| I‘d argue that it‘s not a paradox . It‘s actually the same thing: People in Europe seem to be more focused on what is deemed „safe“. Parents don‘t want their kids to become „entrepreneurs“ - they want them to find a „safe job“. I‘m sure that many parents in the U.S. want that, too, for their children. But the U.S. is a country that was founded by immigrants. By people who, in the very founding of the country, broke with old traditions and with the „normal way“ of doing things. Another commenter mentioned that many startups seem to be headed by immigrants, or that many of the „big guys“ in Silicon Valley started out as such (PayPal Mafia, Google guys, WhatsApp...). It‘s the same thing: You need to break with tradition to become an entrepreneur. So, in a sense, you need to be standing a little „outside“ of the society in which you are moving. People who visit Europe from the U.S. often notice that Europeans tend to seem less open to random encounters with strangers, and that they tend to hang out in tight-nit social groups. This is, of course, a generalization. But having lived both in Germany and in California I see this as an accurate description. And I would argue that it‘s a lot harder to do a startup when you‘re inside a tight-knit social circle, where you have to explain yourself, where you face embarrassment if you fail, and where people might say „Who do you think you are, founding your own company?“. It‘s a lot easier to do that if you, as Steve Jobs once famously said, have freed yourself from the concept that you must do what you are told, and should not bump into the walls too much (i.e. the „rules“ according to which society claims to work). After all, a real startup is an entity designed to break some of those rules, and to replace them with new ones. Also, it seems to me that Europeans and Americans (especially Californians, East Coasters and Austiners) differ in where they seek salvation from their problems: In Europe, I would argue, it is still very much more the politicians and the state. And I do not think this is the case as much in those areas of the U.S.. Again, the observations of a better social security net on the one hand and a lagging behind in entrepreneurship seem to me not to be a contradiction, but two sides of the same thing. That idea that you can fix what you see as broken by doing a startup is slowly becoming a lot more mainstream in Europe, for sure. But, I think, for Europeans this is more a learned behavior, something inspired by what they see in Silicon Valley and in entrepreneurship shows as „Dragon‘s Den“, whereas in the U.S., it‘s always been a way of life and a philosophy for at least some substantial part of the population. Do not forget, also, that many countries in Europe were dictatorships just two generations before. In Germany, half of the country lived in socialism up until my parent‘s generation. In such an environment, you do not raise your kids to take risks, to put yourself in the spotlight, or to change the lives of others. And these values of „being safe“ and „fitting in“, they filter down, from grandparents, to parents, to children. It takes generations for them to die out. So there‘s that, too. |