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Europe's Software Problem

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Re: Europe's Software Problem

#441

Post by hnick »

cletus wrote: post #99

Hot take: the problems here are cultural. Consider these data points: 1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering"…

I think risk aversion is a big one, at least here in Australia. You might be seen as someone who failed rather than someone who tried and learned for next time. There is also not much VC culture so you have to convince conservative banks that your wild idea (gamble?) has merit.

Jeremy Howard (Fast AI) had a talk that hit home when discussing startups in AU vs US, why he left and why he came back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uygOz2fORo

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#442

Post by mbo »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #409
cletus wrote: post #99

Hot take: the problems here are cultural. Consider these data points: 1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering"…

Speaking of work-ethic - I've noticed how much less Australians work than everyone else. Knocking off at lunchtime on a Friday, leaving at 3 or 4pm, etc. The only people I've seen working a full 40 hours in Australian companies are the people who own the company, and foreigners. I know Australians have are able to easily get a work visa to go to America. The cultural shock must be pretty big once they're actually exp…

As an Australian, your theory is correct. The culture shock is real and has caused tensions amongst distributed trans-Pacific teams that I've been a part of.

- Australians would complain that their American counter-parts were burning themselves out and ignoring structural issues impacting their productivity. Or outright accusations of "you working harder than us makes us look bad" - classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

- Americans would complain that the Australians were lazy and not pulling their weight.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#443

Post by wyager »

kazen44 wrote: post #358
odiroot wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe if you only take San Francisco and New York City in consideration. USA has famously cheaper life than EU (especially gas and food). Not that I would trade places.

mind you gas prices are heavily subsidized in the US. The same goes for food. Also, from experience i have found vegetables to be ludicrously expensive in the USA, the same goes for beer and wine.

How are gas prices heavily subsidized in the US? They are certainly heavily taxed...

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#444

Post by ambicapter »

stadium wrote: post #435
6f8986c3 wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You remain a foreigner, who should still work for less pay than those who grew up locally and went to an ivy league school, even though you have the same credentials and graduated at a top school in Europe (in my case, I have an ivy league degree on top of that). Bingo. There's a set of something like ten schools from which Silicon Valley companies hire. If you're not from one of those, you will be cordially invite…

I might be an outlier but I went to a tiny middle America liberal arts university that you probably never heard of, and work for a SV startup. And I haven't heard the topic of where people went to school come up a single time.

You work for a Silicon Valley startup, but the above posters are mostly talking about people who run one.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#445

Post by kortilla »

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'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

But that’s just a rephrasing of the same problem. If all of the top creative talent is leaving then Europe has a talent problem.

Europe needs to make it attractive to innovate there. It will let the locals stay and, if it’s working well, attract people from all over the world.

The language barriers are a lame excuse. It’s 100% all of the bureaucracy and anti-business experimenting mindset.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#446

Post by boulos »

mikevm wrote: post #295
atq2119 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many unicorns are from Israel, though? Israel should be lauded for managing to be an intensely vibrant and high-tech country, and European countries should try to learn from that, but even that is apparently not quite sufficient. So I think GP has a point.

https://www.techaviv.com/unicorns

Annoyingly, that list includes companies with Israeli founders that aren’t companies founded in Israel (e.g., WeWork). There’s no need to do that though, there are plenty of Israeli companies! (Oh, I see they have a pie chart of companies in Israel and it’s about 25% by value)

It’s also too bad that it excludes public companies or large exits (e.g., Wix and Waze) since those are even better retorts to the “can’t build companies” claim.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#447

Post by koyote »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #409
cletus wrote: post #99

Hot take: the problems here are cultural. Consider these data points: 1. The US is a country of migrants (ignoring the blight of slavery for now), whether those be those seeking a better life from Europe originally, later China and later still Central and South America. These are all people who uprooted whatever lives they had and legally or illegally migrated to the US. IMHO you still see echoes of this "pioneering"…

Speaking of work-ethic - I've noticed how much less Australians work than everyone else. Knocking off at lunchtime on a Friday, leaving at 3 or 4pm, etc. The only people I've seen working a full 40 hours in Australian companies are the people who own the company, and foreigners. I know Australians have are able to easily get a work visa to go to America. The cultural shock must be pretty big once they're actually exp…

> Knocking off at lunchtime on a Friday, leaving at 3 or 4pm, etc. The only people I've seen working a full 40 hours in Australian companies are the people who own the company, and foreigners.

Are you implying that this is a bad thing? Having time to actually enjoy life seems to be very underappreciated here.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#448

Post by drstewart »

bandris wrote: post #365
mmarq wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may disagree, but “nonsense” sounds a bit excessive. An Italian or Spanish software developer earning 30K euros per annum would likely go to the US if they were offered an American salary. Many of those who went to the UK or to Germany (me included) would have crossed the Atlantic for the right offer.

I agree with you that inexperienced (lower paid) or young developers might find the US attractive if there weren't visa issues. The older better paid ones, maybe with families even, would probably still choose the social safety of Europe, the mix of people and ideas, the density of interesting places, cultural events, etc. I mainly reflected on the current trend I observered. Did not consider a sudden change in the U…

All European developers are lower paid compared to their US counterparts. Except maybe Swiss ones.

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#449

Post by fy20 »

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.

This doesn't really make sense to me. The EU is a clear leader in other industries compared to the US, just not in the tech industry. In terms of national security and stability, I'd say any of these companies are much more important than any tech company. If the market here for innovation is so bad, why are these companies leaders in their industry?

A few examples I can think of off the top of my head:

- automotive (Volkswagen, Daimler, Bosch)

- industrial equipment (Siemens, ABB)

- railroad (Siemens, Alstom)

- telecoms (Ericson, Nokia)

- chemicals (BSAF, Ineos)

- food and drink (anything from France, Italy or Spain :D)

Re: Europe's Software Problem

#450

Post by kortilla »

beebeepka wrote: post #433
GekkePrutser wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's required for all types of tracking including but not exclusively cookies. Only days collection that is absolutely required to provide the service may be collected without consent and for that purpose only.

Law is reasonable then. You track your user, you notify them . I fail to see the problem. Then again, I am not running shady websites and selling user data

Yes, very reasonable. Gdpr pop ups on nearly every site with dark patterns making it annoying to opt out. A resounding success.
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