Whether they're actually able to lead to the creation of European Googles and Facebooks is a different question.
Also curious to hear more about these powerful special interests and "rentiers" - any specific examples in mind?
I would think that is because the payouts are much lower. And with lower payouts, options are worth less to attract talent at below market (salary) rates.
Those companies exist because of american entrepreneurship culture, and how corporate laws work in the US. US companies have a lot of freedom to throw money right and left to do things because IT moves fast, and that is just not possible in europe at all.
Also those companies are flagships, but they also are criticized because they are big brother type agents. They centralize data from users of the entire world, and let's be honest, it gives an information advantage for american interests (meaning geopolitics, economics, business).
Those companies are not just products, they also are a big advantage for three letters agencies and business intelligence as well. I'm sure a similar european google or facebook would either be bought by US company or see its employees offered jobs at facebook/google.
Europe is not interested in having such companies, because europe doesn't have investors to throw money like megalomaniacs at anything that pops up. Europe is more traditional.
So yeah, the US is the center of the world, there are geopolitical reasons for it, and they are logical reasons why it is also the case for flagship IT companies.
Yes you can't address that big of a market immediately, but if you're into the whole rapid expansion VC thing, having a big market helps a lot more than having a thousand tiny markets does.
Where I'm from, Slovenia, basically nobody builds startups for the local market anymore. You go straight for global and that shit's hard. Would be nice to have a bigger local market that you can experiment with.
In what respect? Berlin and Munich are 363 miles apart, share standard German, a currency, a time zone, a prime minister, some culture, legal system...
Are you referring to class/wealth?
Munich/Bayern - old school, conservative, traditional.
Berlin - multicultural, hipster.
Kind of like SF vs. Dallas.
That said, they are both very German and it's a little bit of a stretch to say they are different markets.
But Germany and Spain are night and day different and building for EU-wide is very hard.
Not only are there different markets, but Europeans have strong cultures, which include behaviours - they don't jump a 'the new thing' because it's cool.
America is a land of fads and trends, people like new activities, new dynamics - also, people are always in search of identity, and 'brand power' is powerful in the US across the board, just as some American brands have considerable cultural power in China.
There are basically no places in Europe with a critical mass of early adopters for anything in tech, so it's tough. Some spots, yes, and numbers overall, yes. But no hot-zones.
What the? People get in line to buy iPhones here too, Europeans are not all smart. Europe is not just the CCC and The Fabulous Destiny of Amèlie, people are addicted to Facebook about the same as Americans.
Which would make the US no more homogenous than Germany at least.
> There are basically no places in Europe with a critical mass of early adopters for anything in tech
Finland pretty much invented the mobile business (and the US still lags Europe), and European startup culture is very strong in London, the Nordics, and Berlin, (with Paris and Amsterdam also starting to make a play). Where do you think Skype, Spotify, Soundcloud, and Angry Birds come from?
Neither it, nor even Germany/UK/France have a critical mass of tech people or early adopters.
There isn't very strong 'startup culture' anywhere in Europe, unfortnately.
You listed basically all of the notable startups to come out of Europe in one sentence, which is not good.
I've lived all over Europe as well as the US, I'm aware of the differences.
There just isn't a strong cluster of tech-types, nor strong movements of early adopters for most things in Europe.
I will give you Skype though - Skype was a huge hit in Europe in 2004, especially because calling/long-distance rates were so crazy expensive - that's actually a pretty good example of a Euro-based startup hitting the local market well - i.e. 'in their pocket books' where it matters, in a way that kind of transcends national boundaries.
A startup that conquers fast/easy/cheap currency exchange, I think will likely do well in Europe as well.
But it's hard to build early adopters there, unless you hit it right.
^ This is what Revolut is doing right now in europe
Yes Finland is smaller than Los Angeles and yet pretty much invented mobile - that would seem to invalidate your point about scale. Scale removes agility and ability to innovate, it's the sole competitive edge of startups. It's also why the US mobile market still lags blocs made up of smaller markets like Asia and Europe.
> There isn't very strong 'startup culture' anywhere in Europe, unfortnately.
The Nordics would disagree and has a track record to back that up.
