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Comment by josephg | Hacker News Reader

> If the EU takes the DPA 'independence' seriously, they will end up marginalized in the tech space.

If NVIDIA can't sell GPUs to China, will that marginalise chinese technology? Or will it help supercharge a local industry? It might do both - hobbling chinese AI in the short term, but helping chinese competitors emerge in the medium to long term. US tariffs are the same. They might "marginalise" the US economy. But maybe they'll revitalise the US manufacturing industry too? We'll see!

The EU has a tremendous number of smart software engineers. They're more than capable of recreating the US technology stack locally. Especially with the benefit of hindsight, and with access to opensource software. In the long run, I wouldn't be surprised if Europe ended up richer by building their own tech stack "in house" instead of outsourcing to US hyperscalers.

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Thanks for engaging.

People weaponizing the downvote here without good faith discussion is disappointing but expected on HN recently. It's OK, you can take my HN points.

> The EU has a tremendous number of smart software engineers. Yes.

> They're more than capable of recreating the US tech stack locally.

No.

Where are the dozens of European tech winners? Seriously. They have the best education system in the world, strong social safety nets, cheap healthcare, and great lifestyles. Why have they not created innovative technologies that turn into worldbeating companies?

It's worth seriously asking this question. Many serious tech companies ultimately move to the U.S. because of capital availability but this should be addressable no? EU has big banks and pools of capital?

The ball has been there to take for 30-40 years. Europe has not consistently manufactured winners in the tech space.

> Opensource Let's see. We hope. But this doesn't seem to have been a good strategy in Web 1 or Web 2 besides a couple of notable exceptions. But notable exceptions don't power an economy.

> Europe ends up richer I don't see how. This is the problem. They cannot build. They don't have the raw materials. The land. The labor supply. The power. This is getting closer to the root cause.

Have spent many years in Europe. Rooting for them.

Just not sure they will figure it out.

> Where are the dozens of European tech winners? Seriously. They have the best education system in the world, strong social safety nets, cheap healthcare, and great lifestyles. Why have they not created innovative technologies that turn into worldbeating companies?

This is a great question. I'm Australian, and I ask myself the same question constantly here in Aus. The engineers I graduated with in Sydney are easily as good as the engineers I worked with in the Bay Area. But where are all the startups?

Having worked in Aus and SF, I think the two big elements are culture and finance. We don't have a culture in Aus of risktaking and entrepreneurship. People just seem less interested here in changing the world by starting a tech company. If you do start a business, you're kind of on your own. There isn't a community of people who've done it before who can guide you. And there isn't the same sort of venture capital here. Lenders only want to make sure bets. There's money for low risk, low yield lending. But there are barely any funds for high risk, high yield. The successful tech startups I know in australia bootstrapped themselves (Fastmail, Atlassian).

As far as I can tell, Europe has the same problems. Europe has capital, but I don't think that capital it looking to make angel investments.

But maybe cutting ties with the US tech scene would help change that? So long as Google Docs works well, nobody is clamouring to make or fund a competitor. But take google docs away, and suddenly there's a clear need and a chance to make a lot of money. That could spur innovation.

Possibly. They've tried it with cars (previously the 'pinnacle' of human tech and engineering) and they've basically lost the game, which they led.

Agree with your assessments on culture and finance though.

Thanks for the comment.

Maybe that is because there are US companies competing in the same space that are not held to the same regulations because of treaties like this one. It's hard to build a competitor to AWS, not just technically (although it very much is), but also business-wise - who would choose the unproven startup if you can go with the accepted best practise? By forcing US companies to equal footing, you give European startups more of chance. (Which is a Chinese playbook, too.)

EU companies are creative. Their economy does not create large monopolies functioning on debt. It has nothing to do with innovation. It is economic structure.

SV works on dumping prices they accuse Chinese of - sell under price until you destroy the competition anyway. Regulating its negative impacts elsewhere is entirely fair.

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