The growth of the European startup scene | Hacker News Reader

The growth of the European startup scene

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78 pointskoonsolo101 comments

The US has one thing that Europeans cannot compete with:

One language spoken by close to all 320M Americans as a native language and spoken by More than a billion worldwide as first or second language and which also happens to be the language most technology uses, incl in documentation and tutorials.

Would Google have reached global fame if it had been in French to begin with? Of course not. What about if Facebook started at Bocconi and in Italian? No way Americans would have adopted it (let alone Spanish or Dutch).

Bureaucracy, taxes and other obstacles are possibly worse in the US than in most European countries (I lived both there and in three different European countries). We have very little to learn from the US in that respect. But without a common language it's difficult for Europeans. It's not a coincidence that most good startups in Europe are in countries where English is a first or very strong second language (UK, NL, Scandinavia etc).

Have you been to much of Europe? English is spoken very well in much of Europe and, well, there's the UK and Ireland...

No it is not except for Scandinavia and just around Denmark. In reality the further south you go the more you really need to speak the local.

I have found it a lot easier to get by (talking to locals) in Tokyo using English than in for instance Madrid.

I can't comment on Tokyo but just to offer another point anecdote, I've found it pretty easy to talk to people recently in Portugal, Spain, Germany and Belgium.

Most communication starts with my apologetic expression for the cultural faux pas which is about to commited.

I then move on to a token effort at mangling the local language which finally ends with me being asked to repeat in English by a patient native.

That's just not accurate at all.

It's even less accurate again if you're moving in business/tech circles and not travelling around as a tourist.

No, if you go as a tourist to tourist locations you have better chances. But as a local when you take care of daily things you'll need to speak the local, and that's a given. And really as far as recruiting talent between EU countries goes, the language barrier is real between countries that do not speak officially same language.

All but a handful of EU countries. Lived in DK, ES and BG. I can tell you that very few teenagers speak English well enough to learn to program so they can start a Facebook at 18 year.

When I was a European teenager in the 1980s, I met many peers who were great programmers - given their age (around 15, 16). They all spoke English very badly. They just weren't interested in English, only in programming languages. These were self-taught kids who were also good in math and science. Apparently you don't need to know much English to get good at programming.

I think the argument was that a non-English Facebook likely wouldn't have taken off the way it has.

Have you been to France ?

Due to the high number of regional languages, most startups simply start with the English version of their product (if the product is not primarily aimed at their home country). So Google in France would have been in English first and French second.

That would never have worked.if you want to enter the French market you need a French product.

Would it? 18 years ago? I doubt it. Google itself is really not as good in other languages as in English, even today. Could French google in 1999 have become world class in a non-native language?

AFAIK, and IANAL, in France, you'd still need to support 2 versions from day one:

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

I just internationalised a UK startup to enter other EU markets, since doing so it has been a non-trivial amount of extra work just to keep it up. Not immense, but definitely a drag. There's all sorts of little extra cognitive overhead once a product supports two languages. Button widths, text lengths, layouts, email layouts, normalised date formats, even icons (for example we'd used a £ icon to indicate paid). We use SendWithUs templates, and now we have to upload all the translations too as part of a deploy. And that's not even counting the extra time to do the translation, upload it, etc.

Silly little things that a lot of programmers use without thinking, like basic date formatting like "ddd HH:mm", you simply can't do that any more. You need to agree shared formats and they don't always fit as you'd like them to, or quite convey the info you want them to. For example recently I'd have loved to say "Today 9:15", "Tomorrow 12:15", "Thu 14:15" or "Next Week", just for one specific place. But then you need to create a function to perform l10n on that and suddenly you're adding a big bit of extra functionality and you end up falling back on the shared .ToL10nDateTime() even though it's objectively worse at conveying the info you need to convey.

We've got a bunch of work in Alpha at the moment that's English only because we were under such time pressure to deliver it for one client. The time to insert all the place holders and do the client-side i18n meant we've parked it all to get the functionality out of the door for that client. Even though it will take more time in the long run.

