[jacquesm]

What a load of crap.

There are tens of thousands of money making consumer facing businesses, the division - in my practice - between b2b and b2c is roughly 50/50.

What the USA has that Europe does not have is a huge advantage in terms of one language and currency to be able to address 300M+ people, and if you just look at the language you can add another 45M or so. That's impossible to compete with for anything with network effects or a market to launch a product in.

[Mahn]

I think at its core this is basically it. We can argue all day about the differences in culture and mindset, but the most significant advantage the USA has that the EU cannot effectively replicate (yet) is the access to a large, homogeneous single language single currency market from the get go.

The more interesting question would be why are Google and Facebook American and not Chinese or Indian.

[xnyan]

In addttion to the other reasons mentioned, the US higher education system churns out talent sourced here and abroad.