European Ambition: The Old Meek Culture Must Change

While I do agree with the author’s general proposition to create an environment that fosters creativity and “ambition”, it seems very shortsighted.

Quoting from the article:

> …from employees who fastidiously guard their work-life balance, from friends who say they need a vacation…

Isn’t technology supposed to meaningfully improve our lives? I don’t think wealth creation is the end game for a society. That is a rather depressing ultimate goal.

It may be that the lack of “European ambition” is just a result of a larger cultural phenomena where there is more value placed in happiness and wellbeing rather than wealth. And, at least in my eyes, this is a noble culture to have.

By all means, promote a healthy environment to be ambitious. But not at the expense of those who “fastidiously” guard their work-life balance (or other social protections that the rest of the world dreams of having).

Many things that bring us enjoyment are not profitable at all. And they were never intended to be :).

Translation: Europe must do what the US does: unchecked unlimited growth at all costs. Who cares if easily half of US "innovators" are deeply unprofitable companies losing billions a year while producing unmitigated disasters in their externalities? Numbers must go brrr.

All that is wrapped in vague words and feelings.

Instead, I recommend "Facing reality, whether it's about Apple or the EU, is a core requirement for good management": https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-e...

I’m certainly a big fan of the European lifestyle (which was in some sense foretold by Bertrand Russell’s In Praise of Idleness, where he argued that raw labor will become less necessary in the future and people should spend more time indulging in high value creative activities).

I do wonder if it’s possible to sustain without some form of labor and innovation however. A lot of what Europe enjoys today was the result of past innovation and labor. Europe doesn’t exist in a vacuum and there are competitive forces at work — even if it doesn’t aspire to grow economically, it will in some sense decline in relative terms if the rest of the world grows faster.

Decline can be slow but it can also be quick. Germany for instance has declined significantly in the past few years due to its reliance on Russian gas. It probably doesn’t feel like it on the ground but if you look at the numbers Germany is not currently doing well (though it still has lots of competitive advantages, not least its people).

Japan has also declined significantly in relative terms since the 90s despite not appearing like it has, but if you’re a Japanese young person your prospects for career growth is actually fairly limited so most people who were in the lost generation are conditioned to have modest ambitions. Japanese people are still some of the most able people in the world but the cultural proclivity towards making rapid advances has been muted significantly. Its hard to launch startups or to do anything that isn’t incremental there.

Some folks are thinking we’d all be happier if we were hobbits living a bucolic self sustaining existence insulated from the rest of the world. But that kind of life is only possible because someone else took care of Mordor.

Quality of life is more fragile than we think. Civilizations decline from complacency.

It's a completely ridiculous notion that Europe should do what the US does, abandoning our social values will lead to a minimalization attitude which has led the US down the path of investing in 'cheaper' not better, foreign not local. To the detriment of their local fabric. We should strive to adopt the Swedish ethic.

All this talk about culture and the author doesn't talk about the fundamental issue: The EU created a European identity yes, but the amount of decentralization and universal consensus required to create the EU means it will never be a functioning state in and of itself. So there isn't a European tech industry, there are highly interconnected but distinct tech industries in Germany, France, Netherlands, Finland, Estonia, Ireland, Sweden. Only very recently has the EU began to try to consolidate pools of capital to facilitate large scale VC funding. There is a bright future I think, as America continues to rapidly decline, but this needs to be addressed. The ultimate irony? The author is English and moved back to London which is emphatically not European now. Going to be hard to cheerlead for the EU from the wreckage of brexit