As I understand it, a hypothetical French startup equivalent would be breaking the law by doing that.

Would it really be hard to transform a search engine tech developed for french or italian to english ?

I would not consider the language barrier as the largest obstacle. But the European scientific infrastructure can't even compete with Californias institutions and it gets much worse if you count in the whole US scientific infrastructure. Most of the world leading scientific institutions like Standford, Berkley, CalTech etc. are located in an area where scientific knowledge can get appropriate funding for a product. You simply cannot innovate or create something new without extensive research from universities or research labs. This is one of the problems.

The other problem is, in Germany at least, that the general population is not that well educated in computer science, since the educational curriculum is organized in a strict federal way. The German constitution even prohibits the state from cooperating with the federal education departments. CS should now be a major subject on the same level with math and physics, yet this kind of system makes it very hard to implement a curriculum for all of our pupils. This causes, that even a lot of young people are not that interested in CS and lack of basic CS knowledge.

This is a bit tangential and only based on recent events, but the US immigration uncertainty is probably going to be a factor in sustaining the ecosystem..

It seems to be much harder for European services to be "interesting" in the USA. There have been local counterparts to e.g. facebook before Facebook was a thing here. Still, we all moved on to FB later. Why? Not sure... Suddenly you find more and more of your friends in Facebook than in StudiVZ, more business partners in LinkedIn than Xing and so on. Many other companies just moved to the US, for example Unity.

I don't really think it's necessarily a language thing.

Unity's an interesting case, because they officially moved, but it was only the marketing and business side that moved, while programmers all stayed in Copenhagen. So this gave the impression of being an SF-based company, but SF was purely a biz office. More recently, the programming is actually being slowly moved out of Copenhagen too, for cost reasons, but to eastern Europe, not the US.

Right, seems many companies like that "SF/SV/whatever"-company label. That's sad. Goes so far that we have really small, local startups doing pretty impressive stuff... With a more or less empty "office" in SF and then in the hypish articles it's already an SF-based company.

Just because it sounds more impressive than "based in Rübenwald, Austria" ;). Patriotism isn't very strong either in German-speaking countries since WWII.

Living in Paris, I can feel a strong momentum of entrepreneurship and startups. ex: Recent "Station F" incubator from Xavier Niel is opening in 2018 and will be one of the largest startup campus in the World. Macron is strongly pro-startup. there are a LOT of options for funding (quite crazy when I saw how much we can get with my startup (Banque publique d'investissement, crédit impôt recherche...). It is really easy to start a startup, not much paperwork (surprisingly).

Contrary to 10 years ago, best students coming from "les grandes ecoles" want to be entrepreneur or join a startup. This is a radical change to the mindset from the past when the best opportunity would be in big companies. PhD start to be recognised as they should in private sector and more PhD are leaving academic to private (which I did).

Now, I think that comparing Europe to SV is too premature, (A change in culture is yet to come). But the dynamic is here.

In Paris, salaries in tech startups are high (for what I saw: ~42K junior, ~60 senior (5y)) compared to the cost of living (in France healthcare and education are free), rent is high. So yeah, I am confident for the future of Europe :)

edit: and from what I saw, most startups' products have english language available (interface/doc). Most of them have international expansion in mind.

> salaries in tech startups are high (for what I saw: ~42K junior, ~60 senior (5y))

Are the salaries at the big corps lower than that in France? In Germany, I get about the same working at a big software company in a developer/architect role.

I gave an average, in big companies it depends on which company you are working for, which "Grande ecole" you come from, and what position you have. I would say that the variance is quite high.

The article is the usual PR piece on startup sectors in the EU.

Unfortunately, writing hype articles like that do not make things better. From my personal observation, there is a huge difference in funding/regulatory/technology adoption and available workforce.

If Europe is better than Silicon Valley, where is the output? They have been silent compared to Silicon Valley in most markets.

