
Why Europe needs to get over its Silicon Valley envy - ghosh
http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/feb/17/europe-silicon-valley-tech-startups-funding
======
yoha
I don't understand the trend from these last years of trying to copy
successful model by importing just the emergent part and ignoring all which is
hidden.

We have the example of the attempt of a French Silicon Valley [1] while there
is no incentive for entrepreneurs to build a company (sure, after some hassle,
you can still set up your start-up, but if your idea gets success, your best
hope is to be bought by an American company like Google). Another more recent
example is the "cloud à la Française" where the government catch the buzzword
for cloud-computing and wanted to have its own Amazon super-star company.
Basically, what they did is try to make a big company out of thin air [2]
while just ignoring all that already existed in the domain.

The current party detaining majority is the Socialist Party (PS) so the idea
that innovation comes from the state and individual action is just a burden
might be due to this situation, but I doubt it would have been a lot better
with the other major party (UMP, more right-wing oriented), who has been in
majority most of the time without improving the administrative maze of
entrepreneurship.

I don't know about much the other countries of Europe (although I have heard
that it was not so much better) but the situation of France is very
frustrating.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Antipolis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Antipolis)

[2]
[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudwatt](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudwatt)
(fr)

~~~
tarekmoz
I am not sure why you're saying that the Sophia Antipolis tech area is an
attempt to build a "Silicon Valley" \- It's mostly big companies there and
there's no incentive to build your startup there.

It's quite huge - around 1500 companies with a lot of R&D labs.

It was not built to mimic SV. And no one claims that except maybe some rare
schools/companies brochures that want to sell the place to students/young
engineers.

> The current party detaining majority is the Socialist Party (PS) so the idea
> that innovation comes from the state and individual action is just a burden

That's completely inaccurate... There's a huge effort right now to boost
innovation in France by the current government - by Fleur Pellerin, through
grants for private companies in tech and many other things.

Look at all those individuals the french government promotes at the CES ...
[http://blogs.afii.fr/en/2014/01/france-makes-waves-at-
ces-20...](http://blogs.afii.fr/en/2014/01/france-makes-waves-at-ces-2014-in-
las-vegas) \- it does not look like a burden to the government :)

~~~
vidarh
> It's mostly big companies there and there's no incentive to build your
> startup there.

SV started around the large military research facilities, and the
semiconductor companies. Some startups (e.g. HP) came fairly early, but the
large startup boom in the area happened _after_ there was an established large
concentration of technology people working for large stablished companies.

------
stcredzero
Europe, China, and whoever else who would like to one-up Silicon Valley needs
to analyze SV's success _and weaknesses_ from first principles. I stress: And
Weaknesses!

If you don't take this two-sided approach to re-creating Silicon Valley's
success, then you run the risk of blindly imitating the wrong things. Also, if
you want to not only match but surpass SV, you need to be mindful of such
weaknesses.

I have to admit that my sample size is too small to be scientific, but I am
starting to suspect that SV startups actually have a _rationality problem_.
Startup founders often have blind faith in aphorisms that have been adopted by
the startup community and make decisions on the basis of these "old sayings"
and programmer-lore biases while ignoring quantitative reasoning. I recently
had an exchange like so:

"We need X so we can scale." (X doesn't run stably and they want me to fix it,
but this will be very expensive. Y runs stably, but they don't like it.)

"What does scaling mean quantitatively for your business? Have you worked out
those numbers and cranked that through Little's Law and figured out how much
it will cost you to support n users?"

"No, we haven't done that yet, but we know we need X because Y would take too
much RAM." (But when pressed, they can't quantify what "too much RAM" means
with respect to business models.)

Well, I did the numbers myself, and it turns out that Y would just add about
40% to their equipment cost and get them up and running quickly while they're
waiting for X to be fixed.

What shocks me even more: None of their investors or advisors had even asked
them the question!

~~~
mark_l_watson
Good points. I think the number one Silicon Valley weakness is very high cost
of living. I worked in Mountain View last fall and was shocked at the cost of
living. I would guess that living costs in my town in Arizona is about 40% of
the cost of living in SV. At work, I heard horror stories from co-workers
about very long commute times - no way to live.

~~~
nunb
Other than cost of housing are there very big differences with Sedona in say,
grocery or {furnishings, restaurants, car, gas} prices?

~~~
mark_l_watson
It is amazing how much less expensive it is in the mountains of Central
Arizona: real estate prices are probably 50% less expensive, food perhaps 20%,
gas is usually about $0.40 cheaper per gallon, movies less expensive. Also, my
wife and I entertain ourselves hiking, kayaking, and hanging out with friends.
In Silicon Valley, getting together with people seemed to involve going out to
expensive restaurants.

That said, we had a lot of fun in Silicon Valley - a really nice experience.

------
simonbarker87
While I agree with the sentiment of the article, depending on where you are in
Europe it can be very hard to sell your big ambition vision to conservative
angels who have grown their wealth in traditional industries - sometimes you
raise £250,000 because that's all you can raise - especially when you are pre-
revenue, convertibles on £150K with a 45% preset conversion is not uncommon.

The mindset needs to change from both sides, investors and entrepreneurs.

Also, the exit path is less obvious in Europe, you're basically praying that
the same tech gods that do tech M&As in the US will want to in Europe

~~~
adwf
Yes exactly. The end of the article summed it up nicely, the seed funding
sometimes feels impossible over here. It's very difficult to find an investor
who will give a decent SV-comparable valuation when you are pre-revenue.

