There are millions of opportunities that will never make you fuck-you money, but will afford you a decent living. They are often less risky because there's less competition. Patio11's Bingocardcreator is an example. No matter how much traction it gets it'll never be the new facebook. Europeans seem to be happier with these kind of opportunities, while Americans go for the homeruns.
I have to call sweeping false generalization. I can think ten local companies that meet that same criterion without even trying, and "local" for me is not Silicon Valley, either.
Maybe some Americans try for the homerun and no Europeans do (I can't judge), but even in America by company-count, which I accept as a reasonable proxy of number-of-people-starting-companies, the "home runs" attempters are the outliers. And of course the VCs are interested in the home runs, that's the VC business model!
Just my opinion: I don't think this argument applies to America, but only to the Silicon Valley (SV) culture (and all influenced others). Generally people want only to have a decent living, while those exposed to the SV culture (usually), are looking for the big opportunity.
EDIT: (Disclosure: I am an European exposed to the SV culture :)
Actually, if you want to make a decent living, going with something with lots of competition is safer - at least you know there is already a market for that.
There are millions of opportunities that will never make you fuck-you money, but will afford you a decent living. They are often less risky because there's less competition. Patio11's Bingocardcreator is an example. No matter how much traction it gets it'll never be the new facebook. Europeans seem to be happier with these kind of opportunities, while Americans go for the homeruns.