Also capital and risk distribution. I visited Amsterdam and was interested in their history and how it took off after the invention of the corporation.
Corporations can end and the knowledge from them can go into a new venture (redemption). They can also raise capital through distributed ownership and distributed risk.
I wonder if anyone has written a history of the Dutch economy that can be also accessible to non-Dutch readers (i.e. translated to either English or French or Spanish). From a very outside view (i.e. mine) the Dutch used to be a very entrepreneurial society/people in the 1600s going into the 1700s, but it seems that by the 1800s that spark had gone. They're of course still one of the most developed nations in Europe and in the world, but it looks like in terms of risk-taking they're the same as us, the rest of the Europeans, i.e. behind the Americans and I'd say even the Chinese.
As a similar example the Italian economic historian Carlo Cipolla was blaming the wars and the associated pests/famines of the early 1600s for Italy's towns' fall into economic irrelevance. Not sure if they're easily accessible on the Internet, but in one of his books [1] he presents some charts where the population of entrepreneurial Italian cities of that time such as Firenze, Venice, Brescia, Lucca or Bergamo felt by more than 50% during 1600-1630 (give or take), which caused them not to be able to compete against Flemish and especially English clothes-related industry. I wonder if anything similar happened to the Dutch.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Before-Industrial-Revolution-European...
I'd say the spark is doing just fine, but it ignited a blaze that swept much of the rest of Europe, and the New World. The innovations that Holland rode to success just aren't uniquely Dutch anymore, so now they're back to competing on an even playing field.
The same happened to England after the industrial revolution. Once the new techniques spread to Germany, the US and elsewhere their special utility to the UK wasn't so special anymore.
The Dutch have embedded innovation/entrepreneurship so deeply into their society, it looks very different from American-style innovation. There are so many little innovative things here that startups would never get to. It is continuous, but not relentless -- as in, it occurs within the paradigm of working hours. Further, it tends to reflect the systemic intelligence of organizations, at a large and small scale.
Example Domains:
Transportation (all aspects), payment (online and off), festivals (incredibly innovative!), road construction, garbage pickup (yes! It's so futuristic!), child care & education, psychology, medicine...
In any of these areas, I can readily think of smart innovations that would impress Americans. The innovations are not of the "Uber for X", digital startup-based type. So, seeing the lack of Dutch statups in VC portfolios might suggest a less innovative culture. Here, entrepreneurship often occurs within the context of existing systems and organizations. It's a different, complementary way to think about things -- I rather like it.
Also, there are only 17 million people in the Netherlands. It's a much smaller market and startups that successfully capture this market don't necessarily transfer to external markets.
Further, when things are working really well, there isn't always a need for disruption... Nevertheless, things in the Netherlands never seem "done". Sure, there is great transportation, healthcare and education -- but that's because they are always ripping it up and building the future of it. Sometimes in the States, things can seem like we are just trying to keep the status quo from falling apart too badly.
Is our garbage pickup futuristic? It's certainly efficient and practical (which are probably the most important and most typically Dutch values), but there's nothing about underground containers that's out of reach for other countries.
I think much of our innovation and efficiency is actually in government organisations, from garbage pickup to our efficient and well-maintained infrastructure (you really notice the road quality drop when you cross the border with Belgium or Germany), to our 'polder model': talks between government, employers and labour unions to decide on employment standards that everybody can agree to so we won't have any strikes.
It's true that we don't have the kind of startup culture that California has, despite attempts from the government. I'm not sure why, but then again, even in the 17th century, our big innovation was the invention of the multinational, globe-spanning corporation, not the small startup. And a big part of the innovation there was not so much the risk taken, but the way those risks were mitigated: financial products that spread the risk around. Many ships at the time were funded were funded through a system of life insurance.
Consider the sheer amount of government funding it took for Silicon Valley to become possible, before any other factors. Among other factors it took decades of massive military funding for the radio and semiconductor industry to lay the foundation and attract the talent that would later branch out.
The biggest barrier to replicating this is government willingness to pour that kind of money into tech in a single area.
I've been part of an Amsterdam startup and 'started' my own companies with various people a few times, and my impression is that there are a few reasons for this:
1. much as it's easy to start a company, it seems difficult to get funding. The government seems to be trying, but it still feels less than what I read about SV (or at least SV in the past?).
2. the market is much smaller. once you need to deal with other countries with other languages, (tax) regulations that are often much more complicated and bureaucratic, cultural differences, etc., things get much more difficult, and I've noticed multiple small startups around here just don't bother.
