[jasoneckert]

Several organizations in my area of Canada (including ours) have this as a directive right now too, and are actively exploring options for ensuring data is hosted in Canada or Europe (or have already begun or completed their migrations).

[hununu]

Being hosted in Canada is no longer the safety many assumed before. In reality it should not be an American company beholden to the current administration.

[throwaway2037]

And that has never happened to any European company, right? (I'm looking at you ASML.) By your logic, does that mean that most European nations are "no longer the safety many assumed before"?

[joe_mamba]

Not just ASML, when I working in EU at another major Dutch semiconductor company, the leadership and decision making was mostly US-based and centered around US policies, even if the HQ was still technically in the NL, but because PE and most other major investors were all US Bay Area.

For example my manager had to reject a candidate from Iran, simply due to US policies, even if that wasn't against the EU policies, and would actually have been illegal discrimination in the EU where the position was opened, but this policy came from the US and was applied in an unwritten fashion in the EU.

The influence of the US on finance and tech is massively understated. Plenty of international EU tech companies whose business model doesn't revolve around catering to the EU market and sovereignty, will tailor their products and operations to comply with US regulations since that's where a lot of their customer base and money is made. Just read the last post of the CEO of Bird, you can disagree with him that he's a scumbag and he's full of shit, but the truth is if you want your SaaS to make money, you gotta be in the US. That's why Mistral has a large presence in SV and London. Continental EU just sucks for acquiring capital.

Even at the no-name Austrian startup I used to work before, the biggest investor was a US PE, since no German or Austrian investor wanted to invest more than 5 figures in the company, which was not enough to cover the payroll of the ML/data scientists. As long as the EU investors refuse to invest in domestic companies and their future, EU companies will forever be tied suckling to the US teat if they wish to grow and survive.

[embedding-shape]

> but the truth is if you want your SaaS to make money, you gotta be in the US

Worth specifying here you're talking about VC-infested SaaS, not just your run-of-the-mill bootstrapped SaaS. It's very much possible to run a SaaS in Europe and make money, as countless of people already do, which I'm sure you too are aware of, but probably way harder to raise similar amount of money as US companies, that I'd agree with.

Edit: Strange typo; s/infested/invested, but kind of makes sense like that too so I'll just leave it, Freudian slip or something.

[joe_mamba]

Spotify was also a " VC-infested SaaS".

[embedding-shape]

are*, but yes, they are. Not sure what that dis/proves, but indeed they've taken money from VCs.

[thrownthatway]

Out of curiosity, did the startup you used to work for survive?

[joe_mamba]

Yep, they grew quite well, though it was pretty toxic, just like a lot of small Austrian companies with PE as investors, lots of layoffs and people coming and going all the time, mismanagement, too much dependence on cheap foreign student visa labor, etc.

[throwaway2037]

    > when I working in EU at another major Dutch semiconductor company

Ok, come on, please stop playing this silly HN game of: "another major ... company". There can only be four other options: NXP, SMM, BE Semi, Nexperia.

Or a bit deeper: SMART Photonics, EFFECT Photonics, Nearfield, Prodrive Tech, Neways Elec.

Which one?

    > As long as the EU investors refuse to invest in domestic companies and their future, EU companies will forever be tied suckling to the US teat if they wish to grow and survive.

Let me respond in the most offensive manner possible: Do you prefer the teat of US or China (or Russia!)? Pick your poison.

[antonvs]

There are plenty of reasons to think China could be a more stable and safe business partner for the EU than what the US has become.

[joe_mamba]

>Ok, come on, please stop playing this silly HN game of: "another major ... company".

It's not a "silly HN game" to not want to doxx yourself. Ironic criticism from someone whose username is 'throwaway2037' lol.

>Which one?

Exactly THAT ONE you mentioned above.

>Let me respond in the most offensive manner possible: Do you prefer the teat of US or China (or Russia!)? Pick your poison.

You can't talk about being sovereign if your life depends on someone else's teat.

[andruby]

The example you mention is a tricky one, ASML is about as European as it is American. It is heavily subject to US export controls because its machines include US components, US software and US IP. They operate multiple R&D centers and factories in the US and employ a lot of US employees (~20%)

[throwaway2037]

    > The example you mention is a tricky one...

Let me generalise: Does your tech company use CPUs from Intel, AMD or Qualcomm, or NVidia GPUs or memory from SK Hynix, Samsung, or Micron, or harddrives/SSDs from Western Digital, Hitachi, IBM, Toshiba, etc., or motherboards from (any Taiwan manuf.)? Or anything produced by Samsung or TSMC? If yes (1000% of tech companies), then you are potentially subject to the magic wand of US sanctions and soverign interference. To be clear, do not read that last paragraph as a support of this soverign interference, only an acknowledgement of it.

The first time I heard that the US was "requesting" (surely a gun-to-head moment) that the Dutch Gov't restrict ASML exports to China, personally, I was stunned. Sure, the Netherlands and US have incredibly strong political, economic, security, and historical bonds, but I never expected US to interfere so deep into the Netherlands. And yet, the Netherlands capitulated. (Please don't read this as a criticism of NL -- they are ultimately "Real Politik" due to their population size.) If NL can fall, then so can any other nation in Europe (or Northeast Asia: JP/KR/TW), except Belarus and Russia.

[pyrale]

This line of discussion comes up often on HN, and it's really annoying. It's the equivalent of people bringing up nuclear warfare in geopolitics discussions.

Yes, people know we live in a globalized world, and yes, people know the US has ways to pressure Europe. The point of Europe's moves to host in Europe isn't to get immune from foreign influence ; it is to make interference a bit more costly and a bit less effective, in a way that doesn't cripple our society.

[libertine]

Out of curiosity, couldn't ASML replace the all of those elements with either their own development or new suppliers?

This is taking into account the worst case scenario, which isn't that unlikely to happen.

I mean, for sure there are these plans in motion already, but how hard would it be?

[oneplane]

Not really, some of the IP is core to the product and it cannot function without it. In theory if you do something like come up with a complete replacement for EUV, you could, but everyone with deep pockets has already been trying to do that without success. Same goes for the supply chains, most companies (including ASML) don't manufacture everything themselves; so components that come out of the US would need non-US suppliers, which don't always exist.

I suppose it's a case of 'technically possible, realistically infeasible'.

A more likely scenario might be either a from-scratch not-as-good machine that you can source locally (supply-chain wise) or a novel finding (which is hard to predict if it will happen and if so, when).

[throwaway2037]

Agree. This blog post about the history of ASML is absolutely brilliant: https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/how-asml-took-over-the-wo...

[tick_tock_tick]

ASML is not really a good example it's basically an American company because of it's history.

[throwaway2037]

You lost me here. I disagree. Sure, they have a lot of sales to US. However, the design and engineering is absolutely done in NL. Yes, I know they have a huge global supply chain.