I am originally from Europe and I must ask : how many startups of global reach has Europe produced in the last 30 years compared to the US as a whole (or even just the SF Bay Area). What is Europe doing in AI compared to the US or China?
Achieving Euro-Big-Tech for social media and AI would not improve European's lives either, except for the few oligarchs that would run the equivalent corporate giants there.
I can't help hearing Bender's voice after getting kicked out of the Casino...
> How has living in the same country as a crop of successful tech startups made the lives of an average American noticeably better?
Average American is materially wealthier than the average European, with more influence over the latter than the latter has over the former. Go above the bottom 20% or so, and you have vastly higher living standards in most of America compared with most of Europe.
This is obscured by our terrible treatment of the bottom 10%, as well as by the burdens we put on our middle class. But the American middle class is wealthier and, I’d argue, more powerful than most European countries’, the exceptions being in the West and the North of the continent.
60 percent of Americans can’t afford a basic quality of life. I disagree with the way this is argued. Materially wealthier how? Home equity? Household net worth? Absolutely of no value based on the currently observed outcomes.
If you ignore the wealth metrics, Europeans live objectively better lives than a majority of Americans.
> 60 percent of Americans can’t afford a basic quality of life
Define that “basic quality of life” and map it to the EU. We define our baselines much higher in America than they do in Europe because of course we do, we’re richer per capita.
Quality of life for the bottom I think 50% of Americans is worse than in Europe, almost entirely due to food quality and healthcare. But for most Americans, it’s materially better for most values worth measuring. (For the richest Americans it’s way better, but that isn’t how I believe one measures a society.)
Keep in mind that I’m counting the whole EU. If we restrict ourselves to its richest members, sure, QOL is higher in Switzerland and Norway than in Mississippi.
Unburdened by housing costs, affordable and accessible healthcare, transportation, child care, groceries, etc.
It is possible to live comfortably in most of Europe for €1000-€1500/month. This is almost impossible for most of the US, more so as upcoming Medicaid cuts occur.
Let's take Germany as a case study for someone making roughly 3000/month NET salary. Health-insurance premiums are generally higher in Germany than in the United States. U.S. Social Security benefits tend to be more generous, backed by roughly USD 2.7 trillion in trust-fund assets, while Germany’s state pension scheme runs a deficit that consumes about 25 percent of federal tax revenue.
The United States provides universal coverage through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA); none of these programs expose citizens to unlimited liability. Under the ACA, annual out-of-pocket costs are capped at about USD 9,200 even when bills exceed USD 1 million. Even in Germany, there is a co-insurance payment; liability is at 1300/year, I think. Given that US coverage is cheaper, this can go either way. It is widely accepted that it is much easier to see a specialist in the US and get appointments than in Germany, so there is a good argument to be made that US health care is better.
Living on EUR 1,500 per month in Germany is feasible only in remote rural areas, and even a net income of EUR 3,000 in provincial cities leaves little discretionary spending. Higher average earnings in the United States, together with easier property acquisition, generally offer superior opportunities for wealth building. Claims to the contrary overlook relevant data on median incomes, benefits, and costs and are pure cope about the declining standard of living in Western and Central Europe for the middle class.
> Unburdened by housing costs, affordable and accessible healthcare, transportation, child care, groceries, etc.
Few European social welfare systems unburden their populations of all of these. Those that do are comparable to America’s wealthiest states.
> It is possible to live comfortably in most of Europe for €1000-€1500/month. This is almost impossible for most of the US
It’s also a lot easier to earn more than that wage in America [1][2]. (And you can absolutely live an okay life in NYC if you got your subsidies right on a job that pays ~$20k/y.)
I also want to follow up on your claims of transportation, again using Germany as a case study. Just Google what is happening with Deutsche Bahn. It is a disaster. I know because I do not have a car and am forced ot use it multiple times a week. It is completely unreliable, and if you have an important appointment or flight, then you're best option is to find another means of transportation, preferably driving if you have a car. Relying on German public transit (specifically Deutsche Bahn) will ruin your life; you will be late for everything or just not arrive. What I am saying is not an exaggeration. So yeah, I would rather have my tax money back and own a car. And the German cope is to say that DB is a private company, which is technically true; it's a private company 100% owned by the government. It's an abomination.
Why do you think that Europe has to race with the US in number of startups? Shouldn’t we focus on the quality of life instead?
The rich people in the US have lower life expectancy than the poor people in Europe. People in Europe are also happier than the ones in the US. What those startups will bring?
> Why do you think that Europe has to race with the US in number of startups? Shouldn’t we focus on the quality of life instead?
