a potential war at first sight; even if the…
This kinda puts Telegraph project in a different light, doesn't it?
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I don't see how you refuted my point. Have you tried anywhere else? Did Musk?
I'm not sure Paul actually even meant that; but in my mind the difference is pretty simple: The US is set up to achieve the maximum amount of runaway breakout successes at the expense of average of quality of life. The EU is set up to achieve the maximum amount of reasonably sustainable business providing for a decent quality of life. Each type of business is much easier to start on the respective continent.
For the record, the discussion started with VKontakte, which is definitely not in the "median small business" category.
And let's not get started on the different possible definitions of "quality of life" ;)
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replace "Russia" with "US" and "petro-chemical" with "military-industrial complex" or "financial" and your whole comment still makes sense as well
Except that the US isn't in a steep decline. The US doesn't start invasions and pretends it's someone else's military. The US doesn't cancel leases for pro-Snowden news outlets. The US doesn't send protesters against election-fraud away for 5 years. The US doesn't introduce laws making it illegal to support gays in public. The US doesn't forcefully remove protesters against a potential war at first sight; even if the…
Drone strikes come to mind. Didn't the US claim that bombings in Yemen where the work of the local government?
That said, the order of magnitude is indeed different.
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In case it wasn't apparent, my "ever any doubt" question was rhetorical hyperbole. Any statement, no matter how self-evident, will have some people contradicting it. Your argument that the US is the best place to start a business is not in any way "self-evident", and you have provided no source or proof. So say some journalists. Their methodology seems sound. "We determined the Best Countries for Business by looking…
They left out "size and wealth of domestic market" and "access to capital," which I suspect are the most important factors beyond a minimal level of market fairness. It's really not self-evident that the vast majority of successful companies are started in the US?
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Was it ever in doubt that the USA is the best place to start a business? You have an English-speaking domestic market that accounts for 30% of the planet's GDP, huge talent pools, easy access to capital, a culture that encourages entrepreneurship, significantly above-average rule of law, strong corporate veils, and a mostly tolerable tax burden. It ain't perfect, but you can't do better anywhere else in this solar sy…
Was it ever in doubt that the USA is the best place to start a business? America is no. 14 on the list of best countries to start a business in. http://www.forbes.com/best-countries-for-business/list/
It is a very different thing to actually scale that company to any significant size there.
The metrics used to measure these things are fundamentally flawed as they look at the institutional side of things not on the reality that is running a business and growing a company.
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They left out "size and wealth of domestic market" and "access to capital," which I suspect are the most important factors beyond a minimal level of market fairness. It's really not self-evident that the vast majority of successful companies are started in the US?
One could argue those two factors are very important if you want to take a shot at creating the next Google or Facebook (which an unusually high percentage of people here might aspire to) and less important if you're aiming for a lifestyle business (perhaps more typical).
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I'm not sure Paul actually even meant that; but in my mind the difference is pretty simple: The US is set up to achieve the maximum amount of runaway breakout successes at the expense of average of quality of life. The EU is set up to achieve the maximum amount of reasonably sustainable business providing for a decent quality of life. Each type of business is much easier to start on the respective continent.
That's a great point. Domestic market size and access to capital don't matter much for starting a business where the end-goal is single-digit millions in annual revenue. The USA is quite obviously (to me, at least) the best place to "do a startup" but there could well be better places to "start a median small business." For the record, the discussion started with VKontakte, which is definitely not in the "median smal…
In Germany, which is the prime example of the EU model in that sense, there is even a word for that kind of business: Mittelstand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand)
> And let's not get started on the different possible definitions of "quality of life" ;)
Good point; the EU definition would probably be having a roof over your head and ample free time to enjoy the bread and games in good health ;)