3. for tech startup type workers at least, but probably for most workers here, there's less of a culture of jumping into a startup. we like our steady jobs, we are quick to complain about overwork, and there's all sorts of (good) protections that possibly make it more difficult to find employees and grow.
In regards to 3, the startup I worked for consisted of a just-out-of-school programmer, a wealthy-and-connected but inexperienced CEO, and a fantastic and experienced designer who, in his forties, decided to do something 'risky' and 'new'. He also came from wealth but had done very well for himself too. and later a social media/marketing person who was just out of college.
So the startup either involved people who could put it on their CV regardless of how well things went, or people who could afford faffing about for a while. I suppose I was in the latter camp, although that's more because I just don't spend much money and make enough as a front-ender currently that I can do 'cool' things without much skin in the game.
I hope NYC adopts the system. I agree, it is totally within reach.
If the Dutch are just as entrepreneurial as Americans, then there will be way more successful Americans and American companies because the USA is so much bigger. Ditto for China. You'd really need to calculate "successful entrepreneur per 100,000 people" or something like that.
Also, selection bias. You're on a tech website. Switching to Denmark for a second, the Danes are incredibly ahead and successful in the wind power industry. How many people think of Denmark as a tech centre? Probably not many. We focus on software and there, one or two regions of America have done extremely well so we give it more attention.
That said, I do believe Europe and the EU in particular is discouraging innovation and entrepreneurialism at a pretty staggering rate. The Vestager rulings send a loud message that the EU considers hurting competitors to be anti-competitive behaviour (vs harm to consumers). That's a pretty big disincentive to work hard to get big.
Read up on SEC decisions (including the AMD vs Intel one) and you'll see similar lines of thought
Because in the end hurting competition is hurting consumers. Like in MS actions against BeOS
Even that wouldn't be enough, because the supporting apparatus and immediate market for a Dutch entrepreneur would be still very much smaller than for a US based on - so Dutch entrepreneurs should expect less support and not as good environment for their steps to grow their company, even if as a ratio there are e.g. twice the Dutch entrepreneurs for 100,000 people compared to the US.
>That's a pretty big disincentive to work hard to get big.
That sounds good. Now if we (EU) could also prevent other countries from having corporate behemoths that would be perfect...
Google is a medium sized company by many measures. There are companies with far more employees, offices, and physical footprint for example. Who are you to say that this company is a "behemoth" but for example Volkswagen ($221 billion of yearly revenues) is not? Where is the line drawn?
I think a lot of entrepreneurs are motivated by the thoughts of huge success. If a government says that success will be punished the moment two-bit competitors complain (as e.g. tiny websites that nobody ever cared about complained about Google Shopping), then why set out on the arduous journey to create a big firm?
AMD vs Intel is different. In cases like that, it's obvious how to avoid problems: don't pay companies to not use your competitors. That seems reasonable.
But with something like Google Shopping vs companies so small and worthless that the EU's press release doesn't even bother to name them (nor does Wikipedia's page on the case), it's not at all clear what lessons entrepreneurs should draw. Don't add features to your own product? Don't be too successful? I followed all three cases closely and frankly to me the enforcement looks arbitrary and vindictive (and yes I'm an "EU citizen"). The Commission decided - entirely arbitrarily - that Google Shopping must be the dominant way to buy things online, which will come as news to people who use Amazon or Ebay or European equivalents like Zalando.
No, I assume I know what kind of businesses I prefer to deal with, and that is smaller...
>Google is a medium sized company by many measures. There are companies with far more employees, offices, and physical footprint for example. Who are you to say that this company is a "behemoth" but for example Volkswagen ($221 billion of yearly revenues) is not? Where is the line drawn?
Wherever the people and their votes/laws want to draw it, with as many exceptions to the rule as they like?
>I think a lot of entrepreneurs are motivated by the thoughts of huge success. If a government says that success will be punished the moment two-bit competitors complain (as e.g. tiny websites that nobody ever cared about complained about Google Shopping), then why set out on the arduous journey to create a big firm?
Well, then don't. That's fine by me (people not setting out "to create a big firm"), and would be totally OK in my perfect world.
Now those are personal preferences. But ,y main point is not communism but democracy: people being asked, and being able to decide and set course for the society they like.
As opposed to letting the "laws of historical materialism" (communism), the fuhrer (fascism), or "the invisible hand of the market" (capitalism) decide for them...
http://blog.yalebooks.com/2015/08/11/the-worlds-first-corpor...
https://qz.com/219270/bazacle/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazacle_Milling_Company
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03044...
Sadly the east India trading company resulted in untold millions of death for people on the wrong end. But it made a lot of money.
Another bit I learned was how the Dutch stopped Napoleon by flooding their country.