Hacker News Reader

Comment by djohnston | Hacker News Reader

Compared to whom?? The EU??? Lmk when they’re building anything competitive.

In 2019, Airbus displaced Boeing as the largest aerospace company by revenue.

In October 2019, the A320 family became the highest-selling airliner family with 15,193 orders, surpassing the Boeing 737's total of 15,136.

In 2023 the number of Airbus aircraft in service surpassed Boeing for the first time.

One example? How about tech?

How is Airbus not tech?

In any case, Spotify, SAP, Booking definitely qualify as competitive.

Booking is owned by a US company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booking_Holdings

Unfortunately for us, Europeans, that's what happens most of the time. SAP and Spotify are the ones that got away.

Europe ranks really poorly for tech: https://companiesmarketcap.com/tech/largest-tech-companies-b...

The context of the article is an innovation fund for tech startups. The comment was a dumb remark about how the US will fail in this domain. Airbus is not relevant to the discussion because Airbus is not a tech startup.

So, Spotify and raises eyebrows … SAP. Innovative.

If building airplanes isn't technology, I don't know what is.

BTW, Boeing is in the USA's top 10 exporters, it's not a minor thing.

But yeah the USA has a definite edge in software, if that's what you mean by "tech".

In the context of an article about an innovation fund for tech startups, that’s obviously what I mean by “tech”.

erlang ? skype (rip) ? ocaml ?

I wonder why US businesses and people import so much stuff from the EU if there isn't anything competitive coming out of it

Nobody here is seriously suggesting the EU doesn't compete economically. The conversation is focused on tech companies, which is in the subject of the thread. Broadly the EU competes very well with the US, China and globally more generally. In most tech areas the EU continues to lag far behind the US and China.

except you seem to think (like many others commenters in this thread) that "tech" means solely "silicon valley-type startups", which it does not.

I'll give you some examples that usually stun the average Italian hence they usually stun most other people as well. You think Italy and probably think fashion but in fact the Top 10 Italian exports are (first semi-random results):

  1) Machinery including computers: US$116 billion (17.2% of total exports)
  2) Pharmaceuticals: $55.5 billion (8.2%)
  3) Vehicles: $47 billion (7%)
  4) Electrical machinery, equipment: $45.8 billion (6.8%)
  5) Gems, precious metals: $25.7 billion (3.8%)
  6) Plastics, plastic articles: $24.3 billion (3.6%)
  7) Articles of iron or steel: $21.4 billion (3.2%)
  8) Mineral fuels including oil: $19.4 billion (2.9%)
  9) Optical, technical, medical apparatus: $17.4 billion (2.6%)
  10) Clothing, accessories (not knit or crochet): $16.4 billion (2.4%)

I see a lot of "tech" in this list, I had this very same conversation with a German Private Equity last week but they are well aware and invest in "tech", just not the "tech" the average HN visitor think about

"Tech" as in "toolmaking" is a category so broad to be almost useless. (And somewhat questionable too, when the likes of Google make money with something that is more of a service : advertising.)

"Infocom" has always been clearer to me, not sure why its usage waned so much ?

Commuter rail, public transit, a social safety net, and I personally would take anything from Volkswagon group over the average Dodge vehicle

Dodge is owned by Stellantis, a EU company...

And Ford makes good cars, when they choose to.

My mistake, I'd forgotten Dodge was owned by Stellantis.

That said, multiple American car companies (Dodge, Jeep, Chrystler) going under and ending up owned by an EU conglomorate sure doesn't feel like a stirling defense of GP's claim, I.E., "What the EU builds is not competitive with what America builds"

Volkswagen of diesel-gate fame? That one?

I mean, Jeep and Dodge (when owned under their American umbrella corp., FCA) were later found to be using similar defeat devices (see "Other manufacturers [0]). Though if you want to smear them, you may as well go all in and point out they were the original Nazi car brand - not even Tesla has that kind of credibility

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

Spotify is a Swedish company and is the defacto music streaming company, Supercell is one of the largest mobile game companies and is Finnish, Mistral AI is French. There are a lot of European companies that have solid footprints in America.

High speed rail seems like cool tech, but I guess it doesn't compare to the Boring Company Tesla tunnels or whatever.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com