Given that the productivity per capita in France or Germany is maybe 10% lower than in the US, and that those are highly developed countries with centuries of industrial knowledge, you might want to adjust your definition of "tech company" a bit, because if those countries had no technology firms, they'd be quite a lot poorer.

The US has incredibly strong advantages in fields like the semi-conductor industry, but in transportation, pharmaceuticals and aerospace Europe is quite strong. And when you look at hidden champions and the integration of technology into small and medium sized firms, the US heartland has a big problem.

Or when you value privacy.

We do have tech companies but we don't let them grow beyond reason and extend their tentacular grip on almost all areas of society. Are you implying it's a bad thing?

Are you implying there are zero tech companies in Europe?

You mean tech as in internet based, I assume. Technology (in the actual sense of the word) based companies make Germany an economical powerhouse.

The large european companies with a big "stake" in the internet are non-technology based companies like publishers. These publishers hate the internet and they hate Google and Facebook because they see them as competition.

The result is shenanigans like Article 13. Also, the GDPR, with its anti Google and Facebook overtones, has received nearly nothing but applause from these stakeholders. So friction was light when it was pushed through by people who actually cared for the privacy aspects of it.