Hacker News Reader

Comment by Vivtek | Hacker News Reader

Hmm. Perhaps you could stop generalizing about people generalizing about Europe. Varsavsky has lived and built businesses in Madrid since 1995, so I think that his contrasts between the European market and the American market from the entrepreneur's point of view are really pretty trustworthy.

Your points about European diversity are quite valid, although I think they're beside the point. But your ad hominem "Oh my, another American is butting his nose into Europe" framing is less than persuasive.

View on HN

Have you followed the HN discussion about Varsavskys post? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4968589 He takes his experience from Spain and UK and glosses it all over europe with some hearsay in between. Some of his statements may apply to spain and the UK, but pretty much all of them don't apply in germany - even the ones about germany. So it's not an ad hominem attack when the author says "another one that falls in the trap."

No, actually, I hadn't; I'm nominally on vacation.

What I'm about to say is intellectually sloppy. But Varsavsky's facts are not terribly important. His point about German startups was true at one time, and is no longer true, but his larger point about legal requirements for the workplace being strict in Europe and essentially non-existent in America is true. His contrast of personal liability for entrepreneurs in Europe with the essential absence of any such liability in America is true.

His post is not directed towards Europeans. It is directed towards American entrepreneurs who are looking at Europe - and could come to Europe with vastly incorrect assumptions about what it means to start and run a business here.

Along the way, sure, he makes some pretty generalized points about business in Europe that may be less than accurate. The "no new valuable businesses" point is a little off and to my mind not even the point. But what he is actually saying is that, should you want to start a startup in Europe as an American, here are some things you should know in advance, and here are some reasons you might want to do it despite a risk profile that is entirely different.

The diversity of Europe doesn't even matter in this context, except as a reason Americans might like to live here.

And OP's point that the income diversity between Scandinavia and Russia is really beside the point. The point is that the European middle class is healthier than the American middle class, and if you can steer around the problem that they speak fifty different languages, you've actually got a bigger market for consumer goods and services here than in the States - and that's a weird and unusual thought that I, personally, found quite inspiring.

That's something I already mentioned in the discussion about the original post: There are some interesting facts and some valid generalizations about europe, especially when you compare europe to america. The problem is not discussing these, but those are very very high level - even more high-level than generalizations about the USA. The problem is selling specifics as general truth which is what he does in large parts of his post. I'm not wearing leather trousers while posting this, despite being a mere 200 km from the Weisswurstäquator.

Btw: The point about a larger market is an interesting notion, but don't forget that you might just as well sell to canadians, middle and south america and you'd have a larger, even more unified market. That's exactly where the european diversity matters: It's hard to sell to france as a german startup and they other way round. So to get around that you actually need to serve a fragmented market with different rules and regulations for each fragment. See for example how last.fm radio was available in selected countries only or spotify as well.

> His contrast of personal liability for entrepreneurs in Europe with the essential absence of any such liability in America is true.

In the UK an entrepreneur can set up a LTD company which limits personal liability.

The EU has had limited liability for traders since 1989.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability)

> In 1989, the European Union enacted its Twelfth Council Company Law Directive, requiring that member states make available legal structures for individuals to trade with limited liability. This was implemented in England and Wales by Statutory Instrument SI 1992/1699 which allowed single-member limited-liability companies.

This is just one small example of something which is factually incorrect. It's not a matter of opinion; it's not shades of grey; it's not one person's impressions of a country. A statement was made; that statement is wrong. There are many others in the original article.

Scattering these errors in an opinion piece gave it the feel of a shallow attack piece.

> His post is not directed towards Europeans. It is directed towards American entrepreneurs who are looking at Europe - and could come to Europe with vastly incorrect assumptions about what it means to start and run a business here.

They're definitely going to have vastly incorrect assumptions if they believe everything in that article!

Yes - and, very important when we talk about the EU, any EU citizen can set up a UK LTD company, if s/he wants to.

It is true that there still are many differences in legislation between EU countries, but the EU is gradually standardizing laws in many fields.

