CEO: Europe needs tech entrepreneurs 'whose project is not to sell' to US[video]
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
I mean, if European society - and particularly European governments, as "conscious" agents of that - wants to have better startup results, do they make it's easier to achieve from their side, do they see any problems with European modern approach which they can improve?
- bankruptcy laws in the US encourage more risk taking by not financially punishing founders/investors in case of failure
- more dynamic labor market… hire fast but also fire fast if required
- less of a work/life balance culture
- fewer government regulations
I don't think all of these elements matter much (otherwise Estonia and Malta would be the tech hubs of Europe).
This is exact reason for European entrepreneurs, to start business in Europe, because easier to gather smart people, but, at some scale, become much more convenient to run business in US, so an some growth step, business owners have to consider US more freedom against strict EU regulations.
On the funding side, we have the Austria Wirtschaftsfond, which provides angel-level funding on some level, but the amounts are relatively low and there are restrictions what the money can be spent on. (E.g. only employees, which shareholder-CEOs are not in all circumstances, etc.) Basically, it's tricky and a jungle to navigate. I have never done a US startup, but from what I saw it seemed less intricate.
On the flipside, my wife and I have a GmbH and since we got over the initial unknowns, it seem relatively straight forward to actually run the company on a day-to-day basis, provided one actually makes money.
Of course it is possible to do a great tech startup in Euro/UK. However, after working at a European company I can say that culture is VERY different, and that is OK! However, it makes building or running a company hard
"We pretend that the government was at best just in the background creating the basic conditions (skills, infrastructure, basic science). But the truth is that the involvement required massive risk taking along the entire innovation chain: basic research, applied research and early stage financing of companies themselves.”
Is there any evidence for this other than opinion pieces?
Asking sincerely.
I see arguments for both sides being the source of most innovation, but haven't seen real, valid, data-driven evidence. Granted, I haven't looked much. I have my own opinion, but want more evidence, for both arguments.
This is just logical consequence, from erroneous foundations, to be strict, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statism
Idea, that when somebody become authoritative with power, Statists think, such people should automatically gather wisdom and Universe knowledge, to make much better decisions, than free market.
Unfortunately, in reality, authoritative with power, usually use their power for some silly things, not for people good, and usually, power are not effective. But sometimes, in very special conditions, have so obvious things to do (and these things just impossible to do on free market, like Manhattan project, or trans-American railroad), that even with very bad efficiency, just huge resources investments are enough to make huge leap.
For example, now we don't know "Manhattan project" way to achieve GAI, so even if somebody will decide to throw government resources we will not achieve GAI, will just convert resources to waste. And such things happen lot of time before, but Statists prefer to ignore such examples, they show only good examples to convince people.
But authoritarian power decision efficiency, from experience of late Soviet Union, was about 5-30% (so 70-95% wasted, or from 2/3 to near all invested).
Europe needs to stop clinging to the milk cows of the past. The car industry is a dieing endavour, highly disruptable due to dependence on fossil fuels.
Ironically, in my opinion, eastern europe is setup much better for software. Im regularly blown away what the chech republic, poland and the baltic tigers do - compared to west europe.