For one thing I'm interested in quality of life for my kids, not only mine. The world is a big race: those who refuse to run become irrelevant and disappear.
One, a search isn’t a source. Two, the medical source in your results [1] doesn’t support your hypothesis:
“Survival among the participants in the top wealth quartiles in northern and western Europe and southern Europe appeared to be higher than that among the wealthiest Americans. Survival in the wealthiest U.S. quartile appeared to be similar to that in the poorest quartile in northern and western Europe.”
The wealthiest 25% of Americans have mortality similar to the poorest 25% in Northern and Western Europe. And the wealthiest 25% of Europeans as a whole outlive the wealthiest 25% of Americans.
The richest Americans, where I mean top 1 to 5%, on the other hand, match with the richest Europeans because of course we do, we’re accessing the same global pool of health services. But there is zero evidence rich Americans are outlived by poor Europeans, even if we restrict ourselves to its wealth West and North.
Followed here from your link on one of my other comments. Would you not agree that the bottom 95% of Americans have poor mortality versus most Europeans, based on this data? Comparing rich Americans to rich Europeans is not very compelling (as you mention); comparing most Americans to most Europeans (by wealth) is. The rich will do well regardless of where they are, as they are internationally mobile for the purposes of consuming healthcare services. Therefore, we should not be including them for comparison of majority outcomes.
> Would you not agree that the bottom 95% of Americans have poor mortality versus most Europeans, based on this data?
Compared with EU Europeans, yes. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that similarly-wealthy Europeans are healthier than their American counterparts.
> we should not be including them for comparison of majority outcomes
OP made a statement about the rich in America doing worse than the poor in Europe.
I am originally from Europe as well. And still living there (not sure if that’s why you phrased it like that) but how many innovations from the us are really adding to the value of life vs just forcing eyeballs to screen.
Linux came from Europe. A lot of open source does, see blender.
I know VC money is sexy but does it add real value
That is a strange way to dismiss the innovation from the country that brought to market:
- the light bulb
- the mass produced car
- the airplane
- the artificial heart
- the gold standard in Covid vaccines
- the personal computer
- the smartphone
- the internet
- email
- GPS
- MRIs
- consumer grade LLMs
- the world’s largest public cloud providers
- TCP/IP and BGP
- the web browser
- the most popular search, social media, and e-commerce companies in the world
I know it feels good to say “but did they really make human kind better off?” and dismiss American innovation as another goofy VC-funded cash grab iPhone app; but the US is responsible for technology that has made the world better many times over.
This mentality is why Europe will never replicate the success of the US technology sector.
The web was British. The computer owes a lot from German designs. The car was a German invention. The smartphone had European pre-designs. And, on 'the cloud'... that just rehashing more than 50 year old mainframes' design. Were's the actual innovation? Again, as I said, Bell Labs/MIT with Unix and Lisp which were groundbreaking aren't hip any more.
Even 9front with namespaces has tons of European collaboration.
Lmao. Germany invented the car, most modern automotive technology (fuel injection, front wheel drive, all wheel drive, and more) were invented in Europe, the web was started in the UK, personal computers were also made in Europe by European companies to fairly widespread success, not to mention such fundamental innovations like engines and railroads
No country has a monopoly on innovation, you're being absolutely ridiculous
Eta: the tape recorder was invented in Europe. The compact cassette and compact disc were developed by Phillips to unimaginable commercial success. I'll keep coming back as i think of more :)
There is no denying that the US has done great stuff over the last 100 years or so. I don't understand this weird flex from some Americans to always claim US is the best at everything at the exclusion of everyone else. Same with the second world war; there are Americans who seem to think they somehow single-handedly won that.
My American ex said she had to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day at school. Apparently this is law in most states. I suspect it might be related.
American support before the US entered was crucial on the western front. But it's generally agreed that the turning point of the war against the Nazis was the Battle of Stalingrad, which the US played no part in (other than occupying Nazi forces elsewhere). However, a great effect of the US joining was that the USSR didn't conquer France. The second half of the the twentieth century could have looked very different if the US had stayed out. In other words, it might not be really accurate to say the US beat Hitler, but it is accurate to say they halted Stalin's advance. It could be argued that D-Day won the Cold War, it just took a long time for that to play out.
I mean yeah we are forced to recite the pledge daily, and our elementary school history classes are full of stuff like "the US has invented every great thing you love! The Internet, cars, planes, TV, etc etc"
I mean the comment i replied to basically comes across as a 11 year old who just aced their last history exam for the year.
It's just tragic that most Americans grow into adults without ever learning anything more about the rest of the world, or realizing how narrow and biased their baseline education was
Interestingly enough, I am not originally from Europe, but chose to move here over the US.
