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Comment by rvz | Hacker News Reader

This is how to lose and this is why tech founders don't start companies in Europe as they know what happens when they get too big.

For every 1 "tech company" founded in Europe, there are 5 more of the same founded in the US.

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This assumes that gigantic companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google are a good thing that should be emulated.

They objectively are, from the perspective of a country.

There's no such thing as objective when it comes to politics. What you perceive as objective truth is just a reflection of your ideology.

Okay, "subjectively" then.

That answers your question then - they (and I) subjectively don't perceive it as a good thing ;)

Sure, and from the perspective of your countries leaders, they don't appear to agree, seeing as how they haven't banned these companies outright.

So objectively, it appears more countries agree with my subjective judgement than not.

Reading your username, are you by any chance Austrian?

What is a country? Is it the same as its citizen?

...or that anyone who thinks "I'd start a company if I could become the next Apple, but otherwise it's pointless" is someone you want running a company.

Maybe giant tech companies controlling our lives and subverting our democracies are not a good thing?

I wish the UK would make itself even more competitive here, although it's already pretty competitive: 2.13 unicorns per million people vs 4.41 unicorns per million people in the US; 3% of Brits work for "tech" companies as opposed to 1.8% of Americans. It's also going to feel highly similar to home to a great many Europeans.

UK already has ludicrously, insanely generous tax-breaks on small scale venture funding (SEIS), fully 1/3 of the world's top ten universities within a small radius (and another fifty great ones), first-rate banking services, strong rule of law, and pretty limited bureaucracy (outside of land planning).

"All" it needs to do is build enough houses and stop obsessing about immigrants...

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