To name a few --

Payments: Adyen, Transferwise, and (arguably) Stripe

Music: Spotify, Soundcloud. Shazam

Travel: Booking.com, SkyScanner

Fashion: Zalando

Telecommunications: Skype

Gaming: Rovio (Angry Birds), King (Candy Crush), Supercell (a.o. Clash of Clans)

> Stripe

The opposite. They specifically moved to US, presumably because it was so much better than EU.

https://patrickcollison.com/post/stripe-ireland

yet Europe has a population more than twice the US.

But a much more segmented market, what is your point? Europe is not a country.

The attempts of the EU try to make Europe something like a country ("United States of Europe") and yes, Europe is much more segmented (yet alone by languages, but also culturally). We all know the problems (a money union without a full political union and Brussel dictating to formally self-determined states/countries). You are twisting reality

The parent lists a handful of European startups. Just incase that list was being presented as an example of Europe's startup prowess, I just wanted to temper any enthusiasm by pointing out that on a per-capita basis, the density of startups is much lower in Europe.

> more than twice the US

... if you include Russia and Turkey. Otherwise, its population is about 60% larger.

According to wikipedia, in 2015, the population of Europe minus Turkey and Russia was 628 million, while the population of US was 321.5 million. That's about twice the US, without even addressing the debate about whether Russia and Turkey should be included.

Hiring people from abroad is also easier in Europe.

Wishful thinking, and hilarious that I had to clear a cookie notification just to read the first part of the article. It's that kind of forward thinking web bureaucracy that has allowed SV to flourish.

I didn't understand your comment.

1) Do you think cookie notifications are a bad thing ?

2) Do you think it is web bureaucracy ? If so, laws protecting every european citizen with digital neutrality are also bureaucratic ?

Personal Observation: Cookies are an antipattern since you have to sully your webdesign with this awful message.

There's a difference between protecting citizens and overloading them with meaningless warnings that just end up desensitizing them.

Indeed. Fortunately there is a filter-list [0] for my ad blocker with the sole purpose of blocking these EU cookie warnings :-)

[0] List homepage: http://prebake.eu/

While I agree that cookie warnings are an example of good intentions gone bad, as an EU resident I am EXTREMELY grateful for the consumer protection laws and privacy laws that ultimately resulted in that decision.

Whenever I'm at an international conference and see a talk about challenging ethical problems in software development it ends up being about practices that would be blatantly illegal under EU (and specifically, German) law in the first place.

Not every aspect of SV startup culture is awesome. I'm quite happy to live in a country where certain unethical behavior just isn't legal, even if it means less innovation and less bloated valuations.

This is a dupe of a recent posting:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14432977

What did this statement mean: "It’s very difficult for American startups to relocate post-Trump."

I hope not. The pay of developers is horrible compared to silicon valley.

Is that scaled to cost of living?

No, not by a long shot.

This. I moved from SF to Berlin accepting a 40% paycut. My standard of living in Germany was probably 2.5x compared to California.

However, I decided to go back to San Francisco. There is definitely much more interesting work in Silicon Valley, at least in my field. This may change over time but I am not holding my breath.

Makes you reconsider what quality of living really means.

Different people have different priorities. EU may be a better fit for some, while SV is for others.

Here's the thing with pay scaled to cost of living, it means things like pension contributions, ability to save, any property you purchase, are also scaled. There's a reason so many people flock to expensive cities early in their careers.

Very early stage startups might be able to move around Europe for a short period for cheap rents, you're going to be much less able to recruit staff (i.e. non-founders) to move from the West to Slovakia (as mentioned) to work for Slovakian wages.

Staff should be compensate based on the value of they provide rather than their living standard needs.

So, based on having -1 points on my comment, I can summarise your thoughts: employee compensation should be based on the living standard they needs, rather than the value they create. In sarcastic way: to max out your next a payrise, move to the most expensive city and buy a Pagani. That's an odd thought.

The cost of living is also a fraction of the one in silicon valley. I stayed in Silicon Valley for a few months and compared to Munich, the quality of living is complete horse shit, to be honest.