In no small part because I utterly despise the VC fueled hustle culture winner takes all disruptive bullshit from the US. I don't want to be anywhere near that particular toxic wasteland.
Sir, are you aware that this very website is run by VCs as an advertisement for hustle culture? You are, in fact, “anywhere near” this particular vast wasteland.
The entire notion that startups must have "global reach" to be relevant seems odd to me.
There are and have been plenty of startups throughout Europe, and the typical story is that they get bought by American companies and eye-watering amounts of VC capital.
Not saying that's the only issue; it's also true that getting meaningful funding is excruciatingly difficult in much of Europe. However, at the same time US companies have this "one little trick" to get a global reach: enormous huge stacks of cash.
That's a bizarre metric to judge a continent on. I mean, I could throw it back at you with : how many people's lives are ruined because of bankruptcy from a routine medical procedure that millions of Europeans get for free?
Ask your uncle who lives in old country, what he values more. EU-developed startups or universal healthcare that cured his child without bankrupting his household?
I think this is just because law and taxes are more forgiving in the US for companies to strive and gain advantage against companies in Europe.
Companies do well there, but only some people do. This difference is clear and large even when ignoring the homeless population. Higher-ups do extremely well, tech jobs are cushy, but people doing the more hands-on work tend to get the shorter end of the straw staff with low pay and long commutes.
European here. You're spot on with your question. Europe is an extremely hostile place to start a business compared to USA.
USA embraced capitalism and is geared towards proving concepts FAST and enabling networking. I love that about USA and I miss that in Europe, when it comes to IT/Tech sector in particular.
I'm not aware if Europe produced anything of significance in the past 30 years, we're lagging heavily behind USA/China and that's a fact. One could argue that Linus Torvalds is European hence Linux === European but I won't resort to such petty claims.
We produced very little value. We're having issues due to language discrepancy. Even though a lot of people speak English, it's often the case that we Europeans aren't able to communicate as well using English as we can in our native tongue. The lack of unified language is visible. The diversity in culture drives people to favor their own, we're bad at teamplay (this is from my personal experience and I am guilty of this).
There's many valuable lessons we could have learned from USA but we failed to apply them. We have various freely available systems that are great at, say, education - but education means nothing when it's difficult to apply it once people are done with it.
I worked with plenty of people from USA and I had huge prejudices towards them, in terms of "they talk a lot" or "they are not as competent, they are really slow when it comes to pumping out code" but I learned I was wrong to the point it's not funny. If anything, USA is really good at starting and pushing projects out that actually work.
Ultimately, do we even have a microchip factory (we might, but I'm unaware of it)?
Sorry for the wall of text, I just wanted to explain my POV and agree with you.
Personally, I'd love to see movement in EU's tech sector. We're 30 years behind USA in tech. I won't touch upon quality of life or similar topics because I'm interested in exploring technology.
Your mobile phone is most likely running a CPU invented in Europe (ARM). The next time you fly you are most likely going to fly on an airplane built in Europe (Airbus). When you buy your Ozempic you are buying a product invented in Europe. When you buy your prestige car you are buying a European car (Porsche, Mercedes, Ferrari, BMW, Roles Royce etc.) When you buy toys for your kids your are typically buying a European product (LEGO). When you buy your furniture you are very likely to buy European products (IKEA). I could go on and on ...
It's not a lack of local talent. It's a combination of two governance problems:
1. Europe has no large data centers. It has no such datacenters because the Green movement is much more powerful in Europe than in America, and they have systematically blocked the expansion of gas turbine power in favor of over-builds of renewables. The result is Germany having the most expensive electricity in the world. It just isn't affordable to train an LLM in the EU. Notice how Elon Musk has imported gas turbines from around the world to power the xAI datacenter; that just wouldn't be allowed in the EU.
But, still, a German company could do so using US datacenters. Mistral in France has probably done it this way. But then you hit:
2. Copyright laws in Europe are more restrictive. Even in the US it's very unclear whether training an LLM on copyrighted works is actually legal, but the US courts are fairly efficient and US law has the concept of fair use, which is flexible enough to give them the leeway to decide it's legal. In Europe the fair use equivalents are either more restrictive or don't exist at all, and courts follow the local culture of being much less business friendly, so it's much riskier to attempt this. The EU as a set of institutions is much more in hoc to the press than people realize, and MUCH more so than US administrations are. They regularly side with copyright holders over tech companies in disputes in a mostly successful attempt to curry positive PR for the EU project.
