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Comment by vachina | Hacker News Reader

You need talent to make tech that people want to use. Europe does not have that talent pool nor do they actively retain or attract such talents.

Also them being fully subscribed to capitalism: let other people solve my problems.

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The EU has plenty of talent, Most startups in the EU simply do not have access to the Venture capital pool that exists in USA.

Indeed. Europe lacks a unified capital market and contrary to popular belief, you actually need more EU regulations to make that happen.

I agree but I would say it differently - if you're an investor in EU, you have no reason NOT to invest in the U.S. There is no "stick" for defecting the country you live in. That causes capital leaking out of EU, and thus EU cannot build up its own new industry to compete globally. EU is far too liberal in this, and needs more protectionism.

Export promotion works better than protectionism. Korea built up their export industries by having a dictator imprison CEOs if they didn't try to do that. See "How Asia Works".

…of course, you can probably think of a more mild approach.

I am not sure what you mean by "export promotion" in the case of cloud services. Competing on price? Either way, that seems to require significant government spending and that's also difficult in the EU.

I understand what you mean, I am a fan of Ha-Joon Chang, but it won't happen unless EU shifts from its neoliberal economic paradigm into something more keynesian.

> Europe does not have that talent pool nor do they actively retain or attract such talents.

Disagree. Not only does Europe have the demographics and educational institutions, but on top of that, it has very high social mobility [1].

I agree 100% related to the retention of talent, but I have a different perspective: I think there exist 2 kinds of retention, (I) environmental and institutional retention and (II) organizational retention.

At the (I), you have all the things that Europeans bring here when such discussions happen: accessibility to public health care, a range of public services, less inequality, access to education, and so on.

At the (II) come the big companies and their perks, mission, compensation, impact on society, organizational culture, rewarding mechanisms for ambition, and allow people work satisfaction. And a market large enough to allow some work mobility (change seats and plenty of opportunities).

Being in Central Europe, I can say we have (I) but are lacking at the (II).

I have been around for almost a decade, and my general impression is that people have some mixture of a bit of professional cope that sublimes to work contentment and, honestly, unless you have a big reason and/or financial offset to stay due to (I) personal circumstances, people that can have options will choose (II).

[1] - https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/residence/residence-ri...

Your (II) includes a LOT of things and somewhat negatively correlated with (I).

The European principles that created your social guarantees are largely incompatible with an individual-centric, growth-focused society that would reward certain ambitious individuals much more than others.

> The European principles that created your social guarantees are largely incompatible with an individual-centric, growth-focused society that would reward certain ambitious individuals much more than others.

I agree in terms of the negative correlation, but I do not think this is related only to this set of synthetic principles but also due to the huge tailwind of the longest peacetimein the continent's history plus all the economic development and prosperity generated during this time.

Not to dismiss your point, but in terms of semantics, we cannot mix general guidance for policies and decisions made based on temporal preferences with a principle, which is a fundamental truth that sets the foundation for something and has axiomatic acceptance.

I acknowledge that for ethno-Europeans the European principles (social guarantees) are a thing (especially for the ones in Central Europe), but as soon as the money flow slows down, we will see those principles being tested, particularly due to the contentious (unfair?) intergenerational social contract.

I didn't mean to refer to some axiomatic principle of "Europeaness", whatever that could mean. I just meant to say that the 2 goals are somewhat at odds. Europe will have to figure out how find a compromise, assuming it wishes to do so.

We have plenty of talent. And we don't care as much about money. I chose to move to a lower income country within the EU just because I like life there better. I would never move to the US. In fact I wouldn't even consider visiting, even if my work asks me to.

The reason tech isn't so big here is that there's more regulation and less loose capital. Both aren't bad things IMO. Venture capital is pure gambling in the US. We don't subscribe to the American unrestricted capitalism here (well except for the UK and Netherlands which are heavily influenced by America)

Never heard about NL and UK having US-like venture capital situations. I always hear complaints that it's harder to raise in the EU. I've never heard NL and UK meantioned as an exception before. I understand the close US ties, but can you elaborate more on the venture capital thing?

The Dutch invented modern capital markets, so it tracks that they might be more US-like in that regard.

I mean the British invented railways, doesn't mean they have a good train system in 2025.

Yeah but our country was one of the more socialist ones in the period 1965-1990. After that it all went downhill, the neoliberals took over and ruined everything. It's now a total shithole, I really hate it. There's a lot of hate against foreigners (they're being blamed for all the issues when it's actually the neolibs that caused it), the housing market is broken, all construction is locked because of nitrogen deposits, and nobody dares to reduce farming (which is the main cause of this problem) because the farmers set the country on fire when such plans are raised. Social housing is down to nothing with many years waiting lists. Social welfare and mental health has really declined and people are even driven to suicide when there are any suspected irregularities. A fascist party got 30% of votes last election because they pretend to have solutions.

