51–60 of 99 posts
A question for European readers: Do you see the culture of the Welfare State as an obstacle to changing culture to accept that being successful, doing new business ventures is a good thing?
When I was growing up in Germany I remember hearing this exact same complaint about lack of entrepreneurship a good 30 years ago. My dad, who is a solid state physicist, was a kind of cheerleader for modern technology and was exasperated how companies were not adopting and adapting more quickly. His predictions that the economy was going to go down the tubes while the rest of the world pulled away still ring in my ea…
I am reminded of the concept of differential advantage. It's OK for the US to be entrepreneurial and for Germany to have a lot of craft-focused artisans who can take technology and refine it unto the nth degree. The world is richer for having the both. It's part of the reason I think a lot of people over the decades(/centuries) who call for the US to be more a clone of Europe are calling for a really bad idea; it's m…
I think the American system is more for me. But I'm happy there is both. Unfortunately there is also a trend in Germany to become more American.
My favourite company in the world is a German engineering firm called Rohloff. Their motto is "No slogans, just facts" and their business is really just a single product - a beautifully engineered internal gearbox for bicycles called the Speedhub, that costs €1000 and lasts 100,000km. Rohloff make a product as finely engineered as any swiss watch, but in doing so create an anti-consumerist product. Their product is b…
I hope Rohloff is aware of the irony that "No slogans, just facts" is a slogan. While I admire companies who make products that last forever, most people aren't that interested in spending a ton of money on something that will last forever. If you're sure you're going to be using your bike for 70+ years, $1000 isn't a bad investment. If you're like most people, you probably bike once every few months, if that, and th…
For this particular consumer, in the marketplace, it's fair enough :)
And if it's unfair, bad luck.
Those differences aren't a bad thing in any way and don't mean that we can't be united in some sense - but please just realize that saying that "Europe is like this and that" is like saying "North America is like this and that".
When I was growing up in Germany I remember hearing this exact same complaint about lack of entrepreneurship a good 30 years ago. My dad, who is a solid state physicist, was a kind of cheerleader for modern technology and was exasperated how companies were not adopting and adapting more quickly. His predictions that the economy was going to go down the tubes while the rest of the world pulled away still ring in my ea…
They strike me as a ludicrous 'pay to play' scheme. The old standard is that you have to buy a $2500 dev kit for every developers, and that standard has kept the individuals and enthusiasts out. OEM's ought have full design files for multiple reference board available, and sell implementations for something like cost.
Much of this trenchant multi-level commercialism (developer kit company, silicon company) was natural for the way the software tooling used to work; one off debugging interfaces (also frequently $1000+) talking to each vendor's proprietary compilation/debugging toolchain, booting each vendor's own bootcode and running drivers developed by the vendor.
Thankfully the open source stack is getting better. Another commenter discussed a sustainable bicycle part company ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2629346 ), and I see a similar parallel in that chip companies ought be investing in sustainable openly accessible tooling. SoC and high speed serial radically simplify many aspects of board design, chip companies ought be actively promoting the other side of easy accessibility & be working to produce open source drivers, facilitate tool support from the likes of OpenOCD, uBoot, &c, and doing every thing they can to reduce barriers to entry.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans don't like to talk about it, but they should better learn how emulate Europe rather than the opposite. The USA is nowadays more similar to Europe than to new developing economies. While Europe hasn't the high growth it once had, they know how to maintain an economy that retains prosperity for most of its people.
When I visit family and friends in the old country, I always find people's attitude depressing. There is a universal sense of dependence on the state, stemming largely from the fact that over 20% of the population is employed directly by the government, but also from a widespread sense of entitlement to welfare and other support. The state is the source of and solution to all of their problems, and this interferes wi…
I fail to see how those things are negative. As a matter of fact, I wish more entrepreneurs would adopt this kind of thinking: Being proud of your craft and your product.
Sure, you need to be able to make decisions, but there is also something to be said for making quality products instead of going for execution speed over quality.
Quality-driven thinking is part of what makes Germany one of the largest economies in the world - despite the fact that it is much less populous than other big economies like the US, Japan, and China.
ok, as i'm currently starting my business in austria (that's in europe) i want to add my 2c. the biggest obstacle is that the government won't go out of your way. 1. i could start my company now 2. but it would be stupid, as i would miss out on the "unternehmensgründerförderung" (start up support) 3. for getting "unternehmensgründerförderung" you have to attend a sh#tload of courses (for about 2 months) which tell yo…
A question for European readers: Do you see the culture of the Welfare State as an obstacle to changing culture to accept that being successful, doing new business ventures is a good thing?
[NB I'm in the UK and I fully support the current governments attempts to thin down the public sector here - with up to 25% cuts in some areas (not the NHS though)].
Why does everything need to be just like Silicon Valley? Everything being like Wall Street certainly didn't help either. I especially laughed at the line that perfectionism and proper engineering are bad for startups. This explains a lot. (Yes, when it comes to selling stuff that doesn't work and you don't need in the first place, Europe has a lot to learn. Every service-based industry does better in the US.) Meanwhi…
A lack of perfectionism does not mean a lack of quality. There's such a thing as trying to be too perfect and missing out on a market opportunity.
Basically, the speaker was just throwing some cliches into the room, whether they fit or not. He might as well have said that Germans don't get anything done because they spend so much time to listen to the Hoff.