It's been my experience that the people who are involved in, and want to be prominent in[1], venture/entrepreneurship/funding in Europe are cargo culters, and their idea of tact is not the same as in the UK/US - they also don't do a good job carrying off lovable arrogance, like Americans and Brits have much practice doing.

Case in point: ZenDesk. Their "here's our new price, this is transparent cuz we didn't charge you without telling you" bit and then their non-apology apology, and CEO's tweets complaining about their upset customers, etc.

That behavior, and this behavior, are cut from the same cloth.

I wish the above weren't my experience, seeing as I'm an American transplant in Austria, naturally. I'm invested in it NOT being that way. And yet, there it is.

[1] There are plenty of people in the venture/entrepreneurship/funding game in Europe who aren't like this, I imagine, but the prominence-seeking seems to be the indicator for being unlikably, and unjustifiably, arrogant.

EDIT: replaced start with number to solve formatting issue