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by chrisseaton 3810 days ago
So why aren't there any major new international tech players coming out of France? I've heard of BlaBlaCar, but none of the three listed are exactly heavyweights.

I'm not anti-France and I'd ask the same question of my own country, the United Kingdom.

If the social security allows you to start your own company, and if people are cheaper, and cost of living is lower, then why can't Europe produce a Google, Facebook, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft?
3 comments
marklgr 3810 days ago
> why can't Europe produce a Google, Facebook, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft?

Market size, for one. Europe is not a country, and startups begin on a small national market, or at least national-scale funding.

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seren 3810 days ago
The social system is fine to bootstrap for a year because you'll have 60% of your old salary, "free" healthcare and education, but once you have to raise millions to grow quickly, it won't help. To produce a Google or Facebook, you need a flawless execution, a right timing and a boatload of money.
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adventured 3810 days ago
To build a Google or Facebook, you of course also have to get the US market.

So you have to accelerate to massive scale across Europe, and then conquer the US market before a US company conquers the US and spreads across Europe. It's clearly a far more difficult proposition for the European company. The only alternative I can think of that might work, is for European companies to start with targeting the US market first (a challenging concept in its own right - to target a foreign market first).

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yodsanklai 3810 days ago
> why can't Europe produce a Google, Facebook, Apple, Oracle, Microsoft?

I wonder how much it has do to with education and research. The US have been ahead of Europe in the computer sector. For instance, when Google was founded, were there competitive research teams in Europe working on this type of technologies?

Actually, I graduated around that time in a high-ranked French engineering school, and I think our CS classes were pretty weak (at the master level).

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bsaul 3810 days ago
I completely agree. Our great engineer culture is now a burden. We need phds and great research to be able to compete.
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