Hacker News Reader

Comment by incomingpain | Hacker News Reader

If you consider tech at the size of Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix, Google.

Europe has SAP from germany. That's it. You might say Spotify in Sweden or ARM from UK, but microsoft just laid off more than both of those have combined. Not the same scale.

Consider as well, it's certainly not talent, there's tons of highly skilled software people in the EU.

The literal holdup is converting that talent to business. Why is the EU so hostile to business? Extreme regulation, high taxes, high labour laws, and anti innovation/entrepreneurship is the problem.

The EU isnt even in the tech war because of their own choice of government. The EU has made their bed and must now sleep in it because it will take a long time to fix these problems through multiple elections.

View on HN

I'm thinking you're looking at this all wrong: it doesn't matter how many employees you have, what matters is the impact you have.

ARM? Their devices are running everywhere.

Spotify? They have 1/3 of the world's streaming music business.

The fact they're able to do so much with so few employees tells me they're more efficient.

Oh, and let's not forget that Linux came from Europe.

>The fact they're able to do so much with so few employees tells me they're more efficient.

Im not downplaying their accomplishments but it's just not the same scale. Imagine what they could be if the EU didnt have the government boot on their neck.

They easily could be massive.

>ARM? Their devices are running everywhere.

But not in the way intel, samsung, or nvidia make money. ARM makes what 2-3 billion a year gross? Nvidia does that per week. ARM cant claim success for what other entities have done with their chips.

>Spotify? They have 1/3 of the world's streaming music business.

They have 1/3rd of paying subscribers of streaming music of a pure music streaming service.

When you account for apple music, youtube music and free streaming(Im currently listening to Futuristic Work Music | Boost Focus, Productivity & Deep Workflow All Day)

and dont forgot pirated and physical media. Radio probably still exists?

etc. Spotify is a tiny tiny blip of the music industry.

>Oh, and let's not forget that Linux came from Europe.

GNU is from silicon valley. Linux and Linus might have originally been from finland but he moved to silicon valley in 1997. Linux is USA. GNU/Linux is tremendously american.

This is music for my ears, time to straight talk. Appreciated.

> GNU is from silicon valley. Linux and Linus might have originally been from finland but he moved to silicon valley in 1997. Linux is USA. GNU/Linux is tremendously american.

Actually, it's about 13% American according to kernel contributions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com