| Thanks for engaging. People weaponizing the downvote here without good faith discussion is disappointing but expected on HN recently. It's OK, you can take my HN points. > The EU has a tremendous number of smart software engineers.
Yes. > They're more than capable of recreating the US tech stack locally. No. Where are the dozens of European tech winners? Seriously. They have the best education system in the world, strong social safety nets, cheap healthcare, and great lifestyles. Why have they not created innovative technologies that turn into worldbeating companies? It's worth seriously asking this question. Many serious tech companies ultimately move to the U.S. because of capital availability but this should be addressable no? EU has big banks and pools of capital? The ball has been there to take for 30-40 years. Europe has not consistently manufactured winners in the tech space. > Opensource
Let's see. We hope. But this doesn't seem to have been a good strategy in Web 1 or Web 2 besides a couple of notable exceptions. But notable exceptions don't power an economy. > Europe ends up richer
I don't see how. This is the problem. They cannot build. They don't have the raw materials. The land. The labor supply. The power. This is getting closer to the root cause. Have spent many years in Europe. Rooting for them. Just not sure they will figure it out. |
This is a great question. I'm Australian, and I ask myself the same question constantly here in Aus. The engineers I graduated with in Sydney are easily as good as the engineers I worked with in the Bay Area. But where are all the startups?
Having worked in Aus and SF, I think the two big elements are culture and finance. We don't have a culture in Aus of risktaking and entrepreneurship. People just seem less interested here in changing the world by starting a tech company. If you do start a business, you're kind of on your own. There isn't a community of people who've done it before who can guide you. And there isn't the same sort of venture capital here. Lenders only want to make sure bets. There's money for low risk, low yield lending. But there are barely any funds for high risk, high yield. The successful tech startups I know in australia bootstrapped themselves (Fastmail, Atlassian).
As far as I can tell, Europe has the same problems. Europe has capital, but I don't think that capital it looking to make angel investments.
But maybe cutting ties with the US tech scene would help change that? So long as Google Docs works well, nobody is clamouring to make or fund a competitor. But take google docs away, and suddenly there's a clear need and a chance to make a lot of money. That could spur innovation.