[ralph84]

> not necessarily with such valuations

Well yes, if you remove the "unicorn" qualifier you can find lots of companies that don't give employees equity. In many European countries the tax treatment of stock-based compensation is quite unfavorable. Which is one of the reasons Europe doesn't have as many unicorns in the first place.

[cosmodisk]

I think employee comp is pretty low on the list of contributing factors. It's more like because: 1) US is huge market. Any company starting there has a huge headstart compared to one in Netherlands or Poland.

2) European VC sector is almost 20 years behind to the one in the US.

3) American VCs are more like to throw more money at you in general. Many European startups don't even consider seeking capital in Europe, because why get 500K if you can get 2M across the pond for the same thing?

4) Europe doesn't have such a shortage of tech talent as the US, primarily because of the differences in educational systems/funding model, etc. So companies don't need to pay 300K/year to get someone who can do magic.