It won't win me any friends on HN but both of these factors boil down to a lack of a strong Republican Party equivalent in Europe. I don't think Americans appreciate the extent to which their economic success is dependent on the strength of the Republicans, and they really should. If American conservatism collapsed or was taken over by the left, as has happened in parts of Europe, you'd be seeing the EU-ification of America very quickly.
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I am an American but the idea of Germany not having a competitive LLM right now is pretty sad and embarrassing.
> As an American, It is really hard to understand how this can be for a country with such an incredible intellectual and engineering tradition.
As a German, I would claim that getting Germans on a hype train is incredibly hard.
I also cannot see anything that is "intellectual" about these LLMs. To me, the whole LLM scene is rather like "rich alpha tech bros are tech-broing; a lot of sycophants in the inner circle of these tech bros attempts to use the dictate of the moment to become rich fast; and a lot of real or feign AI fanbois attempts to rid the hype wave to make easy money".
I think the hype train was the polymath omniscient oracle. With agents sanity seems pretty much restored.
With the absorption of entire markets the sober European view should be that the US approach was correct. Throw things at the wall until you have a wall full of things that stick. It looked pretty stupid until it didn't.
> With the absorption of entire markets the sober European view should be that the US approach was correct. Throw things at the wall until you have a wall full of things that stick. It looked pretty stupid until it didn't.
This approach only works if you have an insane amount of capital to waste ...
You don't know if it works, that's the whole point. European investors are like: How do I know 100% for sure this company will be a success? Why do I need this product? I have a car with chauffeur, why do I need a taxi app? I have a cook and a butler, why do I need a food delivery app? Pitching the LLM would be outright offending.
>
You don't know if it works, that's the whole point.
I am aware of that, and this is actually my point:
Since you don't know what will work, you can easily have a long phase of "duds" in your investments until you get one big hit. If you don't have a huge mount of additional capital lying around, as an investor you will go bust during such a long "starvation period".
That is why I wrote that this kind of investment approach only works if you have an insane amount of capital to waste.
I think one can be more selective. Skip the unlikely long shots. Being first has its advantage and disadvantages, doing something reasonably early is good enough.
With an insane amount of capital you do get a more reliable % of success but with a single lottery ticket you still have odds to win.
If you are not in the game at all you certainly wont.
The manufacturing is worldwide, but mostly Western. Only one facility in the US, employing about 100-200 people.
As for US-financed... it's a publicly-traded company that makes most of its revenue from selling to big chipmakers, so largely Taiwanese and Japanese "funded".
Controversial opinion: Strip out the colonial wealth compounded, Europe may look like South America in terms of Economic and Exportative output over the last 50 years.
I have seen no evidence that European states would’ve developed the comfortable pace of work, welfare state, retirement and vacation systems independent of their amassed colonial wealth.
You realize the major colonizers comprise only 6 nations in the EU (7 if you count Russia, 8 if you count Turkey), and not all of them are that well off these days despite their past riches? (Spain and Portugal, Russia if you include them)
Not to mention countries like Poland and other soviet bloc nations that were the ones getting occupied, not the ones doing the occupying until VERY recently? And in saying "Europe", you're also including the non-EU Balkan states, Switzerland, the Nordics, Ukraine, Russia and depending on how you decide to split things, even Turkey?
Yet despite the MAJORITY of the nations here not being colonizers or having colonial histories, they all have all the comforts you mention in your comment, with things getting steadily better for the average Joe.
And what precisely did the glorious US manage to get with all their wealth, power and splendour, where people live in fear of ever having to go to a doctor's office lest they be indebted for the rest of their lives? Where you can get fired on the schizophrenic whims of the C-levels demanding the stones be squeezed for every last drop of blood?
"And what precisely did the glorious US manage to get with all their wealth,"
You're not going to get some defense of the US here, there's well known connections between America's tryst with Slavery and Jim Crow and its dysfunctional government services.
But I'd love to see a Venn diagram of countries that "Actually Colonized" (tm) and countries with really generous welfare systems/labor protections. I am guessing it'll be close to a single circle w/ some countries that are actually just a bunch of banks in a trench coat, sitting on the outside (looking at you Switzerland).
Letting most of your population twiddle your thumbs all summer without any consequences means you're mortgaging some sort of early lead, that's really all it is. Europeans don't have some magic productivity pill for the rest of the year that keeps you ahead of the curve.
> Letting most of your population twiddle your thumbs all summer without any consequences
What do you think the unemployment rate actually is in European countries?
Having a social safety net doesn't make most people want to loaf around. I get that there's a massive amount of propaganda on this point in the US, but like, it doesn't hold up to the slightest bit of scrutiny.
> I'd love to see a Venn diagram of countries that "Actually Colonized" (tm) and countries with really generous welfare systems/labor protections.