And Munich is the most expensive city in Germany.

What part of Silicon Valley? I am curious where the quality of living is horseshit.

No I wouldn't call it horseshit. What I said was, that compared to Munich, it's horseshit. But that's totally just an opinion. I lived in Mountain View.

Eh, I love it in Mountain View, but it isn't for everyone. I run a lot with friends, and there are a lot of great areas to run nearby (and in the Bay Area in general).

Everywhere? Once you get used to functioning public services (transit especially), density of services (groceries, cafes), and a decent return on your tax dollars for things like retirement savings and health care, even the Bay starts to pale.

That's not to say that all parts of Europe are better to live in than all parts of the US; but rich, central urban areas of the kind that techies can afford to live in are fantastic in Western Europe.

Public transit is crappy, but it's the US for you - outside of large cities, everybody's driving. I suppose in rural Europe the situation is the same, but there's not much to do in rural Europe if you're working in high tech. OTOH, San Jose - The Capital of Silicon Valley as it calls itself - is quite rural despite its large population, especially compared to cities like Munich. Thus crappy public transport.

Once you get past that - i.e. accept that you'd have to drive - the density of services is fine, they are pretty much same distance (measured in time) you'd find them in the city, except that you're driving there.

As for return on your tax dollars, can't compare to Europe due to lack of information. Healthcare is fine, retirement savings don't have much to do with tax dollars anyway.

European state pensions (the equivalent of social security in the US - also covers unemployment and (like SS) disability insurance) are much more generous than their US equivalents. The amount of your income that needs to go into private retirement savings erodes the value of higher US salaries.

How much more generous, compared to taxes paid?

But Sillicon Valley has higher vegan food for dogs density.

Yes in Munich it's hard to get good vegan food, but in Berlin it's as easy. I don't agree on dogs however. There are a ton of those in Germany.

and every supermarket has vegan food now.

runn1ng was being tongue-in-cheek and talking about vegan dogfood.

Oh shit that went right past my head lol.

Well first time I saw it was in SV, and couldn't believe that at first. But it apparently exists.

I bet you don't mean at central locations, because 10-20 miles further to your workplace, as most of Londoners or Berliners can afford to live, you have affordable housing in SV as well.

That's an interesting aspect I didn't consider.

Another issue though is traffic during rush hour in Silicon Valley. I can see myself traveling 20 miles in/around Munich in half an hour, while in Silicon Valley, that would probably take me 1.5 hours, because of the pretty much non existent public transportation.

London is not much better. E.g. from Hammersmith (a posh, well connected area) to Old Street (aka “Tech City”), this 14km journey is 46 mins from underground station to underground station, both are north to the river. https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/results?IsAsync=true&JpTyp... Sure, you can move around to carve down 10 mins, but then you give up to live in realitvely nice, convenient area populated middle class people and yet not as expensive as Chelsea or Chiswick. If you live further, your journey time from station to station is not much longer, but only if you are lucky and there is no delay in the service, which happens almost daily.

Berlin isn't anywhere near as expensive as you seem to think. Housing costs seems to be at around half of London's level.

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/london

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/berlin

1000 to 1250 EUR for a 900 Sqft apartment.

Can you please elaborate ?

SV seems like the place to be, but I lived in a cheap french city for the past 5 years, and I'm sure living in SV has its downsides in terms of quality of life. Bonus: please include numbers :).

I wonder: Would this argument still be true if you counted in the cost of living (which varies massively across Europe and also within countries and even cities). Europe is not only Paris and Berlin, in Germany actually the economic powerhorses often are based in the countryside (or close to larger cities) and cost of living is very okay.

They probably don't pay 1.5k/month to live in a RV.

Maybe pay in startups is not good, but if you need a kick of money, go contracting in big business and get wealthy... there is more than startups to tech.

Silicon Valley has 30bn venture cap. Germany 3bn.

I'm very skeptical of that claim. Besides the fact that every week we read an article about X city is the new Silicon Valley, Europeans in general don't seem to have that same drive Americans do to create new products. Which could explain why we haven't seen many large innovative tech companies come out of there in a while.

