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Europe's Software Problem

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Re: Europe's Software Problem

#41

Post by est31 »

ballooney wrote: post #28
Mary-Jane wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the FAANGs are American companies, and they've all been pushing the boundaries. What do you feel America has lost in this respect?

It’s not really technology though now is it. They’re pushing the boundaries of capitalism and morality but not technology. It’s been ages since Silicon Valley was about silicon. Almost all the current energy of the valley is in surveillance/ad-tech. Maybe the odd rocket as a fig-leaf.

Where are the HQs of Qualcomm, AMD, Intel, Nvidia located? Yes, everyone talks about Uber et al and indeed those companies barely add innovative ideas compared to the innovation that is needed to increase a CPU's performance. Uber et al instead mainly do a better job at extracting money from their extremely good market positions than the hardware companies do.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#42

Post by MangoCoffee »

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…

>risky enterprises can be funded even if 1 out of ten or 1 out of hundred actually are successful

correct me if i'm wrong, Europe is dominated by legacy business/banks that normally won't take such risk. legacy business like BMW. European and Asian want to see you have some success or already making money before they invest. while American will throw money into something that just an idea.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#43

Post by ricardo81 »

hughrr wrote: post #21
slavoingilizov wrote: post #13

"Since all communication platforms are now free, the only way to get people to use competitive European software and services is to also offer these for free, and to make sure this technology is very good and compelling" I have never seen a government or any regulation deliver anything "good and compelling", or take any other action to "make sure" someone else delivers it.

gov.uk is pretty excellent.

As long as fastly is up of course!

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#44

Post by imNotTheProb »

dharmaturtle wrote: post #35

PG has a related essay: Why Startups Condense in America http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html He actually has several essays on how to try to create a Silicon Valley in other geographic areas, but this seemed the most relevant. tldr: 1. The US Allows Immigration. 2. The US Is a Rich Country. 3. The US Is Not (Yet) a Police State. 4. American Universities Are Better. 5. You Can Fire People in America. 6. In America…

I think the point about the workforce being flexible is tremendous.

I had an engineer tell me- in America people don't care about your title, they care about how much money you have. In Europe it's all about titles. In Japan it's about seniority.

I've had no problem picking the job that pays the highest and it changed me from chem engineer to programmer.

My peers that are obsessed with a title have fallen behind, making 80k a year as a 30 year old. I think these people have a significantly harder time finding a new job, where as being a programmer and engineer, I'm able to work in any industry.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#46

Post by klaaz0r »

gabaix wrote: post #16

If Europe wants to have its citizens (and companies) rely significantly on European-operated software, it has no choice but to develop better software, and to also offer that for free. I can’t help thinking of Qwant, the alternative privacy-aware European search engine. Their financial standing is so dire that this week they had to ask money from Huawei. [1] [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/french-search-engine-qw…

Raising capital is getting easier but still nothing compared to the US. If we want change we need more capital to make competing software. If my competitor from SV has 10M in the bank and I can only raise 500k in Europe how do I compete? The end users doesn't care that much.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#47

Post by gspr »

FredPret wrote: post #45
imNotTheProb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile the majority of computers use open source software as their OS....

But not the majority of people

So? Software demand is driven by the tasks software need to solve. Whether those tasks involve human interaction or not is surely irrelevant for the demand for software?

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#48

Post by Juliate »

imNotTheProb wrote: post #34
jacob2484 wrote: post #27

Europe lacks the US bankruptcy laws which encourage risk-taking that is needed in this space

They don't have LLCs?

There are equivalents (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsabilit%C3%A9_limit%C3%A... - in French) but country-specific, there's no a European common structure.

But another benefit from LLCs in the USA might be the lighter paperwork and simpler taxes filing.

Which we also have (in France at least, as entrepreneur individuel), but both don't intersect.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#49

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

slavoingilizov wrote: post #13

"Since all communication platforms are now free, the only way to get people to use competitive European software and services is to also offer these for free, and to make sure this technology is very good and compelling" I have never seen a government or any regulation deliver anything "good and compelling", or take any other action to "make sure" someone else delivers it.

> I have never seen a government or any regulation deliver anything "good and compelling", or take any other action to "make sure" someone else delivers it.

* US Digital Service

* 18F

* Pubmed

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#50

Post by Cthulhu_ »

iamcurious wrote: post #32
slavoingilizov wrote: post #13

"Since all communication platforms are now free, the only way to get people to use competitive European software and services is to also offer these for free, and to make sure this technology is very good and compelling" I have never seen a government or any regulation deliver anything "good and compelling", or take any other action to "make sure" someone else delivers it.

The moon landing is nice example.

Or going back a bit further, the mail.
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