Man, Europe is really setting an example lately for how it's possible to roll out sensible technology regulations.
The bad guys here are the commission and some EU member states.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2023-00166...
https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
ASML
When there's a gold rush, make shovels.
Many EU companies have far higher revenues than their US counterparts (Airbus, Volkswagen, Alstom), are boring but crucial (Heidelberg, DTE) or not easily recognised (Novo Nordisk, Unilever).
Even in tech, there's a lot of interesting ones: Booking.com, elastic search, takeaway (aka GrubHub), Adyen, for example are all Dutch. There's or was, Spotify, Skype, SoundCloud, Zalando, Mojang, Shazam and so on.
Just be a bit more curious and less preoccupied and you'll see there's plenty going on in Europe. And don't forget that companies can be great and big and multinationals even if they aren't present in the US.
Dismissals of the EU's inability to compete in tech is why EU citizens have missed out on literally tens of trillions of dollars in economic growth post-2000s.
The EU's lack of ability to innovate is becoming a serious problem for the progress of our species as a whole.
> ability to innovate
Valuation and innovation could be related and could be not depending on the company, industry, fraud, etc.
> The EU's lack of ability to innovate
Modern American tech products are made of so many different parts, of which a significant portion is made (and designed) in EU, rest in US, Japan, Korea, China, etc.
In US empty company can be "worth" billions for a time.
That's what happens when there's no social system for pensions. In the US everyone and his dog has to "invest" in the stock market for their older days. In Europe this is happening more and more too, but there's also still a reasonable pension system in most countries that serves this purpose for individuals.
There are simply far more investers putting money in already inflated assets in the US than in Europe.
Take Tesla vs Volkswagen (or Porsche if you want). VW sells magnitudes more cars worldwide than TSL, even just the electric ones. Their ROI is much higher. And both their innovation is just as flakey at times (compared to e.g. Volvo who remain strong leader in all automotive innovation).
Anyone who looks at the solid figures, sees that VW is simply the stronger and more boring company. Yet people bet on the future, in which TSL promises to overtake VW. And then inflates the already inflated bubble some more, praying for that promise to be delivered on.
Praying, however, is not a good way to innovate an economy.
But pension funds invest very different from Jane and Joe for their retirement.
To answer equally condescending: I presume you realize that?
Over 70% is invested in equities, the rest mostly in fixed income (bonds). Not a whole lot different than an average 401k invested in a target date fund.
But the real zinger: over 33% of the total is invested in US equities alone, with a whopping 47% of all investments being in the US. 11.2% of total investments are in the US technology sector vs a mere 1.6% in European (including non-EU countries like Russia) technology. Truly humbling.
Norway doesn't seem to share your opinion on US equities.
Regardless, it only reinforces that the notion that US stock market doesn't reflect true worth of US companies because it's flooded with capital from pension funds. Not only US ones but from the whole world.
This type of delusion is why Europe has been falling behind economically for decades.
US stock market is analogue of Chinese real estate market. It's full of overpriced crumbling units and overt scams waiting to be exposed.
In Europe this capital is dispersed and more often serves the purpose of building infrastructure, increasing prosperity and well being of societies as a whole and developing large number of smaller businesses priced realistically. It's less flashy, but healthier.
I mean FFS the damn Euro literally almost became worthless because of the Greek debt crisis. Did people forget how close Europe came to abandoning its own currency?
I didn't know that about Airbus.
FinTech is pretty awesome in Europe too: Wise, Revolut, Klarna, Adyen are all unicorns/decacorns.
If you don't think the entertainment industry counts for much, I might remind you Linux was originally made in Finland. (Linus Torvalds is half Swede half Finn iirc)
That's just from the top of my head.
DICE is a failed studio. Battlefield 2042 was one of the worst AAA video game launches of all time (with Cyberpunk 2077 by Polish studio CD Projekt Red being another) after a rocky Battlefield V launch and there is no reason to believe they will come back from it.
King makes low quality micro-transaction-riddled games for addicts.
Mojang -- OK.
I don't much like it either, but it's popularity is difficult to deny.
By any objective measure, it's a successful company.
For some reason I don't see you blaming Cambridge Analytica - the actual company running the interference by exploiting APIs - for the interference itself.