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Apparently there are plenty of companies in Italy, Germany, and Norway.

What we don't have are those sort of stunts expecting a never ending of exponentional growth, with money to burn that grows on trees, and without any regard for employees working rights.

Those 58.76, 84.48 and 5.52 million people work somewhere (minus current unemployment rates).

Italy has an unemployment rate of 7.8%

6.4% in September according to EUROSTAT and keep in mind that those numbers are likely skewed because a significant number of people do in fact work, without declaring any type of income and without paying taxes so the actualy number is likely lower than that. I'd bet the number is < 5%

> I'd only note that the EU is not a monolith, local regulations and tax laws can differ wildly

It's not really justified to express anti-EU sentiment on the grounds of local laws which have little to do with the EU though...

Anyway, most US states have no unicorns and low levels of VC investment, despite zero exposure to EU rules and similar regulatory climates to California which receives more VC funding than the rest of them put together. For all Germany's famously pernickety regulation, Bavaria saw more VC investment than numerous larger US states last year and "you'd have to be a masochist to start a business here" Norway is in the top 10 countries worldwide for VC funding per capita which suggests that at least the masochists get funding! Frankly, it's unrealistic to expect any European country to be remotely like California in the near future for a whole host of structural reasons that have nothing to do with the EU or local regulations, and if the actual tradeoff is more like the labour laws of Michigan for the VC investment levels approaching that of Michigan it's not clear there's any win for Europe in deregulating.

> even a functional military-industrial ecosystem -- is basically incompatible with Europe's regulatory

Military ecosystems get a lot of exceptions

> about how Norway and Italy tax unrealized gains to such an extent that running a SV-style startup is basically illegal

These are two completely different things. Yes they don't get praise from me, but if you're planning how your company is going to work, you need to understand the differences (and yes Norway is the worse one here IMHO)

> Depending on the business you're in, it can be smart to incorporate in the Caiman Islands and work out of Europe on a satellite office basis, but you definitely want to limit your exposure to EU rules.

100% agree

But here's what most companies opening shop do: they have accountants and lawyers to help them navigate the bureaucracy (or subcontract some of the compliance work). People here take regulation to be "I've tried nothing and I've ran out of ideas" when it's mostly a subcontracting cost.

> almost entirely grassroots/bottom-up

Exactly.

I feel it's simply put:

Europe is just further on the left of the `labour - capital` divide. As a region with insane inherited capital (all the old money), this makes perfect sense.

A lot of US media laments the corporatism of the US, and in the next article lambaste EU regulations... not understanding the irony of their position.

The EU took its tradeoffs seriously, and committed to them. Whether it's a good position... I can't tell, really. Can't see the future. But it's a very visible and understood tradeoff:

Pressure the top 5% to provide for the bottom 95%. You can't get laid off and stress about food - because a failure includes paying all the laid off employees a severance. It's bad for starting a business... but is it bad for the people and the society at large? Call me a socialist, but I think people shouldn't have their livelihoods depend on the 2-week cycle of salary.

Should there be a framework for a more risk-hungry sector? Probably, something to mimic the US, but the avenues for abuse are exploited the moment loopholes open.

TLDR: Europe, and Europeans, do not _want_ the trillion dollar companies.

> Europe, and Europeans, do not _want_ the trillion dollar companies.

And that’s why I will say ‘fuck you too’ rather than ‘goodbye’ when my O-1 is finally approved.

The EU is just as capitalist. When von den Leyen gets lobbied in Brussels, it's not from worker parties or unions. If you want a spectrum I would say that the EU is more paternalistic. Less freedom, lower salaries and higher taxes and in return a slightly better social safety net. But this is pure consolation for anyone who wants growth and opportunity. And it is not sustainable anyway. Austerity will soon start eating away at that social safety net.

Not sure if tax supported medical coverage, tax supported college level education, guaranteed vacation, sick time and maternity leave are a “slightly better” social safety net. Just to name a few.

The U.S. culture is so accustomed to the brutality and constant anxiety of not having any of these things that we don’t have the felt sense of actually having safety. Which makes it easy to dismiss - especially when fed the illusion that we are a step from being wealthy, a prerequisite of actually having this safety and more.

Why not allow for everyone to have it? It isn’t because we can’t afford it. We are just used to siphoning all of society’s wealth to a few selected people - and made to believe that we can join them.

Freedom to exploit a lot of people without accountability is different from freedom to live one’s life based on one’s calling and choices. Using the same word for both meanings leads to confusion.

In the U.S., the priorities are aligned behind the freedom to exploit, extract, and socialize all externalities. As individuals this comes at the expense of our own freedoms. I only have the “freedom” to operate in an increasingly adversarial environment.

A lot of the employee protections in practice make is just super hard to hire employees and super hard to fire low performers. It's good for seniors and bad for juniors and let me tell you, in the EU we do so much for old farts already. I have no appetite for more policies targeted towards them. That's another problem that I neglected to mention.

Those old farts paid in for 40-50 years. Why sell them out so quickly?

I can't help but think there is an alternative to this dichotomy. If, for example, US were to institute a high-percentage income tax bracket for the wealthy (maybe 65% over $1m) and used that to pay for national healthcare, would that really impact start-up culture? Maybe it affects some business at large, but it means the average joe can get laid off and not stress about hospital bills, while still encouraging a "risk-hungry sector".

Tl;Dr: Europe could have trillion dollar companies and still lean heavily towards labor, just like we could

If you live in New York you are already paying 56%.

There are 500,000 households making over a million if you divide that number into a single person making a million or more that would drop more.

That 9% of such a low base won't cover costs.

> maybe 65% over $1m

Here in California, my marginal tax rate (if making over 1M) is already about 53%. In return, there is medi-cal (which is shitty[1]), 6 weeks of parental leave at 65% salary, crappy schools on average but excellent if one has a special needs kid etc. So not so great safety net.

Ironically, through a big tech job (which is supposed to be a rapacious corp with zero regards to employee wellness), I get far better protections - amazing insurance(s), 4 months of parental leave at full pay (including RSUs), all sorts of benefits etc etc.

The trade-off is clear to me. I want more of those trillion dollar corporations around me and have very little faith in Federal and California governments to improve their safety nets even if they jack up my marginal tax rate from 53 to 65%.

[1] but again, my Canadian and UK families have horror stories about their healthcare systems as well so there is that

Yes! Thanks for the links.

Is it? I mean before COVID and especially before 2008 EU was thriving and in reality there wasn‘t substantially more or less regulation back then. (Yes GDPR came, but I highly doubt that this was a major factor).

In my opinion EU countries missed web 2.0 and where way to risk averse and old school to invest in those startups, that is why many founders moved to US. But I don‘t think regulation is the major factor, may be A reason, but I doubt it is THE reason.

I think most of the „bad“ regulation is actually national. EU regulation in many cases makes it easier to make business than the respective national laws. Tax for example is mainly national. Despite some attempts of unification.

Once you have a technological breakthrough that requires lots of exploration to figure out which products will succeed, regulation is a competitive disadvantage.

For established industries regulation just increases prices. ... Until a new technology comes up that allows new competitors to enter the market. Like Tesla, SpaceX.

Hmm both SpaceX and Tesla are heavily subsidised by the government

Funnily enough many of the basic breakthroughs in AI were done in Europe, but at universities.

Sadly people don‘t invest in Europe in startups as in the US, therefore the companies were formed in the US, even tough research is done here.