Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management • Hacker News Board

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#51

Post by roenxi » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:16 PM UTC

I quite like the article as far as it goes; but this begs the follow up question - is the strategy working? Because for all their standards and harmonisation, the manufacturing is happening in China and the decisions are being made in North America. This should be an article about how Nokia or equivalent is approaching the US all wrong and not understanding the realities on the ground.

I'd put energy in a similar frame. Energy matters a lot, and for all the optimistic noise around the Energiewende, the solar industry ended up in China. Wind power Europe has managed a company in the top ten, so that is pretty good [0]. Given the growing energy crisis in Europe, this seems to be an area of failure that needs more focus in how the common market is performing.

The EU's successes seem a bit mild. I remain sceptical that harmonizing charging cables is an important enough dot point to appear on these lists, it looks like there is just a lack of success stories out of the EU. The failures are catastrophic; last I heard the farmers had just started rioting too [1] which is a bad omen.

[0] https://www.zippia.com/advice/largest-wind-power-companies/

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/26/farmers-...

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#52

Post by noirscape » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:17 PM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #16

At least in the case of Apple, it’s not at all specific the the EU. That company is run by children. Everybody who works with Apple, be it developers or suppliers complains about how shitty they are to work with. They maintain relationships by the strength of their market power alone. Bridge burning is ingrained into the company culture. Apple is treating the EU like they do everyone else: they are being dicks. Unfor…

I wouldn't say they're children.

Rather, Apple is ran by people who are used to the ~20 years of free corporate reign granted to them by the complete defanging of groups like the FTC in the US while Europe was still trying to fruitlessly coax them into being cooperative.

It's not just Apple who is struggling to work in an environment where regulators have teeth; Amazon tried to treat the EU the same way and got banned from lobbying the EU parliament for not taking them seriously.

Basically the only GAFAM company that took regulators seriously for a while was Microsoft (due to the IE lawsuits) but even they are starting to act out again as of late.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#53

Post by frizlab » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:17 PM UTC

mdrzn wrote: post #31

Finally more people are figuring out that the EU is a net positive and not a net negative. Love my Europe.

I am European and hate all the regulations they’ve done so far. I know it’s a very rare pov, but for me all of these new legislations are terrible both for the consumers AND the small developers (which I am both). The ONLY people getting something are the somewhat big companies.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#54

Post by overstay8930 » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:17 PM UTC

zarzavat wrote: post #16

At least in the case of Apple, it’s not at all specific the the EU. That company is run by children. Everybody who works with Apple, be it developers or suppliers complains about how shitty they are to work with. They maintain relationships by the strength of their market power alone. Bridge burning is ingrained into the company culture. Apple is treating the EU like they do everyone else: they are being dicks. Unfor…

Apple saw what happened when Google was nice to developers and got shitty camera views in apps and adobe flash.

Apple has rightfully concluded that developers do not deserve to have any freedom on their platform because they immediately abuse it for their benefit and to the detriment of the user. Devs got so bad meta lost billions in value when Apple set up a privacy transparency feature in the App Store, say what you want about their repair practices but no other tech company takes this much care in managing their platform.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#55

Post by bengale » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:17 PM UTC

"They were behaving like Elon Musk. And we certainly don’t want more Elon Musks in the world."

I'm not a fan of his behaviour on Twitter, but the idea that the world does not want more Elon Musks seems insane to me.

Theyre not for me personally, but whatever you think about Teslas I don't see how you would not want a person who can build a new car company. Just look at other entrants like Rivian, it's so hard, and he managed to will that into existence.

The fact that I can then move onto SpaceX is unbelievable. He willed reusable rockets into existence and made it into a sustainable business. Starlink, just look at starlink. Where is Blue Origin?

Would we really not want more of that, even if it led to more nonsense on Twitter?

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#56

Post by ajuc » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:17 PM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #30

Reminds me of trump repeatedly trying to make trade deals with individual EU countries. Only had to explain it 11 times until for it to sink it. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-trade-merkel-germany-e...

It worked for Putin (see Nord Streams for example) so Trump wanted it too :)

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#57

Post by DaiPlusPlus » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:17 PM UTC

redwood wrote: post #15

I understand where the author is coming from and It is important to have a realist perspective on what is driving European strategy or else we will be in denial. I think it's also important to recognize that the west are interconnected in many real ways beyond economic. The first and most clearly top of mind recently is the US defense umbrella which allows the EU to invest on other things instead of defense. Another…

> see the Europeans talk about human rights on the one hand but then do big wine and dine trips in China

Those are not the same people.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#58

Post by mst » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:18 PM UTC

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #23

This reads like a 10th graders report, just repeating arguments found on the internet. The criticism of forcing apple to abandon a superior connector for phones to standardize charger cords, while every other building you go into in Europe has a different outlet that is incompatible with the charger you want to plug in is perfectly reasonable. The idea that there is some great benefit to making sure there is only one…

This is an explanation of the EU's point of view and motivations and how you can use understanding that to predict their actions.

Calling those actions 'fundamentally stupid' will not, in fact, change reality, and thinking such an opinion has any relevance to doing business in the real world is precisely the class of mistake the author's trying to point out.

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#59

Post by tsak » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:18 PM UTC

dbspin wrote: post #40

redwood wrote: post #15

I understand where the author is coming from and It is important to have a realist perspective on what is driving European strategy or else we will be in denial. I think it's also important to recognize that the west are interconnected in many real ways beyond economic. The first and most clearly top of mind recently is the US defense umbrella which allows the EU to invest on other things instead of defense. Another…

> Another less talked about is how the US subsidizes most of global R&D for healthcare by virtue of the obscene amount Americans pay and hence make profitable that industry to the benefit of all of humanity. Health Disadvantage in US Adults Aged 50 to 74 Years: A Comparison of the Health of Rich and Poor Americans With That of Europeans - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661456/#:~:tex... . Differences i…

I don't think any of your links substantiate the claim that US healthcare expenditure subsidises global R&D on healthcare, only that healthcare is more expensive in the US (which I personally think is more due to an extremely ineffective system with an unhealthy amount of middlemen that inflate prices).

Re: Facing reality about the EU is a core requirement for good management

#60

Post by ryukoposting » Tue, Mar 05, 2024, 1:18 PM UTC

Nicely written. Great management processes the reality of workplace and society, and applies that information to maximize their employees' effectiveness. Managers are human and thus they have opnions, but great management doesn't let their opinions cloud their judgement when it comes time to manage.

I'll admit that, as an engineer, I appreciate that someone is trying to rein in my industry's worst instincts, even if that someone isn't America and they aren't necessarily succeeding on every front. So yes, I have a bias.