[matt4077]

This is important. The prevailing narrative is still that, for example, a social safety net stifles innovation.

If I actually spell it out, it's quite absurd: "Google and Facebook and Apple only got started because our society threatens inactivity with starvation".

Any survey of founders' backgrounds will reveal that they almost exclusively hail from the upper-middle class and higher, meaning that their family or education provided them the security to take such risks, and to forgo a regular income in the early days/months/years.

[sjg007]

I agree with this statement. One question though is why do we not see more innovation out of Sweden, France, Germany or England where they have said safety nets (to one degree or another)? Also the US does have some safety nets but it is difficult to forgo working and take benefits in order to start a company.

[CM30]

I think there are multiple reasons for not seeing as much innovation out of Europe. Based on my experiences in the UK...

1. It's harder to get investment for a startup in Europe than it is in America. Or I guess more precisely, it's harder to get investment outside of Silicon Valley.

2. If you do get investment, it'll be far lower in Europe than in America. This puts you at a disadvantage in fields where marketing spend is increasingly important (like social media sites/apps and ridesharing businesses). I mean, people over here think the amount of money given on The Apprentice or Dragon's Den is a reasonable investment for the next Google or Facebook. That's closer to 10-50 grand than the couple of million some Silicon Valley businesses raise.

3. European investors and accelerators are very hesitant to invest in consumer facing startups. Instead, they prefer giving money to companies who sell services and products to businesses, like say Moz. When I asked a few of them about a user facing social networking company (like Twitter or Facebook or Medium) they said it would require more money than they'd be willing to offer for a lesser chance at a return.

4. Cultural differences. People are less encouraged to take risks over here, with the 'default' being to take a standard job and work your way up to management before retiring X years later with a spouse, 2.5 kids and a dog. If I'd said I'd drop out of university to start up an internet company, people would think I was crazy.

5. The wages are lower, so the best candidates likely don't get involved in startups here. This is at least in part because programming isn't much more respected than retail or office work, at least from what I've seen in London. So those with the interest in doing something big with their life either get into a different field (like finance) or pack their bags and move to America.

6. Finally, I think computer education being so bad for so many years may have had an effect here. If you didn't go to university to study a technical subject (or have an interest in it in your free time), then you likely only know how to use Microsoft Office. A lot of people who'd otherwise be interested in working in the tech industry likely don't think it's interesting work, or (based on their schooling) imagine it's basically Microsoft tech support.

[ThrowawayR2]

> 5. The wages are lower, so the best candidates likely don't get involved in startups here.

Ironically, this can be in part attributed to the cost of having a strong social safety net, at least in my opinion. I'd love to be persuaded otherwise.

[kesselvon]

Doubtful. There are plenty of high wage occupations in Europe, but computer programming is not one of them. Just like the market for doctors in the US is insane compared to elsewhere in the world.

[acdha]

I'd want to start by looking for data about what is happening in those countries – there's probably more than it might seem, especially if you look outside of the English-language media. I regularly see mention about work happening in those countries – and don't forget Canada – but it's definitely less VC-driven as well.

The two factors I suspect explain most of this are the existing concentrations of industry – i.e. SF has such a massive footprint that it'd take years to wind down even if the situation was pretty dramatically skewed – and the lag between U.S. healthcare costs rising far greater than the rest of the world and that reaching the point where people are actually making significant decisions around them. In the 90s and early 2000s you didn't hear it mentioned as much as a decade later, after the double-digit annual percentage increases continued to eat away at profit margins.

[tryitnow]

I don't have the time, but if you're really interested in this question I highly recommend taking a look at various indexes of innovation. I had the same question myself a few years back and I was impressed with how innovative other countries are when you actually try to quantify what you're talking about.

The US doesn't necessarily come out on top all the time - or even most of the time.

The US excels at a lot of consumer-facing innovations, so I think that led me conclude that the US dominates in innovation. But there's a lot more to innovation than just consumer facing software.

The US also benefits from a history of massive government investments in R&D, mostly through the DoD. So that may be covering the any innovation deficit we have due to a weaker social safety net.

[ThrowawayR2]

> The prevailing narrative is still that, for example, a social safety net stifles innovation.

A social safety net enables one to fail safely but that's only a benefit to those with enough drive to try in the first place. The upper & middle class is more likely to have that because of their upbringing but they are the ones who don't need the social safety net in the first place. What of the rest? What innovative use will they make of the social safety net?

There are other reasons to give everyone a social safety net but fostering innovation doesn't seem to be one of them, in my opinion.

[kesselvon]

There are plenty of people I've personally met that would start a venture, but are too afraid of losing healthcare/benefits/steady paycheck because they don't have any alternative to fall back on if they fail.

It's all cool when you're a single adult in your 20s, but when you have bills, dependents, or debts. A failed startup or business can wipe you out for a long time

[tryitnow]

You answer your own question when you state:

"The upper & middle class is more likely..."

"More likely" is the key term here. How much more likely? If they are very, very, very likely, then you might be correct.

However, if they're only slightly likely, then the social safety would be useful in catching those who would otherwise fall through the cracks.

There's issues around the direction of causality too. Why are the upper and middle classes likely to produce innovators?

Because of their upbringing?

Could part of that beneficial upbringing be the implicit social safety net they enjoy from their parents?

[sdflkd]

Are you saying poor people do not raise their children to hunger for success?

[wccrawford]

I think you're making it too black-and-white. It isn't that there's no motivation if there's a safety net, or even UBI. It's that there's decreased motivation.

Even then, I'm not sure it really matters at this point. I'm astounded by how fast things are changing throughout my life. If that slowed down, I don't think it'd really be a bad thing.

[kwhitefoot]

> It's that there's decreased motivation.

Unproven. In fact in North America several experiments suggest that it is untrue.