> You listed basically all of the notable startups to come out of Europe in one sentence, which is not good.
Hardly, I just pulled a small handful out of thin air. Here's a bunch more - https://medium.com/startup-grind/the-100-startups-which-rais..., http://www.wired.co.uk/article/europes-100-hottest-startups-...
> There just isn't a strong cluster of tech-types, nor strong movements of early adopters for most things in Europe.
I've visited a lot of the US via tech conferences (largely in college towns and hi-tech hubs). The US has no claim whatsoever here. I'd say it was possibly marginally behind Europe and way behind Asia, where I visit frequently for business. I'm including LA, SF, NY in this assessment which are starting to look like provincial towns compared to the likes of Shanghai or London. The US is notably more advanced at marketing, which is what you are seeing here; if the US had anything to compare to Shenzhen for example we would be hearing nothing except stories about US leading the world in cutting edge HW innovation from hacker-makers. I was going to add that the US was very much ahead in tech financing (and it is compared to Europe, which makes US tech itself look comparatively weak if anything) - but I think the Chinese gov is considerably outspending SV now.
That's a claim frequently made in regards to EU antitrust actions, and it is easily disproven by the data that shows US companies being underrepresented in terms of levied fines compared to their revenues in the EU.
Any European competitor would be subject to the same sort of fine if they behaved similarly.
How would that be any better?
And you're back on square one. Instead I suggest vote with your dollar, choose a different service that better suits your needs than making more govt regulations (and infringing on everyone's rights)
Kinda like the Chinese are doing by having Chinese clones of all the big UIS technology companies.
No, it really does help large entities wield their power even more.
The billions of dollars that the big cos have stockpiled ensures they can suck up the talent, attack new markets and keep competitors at bay.
It's not the biggest thing, but it's a thing.
A) They have massive operations internationally and hire a lot.
B) Did you witness Microsofts dismantling of Nokia? That was a takedown of an entire ecosystem and huge gift to Apple and Google/Android as well. Paid for by cheap taxes overseas.
For every one person working at Nokia, there was another, in a company, somewhere else selling to them, buying from the, distributing for them.
The same thing happened at BlackBerry.
I'm not talking about 'apps' - I'm talking about a 'business' eco-system and value chain.
And Facebook was barely making any money while it was becoming the dominant social network.
How though?
I don't know what you think the precursors to a civil war looks like, but between ignored Occupy protesters' issues, the Tea Party being co-opted into an anti-abortion group with their original complaints being ignored, and the BLM movement that grew out of Ferguson feeling ignored by those in power, the U.S.A. isn't exactly super stable at the moment. There is a huge group of people who feel (rightly or otherwise) that they have genuine grievances and are willing to get arrested for it.
What spark would be required to light this flame?
Mass media just magnifies the angry 1%, creating mountains out of molehills.
eg the Bay Area has maybe 100 BLM/Antifa instigators total. Every police incident involves that same small group of people, but the media hypes up the number of incidents.
Some group postures to look significant, the media obliges to get ad revenue, a handful of people get caught up in the hysteria, and everyone else... yawns. A homeless man delaying BART by 20 minutes causes more wide-spread civil unrest.
People are upset, yes, and America desperately needs a functional Congress... but we're not even close to
> There is a huge group of people who feel (rightly or otherwise) that they have genuine grievances and are willing to get arrested for it
Yes, but how many who agree with them, but have day jobs they need to go to? I can assure you that my childhood friend was not joining the BLM protests, but he was still calling for Nazis to try to march in Oakland.
* "Racists march in racist territory to intimidate people elsewhere" * "People elsewhere goad the weak cowardly racists"
Uh, obviously? I'd be surprised if that didn't happen.
Racism is not popular. Oakland isn't alone, I have heard the same sentiment from New Yorkers, Seattleites, Houston; urban areas do not tolerate that kind of anti-American discrimination.
Relevant blog: https://predictiveheuristics.com/
Our economies are very dependent. That alone would be catastrophic. It would make Russia, China etc more confident in taking more territories and putting more demands on EU. Handle refugees from there would put a lot of strain on us too. If not-nice-people would won, and civil wars tend to be won by wannabe dictators, we would be even in bigger trouble.