Lack of Entrepreneurial Culture Seen as Europe’s Biggest Obstacle

Well, in this particular case, they may very well be right. But things like this really bother me: "traditional engineering-driven approach to business, with its emphasis on perfection, longevity, pride in ingenuity and culture of deep-thinking put the country at a competitive disadvantage in the fast-moving new economy". Really ? That's all he had to say about what made Germany an economic powerhouse on par only with Japan ? Oh, what we need then are more social media experts, I'm sure, to drive value creation through synergistic customer discovery. I'm pretty sure he's beating on a strawman here.

Also, the last piece of candy: 'The so called “poor countries,” such as Brazil, have this hunger. They are going to catch up on us.'

And how is that a bad thing ? Good for them.

Yet here we are and looking around my neighborhood in Oregon I see VWs, Audi's, Mercedes and Porsches, our dishwasher is a Bosch and any serious Oregonian owns a Stihl chainsaw.

While I agree that a shocking number of young Germans (and likely other Europeans) are looking for the security of a "Beamter" (civil servant) job, there are definite pros to the German system and I think to keep the balance maybe it's not so bad we have countries with different systems.

Here in the USA almost everyone is an amateur at almost everything we do and that breeds excellence from a few but also a lot of shoddy work. In Germany it's the opposite, the general skill level in industry, science and even culture is relatively high but there are few international standouts.

I think software and software entrepreneurship is particularly well suited to the American system.

Interestingly, in my work as an embedded systems engineer there are a lot of German companies offering development tools (Keil and Hitex come to mind) and other specialty hardware. Not everyone has to develop the next Groupon or Facebook, there are a lot of other possibilities.

I especially laughed at the line that perfectionism and proper engineering are bad for startups. This explains a lot. (Yes, when it comes to selling stuff that doesn't work and you don't need in the first place, Europe has a lot to learn. Every service-based industry does better in the US.)

Meanwhile, the amount of companies founded per year is on a steady rise, so there is a entrepreneurial movement, it's just different. Not saying that either approach is perfect, don't get me wrong. It's just that I don't get those "Europe is worse because it doesn't have companies like Facebook" articles.

Neither Europe nor the US has lots sweat shops with Asian conditions, are we both now hopelessly behind this and should mend our ways?

Rohloff make a product as finely engineered as any swiss watch, but in doing so create an anti-consumerist product. Their product is built to last forever and usually does. While their Japanese, American and Italian competitors battle to create ever more fragile "racing" components and strive for ever increasing levels of built-in obsolescence, Rohloff obstinately refuse to make anything the most durable and reliable product.

If we measure the wellbeing of society purely in terms of GDP, Rohloff are a disaster; But the only way for Rohloff to improve profitability would be for them to throw their customers under the bus. There is nothing left to improve in a Rohloff Speedhub - it is for all practical purposes perfect. Any possible "improvement" would benefit the marketers, not the customer.

I prefer Mercedes and BMW to Cadillac and Lincoln. I would rather see my country emulate Germany than America.

the biggest obstacle is that the government won't go out of your way.

1. i could start my company now

2. but it would be stupid, as i would miss out on the "unternehmensgründerförderung" (start up support)

3. for getting "unternehmensgründerförderung" you have to attend a sh#tload of courses (for about 2 months) which tell you nothing about starting a business, but a lot of "what you have to do so that you don't get into trouble with the government later"

3.1. and they tell you a sh#tload of things about things you have to do to get a 'unternehmensgründungs' grant for your business

3.2. during that period your business is forbidden to earn money

4. as soon as you start your startup you have at least half a month of work outlined on what you now have to do to please your government

5. even if your company would just exists for 1 minute, you will get herrases by the government and insurance companies for the next 3 years.

oh, and every time the government discusses that fact that there are not enough new companies, they talk about another 'development program' (a.k.a. grant) which you then get educated about, if you want to or not.

sometimes i think i'm becoming an anarchist, an entrepreneur-anarchist.

The whole school system is fundamentally broken. Since elementary school to the very last stages of university education I've been told to study, work hard and eventually, with time, gain access to some big and famous corporate in a responsability position, get a lifelong contract, settle down and enjoy life. That should have been my professional life goal.

Entrpreunership isn't even remotely considered. It's like it was 'none of my business', as companies were somehow a father-son 'inheritance'. Add to that a very entrpreunership-adverse legislation (for an LLC equivalent in Italy you need a 20K deposit upfront and you'll be paying, at the end of the day, more than 50% of your profits in taxes) and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Also, the public opinion seems to have no or little interest in the matter, and the situation looks dreadfully stagnant.

Fortunately, there are sparks of cultural changes lately, especially with the younger folks, but it's a change that won't happen overnight for sure.

They should appreciate different approaches instead of calling them a "problem". It's ridiculous to tell the Germans to become more like America or Israel. The German strategy has its problems and so does America's.

A somewhat inadvertent turn of phrase that may well be telling you more than expected about the situation in Europe.

There's your marketing problem. If being an entrepreneur was only about making money, I wouldn't want my culture to encourage it either. They should focus less on materialism and more on making a difference and creating jobs.

I fail to see how those things are negative. As a matter of fact, I wish more entrepreneurs would adopt this kind of thinking: Being proud of your craft and your product.

Sure, you need to be able to make decisions, but there is also something to be said for making quality products instead of going for execution speed over quality.

Quality-driven thinking is part of what makes Germany one of the largest economies in the world - despite the fact that it is much less populous than other big economies like the US, Japan, and China.

The question of whether this is a chicken and egg problem WRT European culture is up for debate.

tl;dr: Cultures are different. News at 11.

Those differences aren't a bad thing in any way and don't mean that we can't be united in some sense - but please just realize that saying that "Europe is like this and that" is like saying "North America is like this and that".

Investors want to know upfront how you plan to make money and phrases like "we will figure this out later" wont help you if you need to raise money.

If this sort of thinking changes maybe we will see more billion dollar companies in europe.

Only in internet startups that have international appeal do you find a little bit of startup funding, but these investors are hardly ever Dutch firms.

I would bet money that if you gave a poll, more Europeans would want to move AWAY from a "entrepeneurial culture" (whatever that means) than toward it. For the average working Fritz and Hannah it would mean giving up social services, safety, free education, and excellent vacations.

The only reasonable explanation for the article is the author is threatened by Germany's success and hoping to confuse them by writing an article advocating they do dumb things instead.

Do you see the culture of the Welfare State as an obstacle to changing culture to accept that being successful, doing new business ventures is a good thing?

EDIT: How far are you WSJ fanboys going to downvote me on this? The company is owned by Rupert Murdock. The same one who owns Fox news. And this article was rubbish. Am I really the only person surprised to see this here?

Those people are responsible for the culture of impulsivness and creativity in the USA, kinda like role models. So migration is responsible for the lack of this kind of entrepeneurial approaches in Europe and responsible for the surplus of the same in the USA.

Simple, he? What do you think about this theory?