[Rinzler89]

>Billions upon billions of funding for research

That's a hint at the problem. We spend a lot of taxpayer money to train some of the best researchers and scientists in the world, only for them to work for US or Chinese companies boosting their economy instead, because they pay more than the European companies.

Just look at Nvidia, Huawei and Apple, they have an R&D centers next to every top university in Europe or next to every ARM/Nokia/Ericsson office.

The problem isn't the money spent on training/education, it's the lack of top economic opportunities/companies we have in a lot of parts of Europe resulting in our tax money boosting the economies of our economic adversaries, who are less risk averse and more hungry about innovation and monetization.

[fvdessen]

The lack of top economic opportunities/companies is not strictly a EU problem, it's a everyone except China/US problem. Japanese workers were earning 2x as much as American ones in 1990. Now they're earning less than half.

I think this comes down to USA/China being big countries with a huge and homogenous consumer and stock market. This allows to scale fast to a point where you can simply crush the competition. The other small countries are all protecting whatever they already have to not be completely crushed, which makes it even harder for them to scale.

For example I am working for a successful startup in Belgium. We have a hard time entering our neighbour's market because of existing players, protectionist policies and just how different things are there, and so is it for them. Maybe with a huge capital we could make it happen, but in the end everybody knows we'll all get crushed by an American company, so nobody really wants to invest.

This could be solved with more EU integration, and with less economical protectionism at the national level so that national champions can leave place to bigger European ones. But everyone is blaming EU regulation for this situation and we're moving in the exact opposite direction.

[Rinzler89]

>This could be solved with more EU integration, and with less economical protectionism at the national level

Absolutely no chance, especially on how right wing and nationalistic the EU elections are swinging lately. We'll just see more national protectionism. That's the problem with the EU. It's not one country where all the resources are pooled, like the US or China, but an alliance of several fiefdoms where each of them wants to be king and won't hesitate to backstab the rest (see abusing veto rights) to gain a perceived advantage with populists back home at the expense of everyone else's monetary disadvantage. The constant political squabbling between members is bittern than tooling up and going to war like in the old days, but it's holding us back compared to US and China.

>For example I am working for a successful startup in Belgium.

Would you recommend moving to Belgium for a career in SW development as a non Speaker of Dutch or French? I'm not looking for a fancy big-tech career or to change the world or make insane wealth but just to work in a leisurely environment with no stress and enjoy life.

[fvdessen]

I'm not sure it is more leisurely than other countries, and the winters are hard due to lack of sunlight. OTOH Brussels is very international, english is perfectly fine for work and life. It is also quite a fun city if you like the vibe and make the effort to dig under the surface. Antwerp / Ghent are less international and speaking dutch would be more important.

[Rinzler89]

Actually I don't like Brussels that much, too crowded, dirty and overpriced for me (sorry if I offended anyone). I liked Ghent and Antwerp far more when I visited, felt more chill and laid back, easier to get places by cycling and walking, while being cleaner and less rough.

Don't know the tech market or how the population feels about non-Dutch/French speaking local. I would of course try to learn the language and integrate but it will take me a while.

[fvdessen]

No offense taken, I don't think you'll have any issue, and the tech market is relatively good

[goethes_kind]

I agree that the problem is not entirely to be blamed on the respective governments. The lack of private investment is a fundamental part of the puzzle. I have been trying to figure out why private capital loves to take huge risks in the US but is so financially conservative in Europe and I am not yet satisfied with the answers I get.

[Rinzler89]

Well for one, Europe is conservative because it's more into protecting the wealth of the old gentry, the old families who used to run the continent, rather than disrupting it to build new wealth for others, therefore is a lot more risk adverse and instead just rentseeks and monetizes what they have like tourism and valuable real estate .

And secondly, the US can afford to outspend Europe at VC funding since it's not spending actual earned money from taxes, blood sweat and tears, but "monopoly money" they could keep printing for free as they own the credit card for the world reserve currency.