[haizhung]

Define successful startups. As far as I know, there have been quite a few, but they are usually just bought out by the giant MANGA corporations.

I think what is true is that it is harder to get VC backed capital here, and hence a lot of “winner takes all” markets are won in the US. But that doesn’t mean that there is no striving startup scene in Europe, they just have different goals or measures of success than “grow a lot”.

Regulating that might even help European companies :-)

[nickpp]

By successful I mean profitable privately held, IPOed or acquired.

Growth is a must - large companies are market makers and a continent without them will become dependent on the ones that have them.

Bought out is also fine - that how you get investment capital.

Regulation only helps incumbent companies though, which is exactly the problem in EU.

[denton-scratch]

Well, you've just defined "successful" to mean rapidly growing, and by implication unconstrained by regulations.

European telecom companies are large tech companies, heavily regulated and successful. Yes, they are incumbents now. But they weren't always; at least not all of them.

[troupo]

Somehow your definition of success doesn't have the actual definition of success: sustainable profitable business.

It's easy to see why: all the startups loudly hailed as successful are running into billions of dollars of debt every year, but keep being propped up by unlimited investor money. In any other industry this would be a failure.

[nickpp]

If they are not sustainable they will go bankrupt. Are you saying all those investors are dumb and just burning money for the fun of it?! That's... interesting. More gain for us consumers then - subsidized goods and services!

[troupo]

> If they are not sustainable they will go bankrupt.

They would if not for the infinite subsidies

> Are you saying all those investors are dumb and just burning money for the fun of it?!

For example, Uber has not been profitable for a single year in its 10 years of existence.

Same goes for most if YCombinator's "top companies".

In which other industry can you lose money (often billions of dollars a year) and still be in business and claim you're successful.

[nickpp]

> infinite subsidies

There is no such thing. Private money is finite, it ends up eventually as investors want ROIs.

> Uber has not been profitable

Actually, they announced their first profitable quarter in 2023.

> In which other industry can you lose money (often billions of dollars a year) and still be in business and claim you're successful.

Well in the Government business, of course! Deficits around the world keep increasing and governments borrow trillions they never pay back.