I encourage you to try diagramming that and see how it goes. Don't forget to include Ireland and the Nordics ;) And always remember that correlation isn't causation.
While you're at it, maybe have a look at the research on inequality, or the benefits of social safety nets.
I’m really, really starting to question how much of an Ultimate Flex “good for companies” is, when it comes at the expense of: standard of living, worker’s rights, privacy, a safety net, and everything else America lacks due to its single minded focus on being “good for business.”
Correct. As a well off person paying out the ass for "great insurance," the system is absolutely drastically worse than other developed countries. A complete joke.
So it’s not about whether you “have the money” but whether you happen to have one of those rare employers offering platinum plated health plans. I suppose in that narrow case, US health care may be good.
You can spend three days in a luxury suite at the #1 ranked hospital in the world, while their top docs screen you for everything. You literally have full access to whatever the Mayo Clinic offers.
> I suppose in that narrow case, US health care may be good.
Yes, that narrow case of millions of tech workers like myself.
You're not gonna believe this, but you are paying for it. Every dime your employer spends on your insurance is one dime they're not paying you in cash.
> You're not gonna believe this, but you are paying for it. Every dime your employer spends on your insurance is one dime they're not paying you in cash.
You're not gonna believe this, but you are paying for it. Every dime your employer spends on taxes is one dime they're not paying you in cash.
As somebody who has money and lived in the US, absolutely.
The system is a joke. It takes forever to get MRI appointments. Everything has so much bureaucracy. You fill out forms and make calls and get letters and all this bullshit.
Meanwhile, I can just book stuff online instantly now that I live in europe.
And it's visible in outcomes, too. Life expectancy in the EU is around 5 years higher than in the US.
Every single time I've went to a practice in the US, the first thing I had to do was fill out stacks of forms. I've never had to deal that here in the EU. Has that really changed in the past five years?
I’m in the US and it’s the same for me. Every single doctor I visit, it’s the same stack of papers with the same personal information and health history.
Profit for the founders and the shareholders is the only definition anyone cares about in the states.
The idea that a business could be considered successful by just providing a living wage for its owners and employees or contributing to the community is not a consideration.
People in this country see a single person startup making a few million dollars to be a greater success story than providing for the lives and well being of 20 employees for a decade.
China did it early and made growing their domestic industry a priority. Europe has not. This is like trying to close the gate after the horse has already escaped.
So not just EU, but any other region in the world, like Africa, South America, Central Asia should just give up and not try to make a business that could disrupt existing giants?
They can, but OP's point is that a ban on US tech on its own will do nothing to produce a local Silicon Valley. It needs to go hand in hand with a massive push toward local entrepreneurial support, especially in places like Europe where the government exercises more control through legislation
I don’t think you really need to incentivize businesses. If people want to start a business, they’re going to start one, regardless of whatever carrot you throw in front of them. “I’d love to start a business and make a profit, but the government just isn’t giving me enough incentive!” - said nobody ever.
Europe is regularly growing new tech startups, even online tech. The main problem is US vulture capital swooping in and buying it up as soon as it outgrows the local market, followed by everyone pretending it was developed in the US.
It worked for China because they were in position of power. The US wasn't established in China and they needed Chinese users to grow their global user base and influence. Meanwhile, China had the wealth and power to say no and instead fund and develop their own homegrown tech equivalents.
Europe doesn't have that same level of power. If tomorrow morning you banned Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, Salesforce in Europe, you'd destroy their economy.
What Europe needs to do is create the conditions for tech companies to emerge that could truly compete against US big tech. As long as European will prefer working for US corporation, there's no chance for Europe to compete. Simple as that.
I don't get your argument. Those companies provide overpriced crap to go along with domain specific code that is either open source or written by a more specialized company. If companies suddenly had to make intelligent choices and people would get fired for buying IBM, a bunch if companies would show up with better integrations than these since worse just isn't possible.
If a rush to get anything non-US were the priority the market of converting Chinese solutions would already deliver better solutions.. US tech (of this office sort) looks a lot like US steel plants a couple decades after other nations built replacements, that's why it is comical that Europe is not only using it but often using the very worst of it.
The greatest lie in the world is that US Gov. wants free market.
It has spent the last 10 years lobbying EU to ban Huawei, Chinese electric cars, Tiktok, etc.. It has banned foreign ships from travelling between US ports, a deal by Japan's Nippon Steel, imposed 300% tax on Bombardier, and imprisoned French executives until they agreed to sell a division of Alstom to GE.
This is why I support Trump as a European - at least he is upfront about the racket he is running. If the pretence cannot be maintained, our politicians will be forced to respond.
