[alkonaut]

High taxes is both a blessing and a curse. Depending on what the taxes are spent on, they can really help. For example good safety nets for unemployment means you can risk failing your startup without being broke. Second, free higher education means the chance that the right entrepreneur gets the right education is higher.

> fragmented political system in the EU

To be honest it feels about as fragmented as US state law is.

> language burden to attract high qualified foreign employees

Language burden is very much still an issue for France. It's getting better but english is still not fluent even with younger people. I'm unsure if I could move there to work and never even worry about not speaking a word of the local language (like you can if you move to e.g. Amsterdam or Stockholm). I'm guessing english works OK for small Paris startup now, but moving to work with a larger company would probably require French?

Edit:

Also do remember that the US isn't really a startup heaven: the US hasn't got THAT many startups per capita. Just a lot of people and few per capita. One should probably be careful in assuming that the environment for startups in the US is the one to aim for.

[pjc50]

> feels about as fragmented as US state law is.

Under-rated point, this. California is a single giant market, but for lots of services the US has much less of a "single market" than the EU. Especially banking, finance, insurance, healthcare.