(Though in countries like the Czech Republic, and to a lesser extent places like Romania and Poland seem to have more drive, and the work ethic to boot.)

Edit: I'm not saying that they haven't achieved say a better work/life balance, but that their culture doesn't seem to produce very many world changing entrepreneurs as evidenced by so few companies being created there and that stay there.

I'm not sure what's going on with the Hacker News culture lately, but it seems to be increasingly hostile to diversity of thought. I get that comparing cultures has come under fire from the extreme political left, but that's no reason we can't have a discussion about it. I would like it if members didn't just downvote me, but engage me instead. Anecdotally, I've been to several European countries, I've engaged with local populations, and the culture is different. And empirically, they're not innovating anywhere near the rate the US is. I'm willing to change my views, I would love to be wrong and that Europe will experience an entrepreneurial renaissance, but I just don't see it. Tell me where I'm wrong.

Only because they have not yet come to the US, it does not mean they aren't productive, international businesses.

What are they waiting for? Why aren't they providing their services to the most lucrative market on the planet?

Why is not every US startup in EU, the biggest western other market? a.) maybe it does not make sense due to the type of product b.) maybe it is not time yet c.) maybe they find their home market profitable enough.

And don't get me started on US visa policies to start an office there. I for one am currently in the surprisingly easy straightforward process of hiring highly qualified Iranians - which surely hesitate to come to you currently.

> Europeans in general don't seem to have that same drive Americans do to create new products

Maybe they don't want to work 70 hour weeks?

Probably. Same result. These are trade-offs made in picking a social model. Higher subjective happiness, perhaps, in exchange for a loss of competitiveness. As long as the latter isn't so much that it makes the former unsustainable, I think it is a fair choice. Not what would make me happy, though.

Exactly. Elon Musk has been working 80 hour work weeks for the past 20 years now. I'm not saying that's anywhere near a balanced lifestyle. But without those sacrifices, it's much harder to produce innovative world changing products or services. The United States creates and draws those character types to it, and for many Europeans countries, they don't.

There's a body of research that corroborates the opposite claim, i.e., that past a certain point, working more hours does not correlate with -- or correlates negatively with -- effectiveness. So if Europe is less "innovative", the reasons are not likely related to a simplistic measure like hours worked.

And I am sure there are exceptions to that claim, e.g. Elon Musk. Not all humans are wired the same way. People that can work 80 hour weeks effectively are rare, which is why those types of CEOs have million dollar salaries.

On overall, probably not. There's a difference though between average load and peak load. Virtually nobody could sustain a 80 hour work weak for an extended time. A lot of people could do it for a short time, provided the possibility of a large reward.

I'm pretty sure the accumulation of capital that draws people to SV and New York. There were numerous studies, e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228200217_The_Geogr... . That's why it is really hard to set foot 50 miles further than the centre of VCs, not because it is harder to attract talent.)

“In Connecticut and Massachusetts the proportion of investments located within 50 miles of the investor’s home or office is 37% (Freear et al, 1992). In New England the equivalent proportion is 58% (Wetzel, 1981) while in Ottawa the proportion is 85% (this high proportion reflecting its proximity to different cultural and political milieus to the north and south and distance from other major urban areas in English-speaking Canada). In the UK, Mason and Harrison (1994) found that two-thirds of investments by UK business angels were made within 100 miles of home.” http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/15803/

This slowly changes, but still, matters.

Just about any study about effective I read concluded that working more then 50 hours a week shows you down.

Was supposed to be "slows".

Maybe. And that's totally valid choice. But hardly compatible with high-risk high-reward culture that most startups - at least initially - are. I mean, you certainly can run a startup on 9-to-5 40 days off per yer schedule. It just the chances of it succeeding will be somewhat less than one where people are willing to put 70 hour weeks in. If these diminished chances are enough for you - great. But overall the model would have less prolific startup scene - which is what, I think, we do observe.

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