In the UK an entrepreneur can set up a LTD company which limits personal liability.

Pedantically, the UK allowed limited liability companies for about 150 years. This is not a new thing.

> His contrast of personal liability for entrepreneurs in Europe with the essential absence of any such liability in America is true.

Not sure what you refer to here since as far as I know most European countries have provided limited liability companies to entrepreneurs since the 19th century. I know for sure Sweden has has them since 1848.

EDIT: Read the original article and it seemed to talk about failure to pay social charges for employees being a criminal liability. That may or may not be the case in Spain, but at leats in Sweden it is no different from failing to pay salaries in general. If you cannot pay what you owe you have to bankrupt your company and the government will pay the salaries. If they think you did it for fraudulent reasons they might press charges against you personally, but that is rare.

There is a new discussion over Berlin vs London from a new Varsavsky's post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4973904

> his contrasts between the European market and the American market from the entrepreneur's point of view are really pretty trustworthy.

They're not. And I've run businesses in lots of different countries as well. Martin is on the ball when it comes to comparing Spain the US, but his contrasts between the European and the American market from the entrepreneurs point of view are way off the mark.

He should have simply titled his post: "what it's like to be an entrepreneur in Spain" and there would have been no issue at all.

Btw, Varsavsky isn't an American, he's had quite a few business dealings in the UK and in Spain but as far as I know doesn't hold a stake in a company in any of the other EU countries that he's writing about and I really don't understand what it was that he was trying to achieve with his post.

If you don't believe me go visit Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Tampere, Paris, Stockholm, Bucharest, Warsaw or a hundred other places and compare those contrasts for yourself.

On the whole there are very few of Varsavsky's points that hold water, a summary between the US business climate and the EU one from an entrepreneurs pint of view could be made much shorter:

- in the EU it is a lot harder to be a dick to your employees

- in America you will (due to the larger and more homogeneous home market) likely have a much better chance grow fast

- in Europe you will have to think internationally from day 1

- in Europe it is less dog-eat-dog and more cooperative

Those are from my own personal experience.

"- in the EU it is a lot harder to be a dick to your employees"

Yes, but you can be a dick to the employees of your US subsidiaries. (Personal experience with a few German corporations led to this observation...)

I just took it as his contrast between SV entrepreneural attitudes and the reality of the labor market and general attitudes in Europe, and it agrees with what I see here, because I live in Budapest.

But man do I not want to argue about it. I mostly just didn't like OP's style of argument, to be honest, and I did like Varsavsky's post, essentially because it highlighted the four points you highlight here.

I did wonder whether he was American; his English is a little odd.

> in the EU it is a lot harder to be a dick to your employees

Instead, I'd rephrase that as giving a proper response to employees that are being dicks to your business.

Varsavsky might have gotten wrong most of his observations about developing a startup in EU. But one that he nailed was the advice about employees getting paid medical leaves without really needing them just to screw their employers.

As he said, if you're in this position, get a PI to gather evidence against that employee, and by all means, BE A DICK!

> Varsavsky has lived and built businesses in Madrid since 1995

Which is exactly why I'm puzzled by some of his completely wrong statements about Europe.

Have you ever been to Madrid? They're about as far away from the epicenter of Europe as you can get and still be in the Union - and not at all Central European. A lot of the points he made are very, very Spanish.

But as I just posted upthread, as a contrast between the "general look and feel" of Europe vs. the US, I thought his post was bang on.

Of course, I'm also an American in Europe - married to a Hungarian for 23 years. So take me with a grain of salt, I guess.

I think it would be a shame if American entrepreneurs were to be deterred from starting businesses in Europe solely because they've heard this and that general statement about Europe that isn't correct.

Martin Varsavsky goes into specifics regarding legislation, etc., and, as others have pointed out, many of those details are simply not correct when applied to all/most of Europe the way he does.

Too much meta-generalizations!

Vivtek, you are projecting. Stop being a dick.

> Stop being a dick.

Indeed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com