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Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

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Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#61

Post by tormeh »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #29
kriro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wondered why the Ruhr Valley isn't marketed/established as a techhub of sorts. Well connected infrastructure means it's essentially one big city and there are a few universities with decent tech departments. Berlin makes sense but come on...Valley in the title already ;P

I can't name terribly many examples where rust belt turned new economy hub. They usually just fade :-/

Rhine-Ruhr isn't rust-belt, though. It's the largest metro area in Germany, at 11.3 million, and is the EU's third-wealthiest metro area, after Greater London and Paris met.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#62

Post by Jacqued »

scrollaway wrote: post #44
Jacqued wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the next few years I think Paris might become quite an interesting place. (disclaimer: I live there) It's already booming compared to a few years ago, it is seeing some significant successful startups (Criteo, Blaclacar...), and the ecosystem is clearly growing at an accelerated pace, with new companies, new spaces, new schools, new events appearing all over the place. In 2016-2017 a few really large incubators ar…

I'm french, lived in Paris for a while. Paris is absurdly expensive, and the French govt is fairly bad at understanding worldwide collaboration and the needs of their businesses. I'm not sure France is a good country to be in right now.

Well,

- I did not talk about the government, but I don't think it's that bad in France compared to most places in the world. Sure, some places like the Nordics seem to have pretty decent governments but at the end of the day in almost every country in the world the government is going to suck and you'll have to succeed despite them.

- Paris is "expensive" but it's still a LOT cheaper than other comparables cities, eg. London. I won't even talk about NYC or Silicon Valley.

- The ecosystem is blooming right now, and if it keeps up as I think it will, that means a tremendous number of opportunities for an ambitious person willing to start a business or work with startups.

- Funding sucks. But then again it sucks everywhere on the planet apart from SV so that's that. At least people who have worked in France can live on pretty decent unemployment checks for up to two years while they bootstrap the business so that's helpful enough.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#63

Post by yc1010 »

rockdoe wrote: post #51
yc1010 wrote: post #45

As a European the title of the article pretty much sums up why there is no Silicon Valley here in Europe. Politicians and bureaucrats think they can somehow create and run such an environment from "the top down", when what is needed is a culture change and more venture funds to dangle carrots for entrepreneurs. Here often you have to deal with state bodies for funding for startups populated by beuracrats and controll…

And the best way to introduce innovation "from the top down" for some reason always involves inventing more complicated legislation or benefits. Then somehow, large established companies turn out to be the ones who end up profiting because they have the legal/administrative staff to file out a few tons of paperwork. It's truly maddening. I worked for a European startup once, and one of the founders left to create a c…

I can relate, EU VAT would be a prime example of needless bureaucracy and paperwork. All that time wasted collecting, calculating, paper shuffling around in order to get VAT right, is time not spent on actually running your startup

Yes one can pay accountants but that means increasing your costs and complicating your business from day 1

If they want more startups, they could for example exempt companies lets say with under half a million in turnover from having to waste so much time and energy on everything VAT related

Instead of focusing on making a profitable product/service and then worrying about taxation, startups have to worry about taxes from day 1.

Hell the EU are even now trying to get companies/people from outside the EU who do not live or work here be captured into the beuracratic pit via VAT MOSS

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#64

Post by saosebastiao »

wobbleblob wrote: post #24
hikz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Denmark IT companies are extremely elitist. Tons of simple ASP.NET and Java EE jobs require a master's degree in CS or CE. Contrast this with the coding bootcamps and "everyone can learn to code" culture in the US and you can see why innovation is so slow here in Denmark. I am a CS student genuinely interested in compiler construction, distributed systems and programming language design so I don't feel I'm be…

Innovation isn't slow in Denmark at all (source: I work for a Danish software company). Do you have any evidence people from these 'everyone can learn to code bootcamps' actually land good jobs or end up doing something innovating in the US? I think the difference between Denmark and Silicon valley is investment money and the size of the domestic market. If the EU wants to recreate Silicon Valley, it's not tech they…

I can't speak for the bootcamps, but I know dozens of self taught developers working at Amazon and Google, and the large companies are typically more credentialist. I have no problem believing that coding bootcamps can result in high paying jobs.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#65

Post by namlem »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #2

"Europe" competing with a small neighborhood on the west coast where the vast majority of the world's tech capital lives? Sorry I don't see it. Combined with the gloomy pessimism and fear of failure even in Europe's brightest areas (London and Berlin) and the absolute, spineless pathetic nature of European VC's (no not bitter at all ;) Europe will NEVER compete on any meaningful level with Silicon Valley. edit: spell…

The closest thing Europe has to a major tech hub is Tel Aviv.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#66

Post by api »

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #2

"Europe" competing with a small neighborhood on the west coast where the vast majority of the world's tech capital lives? Sorry I don't see it. Combined with the gloomy pessimism and fear of failure even in Europe's brightest areas (London and Berlin) and the absolute, spineless pathetic nature of European VC's (no not bitter at all ;) Europe will NEVER compete on any meaningful level with Silicon Valley. edit: spell…

You really just described most of the world, not just Europe. The Bay Area is among a small number of bright spots where people actually do things.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#67

Post by k-mcgrady »

api wrote: post #66
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #2

"Europe" competing with a small neighborhood on the west coast where the vast majority of the world's tech capital lives? Sorry I don't see it. Combined with the gloomy pessimism and fear of failure even in Europe's brightest areas (London and Berlin) and the absolute, spineless pathetic nature of European VC's (no not bitter at all ;) Europe will NEVER compete on any meaningful level with Silicon Valley. edit: spell…

You really just described most of the world, not just Europe. The Bay Area is among a small number of bright spots where people actually do things.

>> The Bay Area is among a small number of bright spots where people actually do things.

Talk about living in a bubble...

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#69

Post by tobylane »

alphadevx wrote: post #68

I don't understand the popular obsession with recreating the Valley: can't we do something better?

We can and possibly have, it's just banal. We have comfortable lives with nationalised healthcare and cheap or free education. We aren't striving to earn money for our own health, or to prove ourselves because we can't afford a degree. Without that there's just making something because you want it made. Governments and private organisations in Europe are decent at finding those people and giving reasonable funding.

Re: Europe’s Plan to Compete with Silicon Valley

#70

Post by tormeh »

coolsebz wrote: post #15

> “The message Europe is sending its entrepreneurs now is: stay at home” As an european, working remotely with various US companies, my response is: Completely not! There is no reason to stay and create IP in Europe right now. At least not in my opinion. Both Asia and the US are better alternatives for starting up than doing so here. I honestly think that a change in mindset is needed for attracting entrepreneurs or…

They meant "stay at home; don't export!"
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