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Comment by andy_ppp | Hacker News Reader

I have an alternative theory about tech and growth in Europe - the rich are too greedy here and are not optimistic enough about growth. They:

a) don’t fund risky things

b) don’t believe Europe can create unicorns so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy for their investments

c) try to cash out too quickly from potentially huge businesses

d) valuations are half the investment for double the equity, so of course the companies have half the runway and half the upside.

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No comment except that 'the rich are too greedy here' is an extremely european explanation for EU economic underperformance.

You’re completely misinterpreting and taking out of context the whole point I’m trying to make for a cheap swipe at Europe. Do you actually disagree with what I said or are you trying to win Internet points with semantics? Do you even disagree with the bulk of my complaint about investment in Europe?

Do you even disagree that investors try to take a larger equity position in companies in the EU than in the US?

Europe is mostly "old money" so this makes sense. They didn't earn that money they are custodians of it.

> don’t believe Europe can create unicorns so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy for their investments

There sure would like though. What I've followed in the Horizon program was a fixation of chasing "last years" technology.

Problem was , that for all those funding programmes they had quite stingent company requirements which stopped startups and small companies from having a go at it. Larger companies had no issue navigating this process and chewing the cash without actually delivering good or innovative products.

Can you tell me which regulations are stopping them? The UK for example bent over backwards to make acquiring a banking licence part of a clear process. I think this is harder at the EU level but for me laws like GDPR are actually very reasonable (having implemented a system for container shipping crew, including lots of personal information like passport images).

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