[flobanana]

Using a European solution just because it’s European sounds wrong to me. Sounds like we’ve done this kind of nationalism in the past and failed. There are other reasons why Europe isn’t attractive for bringing these kinds of technologies to life, and investor money is only a small part of it. Especially in a company’s early days. Building a market reserved for mediocre tech solutions sounds like the wrong way to make Europe more independent.

Maybe Europe shouldn’t copy the nationalism, but governments should copy some of the reasons the breeding grounds in the US and China exist. Think about how they got that far, and especially how China caught up so fast.

[barrell]

Two counters:

1. I'm not sure China caught up so quickly due to any lack of nationalism.

2. There's an allure to working with an EU business because it's in the EU because they're less likely to jerk you around. You have no idea how many times I get told their in nothing they can do, then have to drop the 'I live in the EU and this is illegal' card, and magically the problem is resolved by the next email.

[jimnotgym]

> Using a European solution just because it’s European sounds wrong to me.

That depends who you are, and what you are doing. If you have information stored such that having it in US infrastructure is a national security risk, then you might think differently.

>but governments should copy some of the reasons the breeding grounds in the US and China exist.

Which reasons should they copy? Massive government subsidies? Large grants masquerading as defence contracts? Threatening foreign governments to force market access with taxation lower than the native businesses? Are you saying European governments should favour European companies just because they are European?

[vjk800]

> Which reasons should they copy? Massive government subsidies? Large grants masquerading as defence contracts? Threatening foreign governments to force market access with taxation lower than the native businesses? Are you saying European governments should favour European companies just because they are European?

The US and China pulling all this shit is exactly why the whole European alternatives thing is trending. Before Trump started threatening everyone, we had no problem using US tech.

[Nursie]

I think that it's more a case of "Before Trump started threatening everyone, there were problems with using US tech but we chose to ignore them because it was too hard to do anything about it"

To my reading the US, despite the 'safe harbour' assurances, has never been somewhere that European people's data should have been sent, because we know that the US requires its companies to give access to that data on demand, usually secretly. So any assurances that data is entirely confidential are meaningless.

It's one of the reasons I was so incensed with gov.uk using google analytics and Zendesk (even though Zendesk has its origins in Denmark, it's now based in SF). Their pleadings that 'data is anonymised by google' were not reassuring at all, and it constitutes a complete record of UK citizen interactions with their own government, handed over to a US company on a silver platter.

At least now people are thinking about this stuff a bit more.

[culi]

Europe isn't a nation.

And the whole point here is a more diverse alternative to the extreme dependency on the US tech companies

[21asdffdsa12]

Nothing is a nation- but something bundled together by hardship. Europe is in for hardship.

[ArekDymalski]

>Building a market reserved for mediocre tech solutions sounds like the wrong way to make Europe more independent.

The traction which is proverbial "wind in the sails" for further development must come from somewhere. A new promotional channel might help with it.

Also I don't think it's any kind on nationalism. Just pragmatism for the very unstable times.

[blackcatsec]

I think the depths of the answers here, particularly with China, are far beyond the scope of technical discussion and to be honest likely beyond the scope of European-specific tech needs. Just because the US did one thing a certain way, and China did it another way; doesn't mean Europe must follow either of those to be successful.

However, it is going to require public funds to achieve. A public/private partnership scenario is very likely at least the near to mid term future for European tech development. And the world can only stand to benefit.

Politically, nationalism is absolutely very bad and it's a shame the world is headed in this direction. This global distrust only serves chaos agents and accelerates us into another World War (if we aren't already in the early stages of one). I had hope that people would prefer to come together but it's unfortunately too risky with US politics.

[vanviegen]

> and especially how China caught up so fast.

Isn't that largely nationalism and pressuring companies to use (initially) mediocre local tech solutions though? Once the market is there, quality catches up rapidly.

[breppp]

Creating mediocre alternatives sometimes pave the way for real alternatives as you create a talent pool.

China is an example, countries that had become technology independent through sanctions is another

[raincole]

> especially how China caught up so fast.

Nationalism, but armed with actual law enforcement and economical support instead of good intentions and lip service.

[SkiFire13]

> There are other reasons why Europe isn’t attractive for bringing these kinds of technologies to life, and investor money is only a small part of it.

And what are these other reasons?

[redrove]

> Building a market reserved for mediocre tech solutions sounds like the wrong way to make Europe more independent.

You can’t foster excellence if you don’t reward it monetarily (enough).

No unified capital markets, no high reward as an investor.

As an employer/employee takes a year to fire people even when they don’t show up, ergo the incentive is to coast.

As a founder you’re buried in bureaucracy and taxes, so the incentive is to stay an employee.

It’s a trifecta of shit.

[lefra]

> a year to fire people even when they don’t show up

In what country? I just checked, in France it's 15 days. The employer can ask to be paid the notice period, and the employee won't get unemployment benefits.

[jimnotgym]

> As an employer/employee takes a year to fire people even when they don’t show up, ergo the incentive is to coast.

That is not true in the UK. In the first two years of service you can fire someone without a reason so long as you were not being deliberately discriminatory. Burden of proof on the employee for this

After that you just have to go through a fair process. Your decision is not in question, just whether you followed a fair process. I have worked in a place that routinely fired people for being 1 minute late on three occasions. Late once, verbal warning, late twice, written warning, late three times fired.

> As a founder you’re buried in bureaucracy and taxes, so the incentive is to stay an employee.

As a sole trader in the UK you can set up instantly. You have 3 months to let the tax authority know what you did, but no real threat if you leave it a bit longer. Setting up a corporate entity takes 10 minutes online. You can have that done by your accountant and the annual accounts done for maybe £300. No need for an audit until you have cross 2 out of three of these thresholds

Annual turnover of no more than £15 million

Gross assets of no more than £7.5 million

Average number of employees of no more than 50

Immediately you get a significant tax advantage over employees.

Easy access to capital is harder, unless you went to high-end private school that is. Development capital is not that hard to get, but seed funding is harder.

[gib444]

> takes a year to fire people even when they don’t show up

Just curious: where did you hear this propaganda?