[marcinzm]

You've fallen into the classic trap of thinking about the very very very tiny of people who are billionaires. Very few people are billionaires. Very few startup founders will ever be even if they succeed.

Life changing money is going from $50k/year to $1m/year. Not from $1b to $2b.

The vast majority of tax burden and complexity hits the middle class.

> When Apple was founded, the tax rates were %70.

It was 35% on capital gains.

[mrtksn]

In Europe the capital gain tax ranges from %37 in Norway, %34 in France, %26 in Germany and Italy, %10 in Bulgaria and %0 with conditions in many other places. Tax heavens are a European invention anyway.

And no, millionaire or billionaire doesn't matter much. Europe lacks Billionaires not Millionaires. Europe is full of small businesses and by small I mean millions in profits and revenues.

In Europe %99 of the companies are small or medium sized enterprises, which is not different than the USA. In USA however, large companies have slightly higher number of employees which is an indicative of concentration of power and that's how you get your "USA has 5 unicorns in top 10 but EU has only 1" lists.

Contrary to the narrative, Europe has much more small and medium sized enterprises per capita: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/Micr...

[marcinzm]

> Europe lacks Billionaires not Millionaires.

It lacks both.

The US has 8.5% millionaires. Germany has 4.1. France has 5.6. Norway has 5.9. The UK has 5.8. Once you include the rest of the EU it goes even lower.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of...

edit: And in the US there's no need to start a business to be a millionaire. You can become one by just working a regular job. Sales, consulting, tech, finance, etc. jobs can even pay you $1m per year.

[myrmidon]

Thats not an entirely fair comparison because GDP/capita is different, and the base assumption would be that millionaires/capita increases with GDP.

That assumption appears to hold in general (Luxembourg and Switzerland have higher GDP and significantly higher millionaire percentages than the US), but there are a LOT of exceptions, like Ireland/Norway (way less millionaires than you would expect from GDP).

This is very interesting, I would not have expected to see such significant differences between countries...

[marcinzm]

From what I can tell the millionaire discrepancy existed in 2010 as well when the per capita GDPs between Germany/France/UK and the US were fairly close. The gini index for the US is much higher so it's not surprising that there's more millionaires per capita. And a lot more poor people per capita as well (once you account for the US's weaker standard for what constitutes poverty).

[brewdad]

EU has pensions. US has 401k plans. There may be more millionaires in the US but that, in and of itself, doesn't prove anyone is better off there.

[jandrewrogers]

The US has a pension, it is called Social Security, and it is relatively generous among developed countries. 401k is in addition to, not a replacement for.

[marcinzm]

I never said people were better off in one or the other nor is this a discussion about that. This is a discussion of the societal differences driving startups and risky investments.

[mrtksn]

With enough inflation the millionaires supply will increase, but that's not the point. Toplists and arbitrary round numbers doesn't mean anything. Let's stick with stuff that matter, like concentration of wealth.

[marcinzm]

> but that's not the point

You made it a point, not me. If you're going to try changing the goal post when proven wrong then there's no point in talking further.

[mrtksn]

Having less is different than lacking of. Europe lacks billionaires that can make large scale investments at whim like Elon Musk does. A more equal society has its positives but negatives too.