Basically none of these problems were even remotely tackled in the last 20 years and now everything is beyond repair. All they cared about was money and externalising any environmental or social cost.

If you recall that "venture capital" was literally about financing ships in the 16-1700s.. it would make sense that NL & UK, both massive naval powers, would have some experience and a culture around VC.

No I wasn't speaking about venture capital but I meant they adore the US and want to be like it as much as possible.

> And we don't care as much about money.

I think this is a very broad statement that does not reflect the reality on the ground for a significant amout of non-etnical-europeans.

Europe is a very diverse continent culturally speaking and also has a big immigration background, and those blank statements, while they're cool as a counter-narrative to the 'Europoor' memes, lack nuance in terms of the representation of what is going on.

I come from a significantly large cohort of demographics to the EU that was searching for upward mobility from a poverty/middle-class background in South America/India, and on the contrary (maybe our fellow Asians in Central Europe can agree here also), money matters. A lot.

If you're an ethno-European and you live in Munich, Freiburg, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Zurich, Basel u.z.w not needing money would be OK because at the end of the day you can have relatives nearby, and probably you might be sitting on some real estate heritage that can make you good in the future.

But for a large part of the cohort that I mentioned, there's no family at max 3h flight, and money matters to help family abroad.

> Venture capital is pure gambling in the US. We don't subscribe to the American unrestricted capitalism here (well except for the UK and Netherlands which are heavily influenced by America)

This turns me off most of the time, but here we go...

VCs are just the capital allocators; most of the time those people represent family offices, institutional investment funds, and sovereign wealth funds that have some excess capital to allocate in several ways to have positive disproportionate positive returns, where those returns will subsidize the failed ones.

Capital for investment means that an ecosystem can start to work and you can have a flow of talent and capital, and it potentially flows to other parts of society—more explicitly, to the economy—but at the end of the day, it goes back to the public via taxes and public services.

If the alternative for the capital arriving in Central Europe is (a) founders fleeing to the USA and opening their companies there, (b) European companies using Delaware LLCs to operate at EU, (c) working at traditional old-money companies that squeeze wages, and (d) having those jobs and capital fleeing to Poland/Spain/Paris/Portugal/Amsterdam; I will take the capital at any time of the day.

> If you're an ethno-European and you live in Munich, Freiburg, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Zurich, Basel u.z.w not needing money would be OK because at the end of the day you can have relatives nearby, and probably you might be sitting on some real estate heritage that can make you good in the future.

It's not that and I don't have that, it's just that we have good social security and free healthcare where I live. And nearly free public transport. So you don't have to be afraid that an unexpected event can bankrupt you like in the US.

We care more about quality of life here than just about money. Of course money still matters but not as much as in the US where it's pretty much people's only goal in life.

I don't want my country to become like the US. As it is Holland is already one of the most capitalist countries in the EU, very neoliberal. If you want it to be more about money, then the US would be a better destination to migrate to than the EU (and I'm not saying that in a "go away" manner, I'm an immigrant too, I just mean that the US is a much better match with your economic vision).

And yeah I know there's many people from poor countries, I have an ex who is from South America. But they get the worst jobs with really shit pay so of course it's more about money.

> If the alternative for the capital arriving in Central Europe is (a) founders fleeing to the USA and opening their companies there, (b) European companies using Delaware LLCs to operate at EU, (c) working at traditional old-money companies that squeeze wages, and (d) having those jobs and capital fleeing to Poland/Spain/Paris/Portugal/Amsterdam; I will take the capital at any time of the day.

I wouldn't. I'm fine as it is. I took about a 50% pay cut to be where I am but my life is so much better here. I can buy much less tech things here (things that cost the same everywhere) but things like food are also much cheaper. A car would be difficult but I don't need one and I really enjoy no longer having to drive (I deeply hated driving). And rent is cheaper too, even though they are really inflated right now, it's still a lot cheaper.

The tech things don't really matter, and I have more free time and a much easier life than at home.

I think we come from different perspectives; you placed a more individualistic perspective on how things are good for your particular situation, and I am talking about a broader and more absolute part where, whether we like it or not, the whole tech investing and capital allocation makes a difference.

An economic system like the US might be better for the 0.1% but overall it's a net negative. There's tons more violent crime because there's so much economic inequality. I'm very glad to live here.

Don't forget a country exists for all its citizens, not just the top wealthy, and not for companies. They're just a means to an end.

If you don't visit the US how are you ever going to get Tex-Mex? Not to mention the traditional German tourist experience of getting lost in Death Valley and dying.

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