It's even worse when you actually have a small cashflow coming in, then
they'll just value your company based on revenue x5 - if you're lucky!

~~~
simonbarker87
x5 valuation?! They must have been really impressed with you to give you that.
Generally we've found that small VCs are better than angels, but breaking the
link between revenue and valuation is tough.

~~~
adwf
Just an example, not me personally. Yeah it's depressing.

------
Udo
I speak as someone who's done - and failed with - a startup in Europe. Several
aspects of the US, and specifically Silicon Valley, are certainly an
appropriate target for envy and they're not easy to replicate in Europe for
different reasons.

Easy access to funding, a _funding culture_ , a bootstrap entrepreneurial
culture, a big tech-savvy audience, a spirit of creativity and
experimentalism, a socially and economically mobile milieu... there are so
many things that we just don't have in Europe.

It's no accident that (what feels like) most German web startups are copycats
of successful American products, sometimes down to the look and feel of the
product. Building new stuff is actively discouraged here, nobody likes doing
bold experiments: not customers, not investors, not even developers.

Looking at seed funding behavior is a very shallow thing to do in the face of
these big hulking cultural differences. Playing around with money, having an
exploratory approach to your career, risking failure - those things are just
not done in Europe.

~~~
Jd
Yes, I'm an American who worked on a startup in Berlin, with a similar and sad
evaluation.

re: Easy access to funding \-- absolutely, I think it is the risk adversity
that kills everything, esp. at the angel stage.

re: a bootstrap entrepreneurial culture \-- Most Europeans don't want to work
long hours either and it's legally questionable to ask them to. that's a show
stopper.

re: Building new stuff is actively discouraged here, nobody likes doing bold
experiments: not customers, not investors, not even developers. \-- Sadly have
to agree with you based on my experience in Berlin. Even downloading a new app
on a phone is regarded with a good deal of suspicion.

re: spirit of creativity and experimentalism \-- I have a hard time knowing
why this is, but I've written on it before. May interest you:

[http://fractastical.com/2013/06/05/a-developers-
introduction...](http://fractastical.com/2013/06/05/a-developers-introduction-
to-germany/)

Overall, I also find that Europeans for the most part don't want to do billion
dollar startups. They seem to think that there is something wrong with the
large amounts of money involved, and saying that this is your goal is more
likely to meet (in my experience) with criticism than encouragement.

This seems true across central Europe (France & Germany) while the big
successes mostly come from foreigners (i.e. Skype, SAP).

But on the other hand, billion dollar startups create lots of fairly wealthy
people that can then be angel investors and pump up the ecosystem. I don't see
any other way for the system to evolve, but I was amazed by the degree to
which there was a mental barrier against any sort of large scale success.

~~~
matthiasl
Are you citing Skype and SAP as _exceptions_ to your rule?

As far as I know, Skype was started by Europeans in Europe. And so was SAP.
The SAP founders appear to be about as German as you can get.

~~~
Udo
There are always exceptions and outliers, and Skype is a good example.
However, SAP? Never. It's a massively connected consulting shop, and they have
always been. Their software is just incidental. There's no innovation there,
it's _Office Space_ meets _House of Lies_.

------
_pmf_
We're just envious of the money; we don't actually think making cute web apps
is a sustainable billion dollar business (or rather, it is, but in the true
spirit of classic Ponzi schemes).

~~~
greendata
I'm not sure I'd consider Apple, Google, Genentech, and Oracle "cute apps". I
think for every Apple you're going to have 100 maybe 1000 companies that are
near worthless. It's just part of the chaotic process that must be accepted if
you want the good parts.

------
api
You don't want to copy Silicon Valley, since there are many things about the
Valley that suck. What you want is to become something different, and perhaps
excel in slightly different niches.

Take a look at other places with booming tech sectors, like these two:

Los Angeles and Orange County have a lot of tech around aerospace,
manufacturing, health care, and entertainment (e.g. Oculus, Red Digital
Cinema, etc.). Boston taps its deep academic wealth to yield top-notch
companies in fields that involve massive eggheads doing scary things with
math.

They're not as big as the Valley on web brands, PCs, or mobile, but they're as
big or bigger in other areas.

~~~
Aloisius
_They 're not as big as the Valley on web brands, PCs, or mobile, but they're
as big or bigger in other areas_

I think a lot of people don't realize that Silicon Valley doesn't just
dominate in a couple tech niches. It dominates software (46% of investments),
biotech (32%) cleantech, IT services (43%) and (shockingly) media and
entertainment (40% according to PwC, but even I don't understand this one).
There is an entire ecosystem of companies outside of tech that tech people
don't even know exists (I know multiple friends starting biotech and cleantech
startups that basically don't interact with the rest of the tech world).

More venture capital goes to Silicon Valley every year than the rest of the
nation combined and VCs are quickly diversifying into other areas simply
because tech startups are becoming so cheap and they have money burning a hole
in their collective pockets. And it is only getting worse - SV investing is
growing faster than the market as a whole - up nearly a $1 billion this year
alone.

If the money keeps pouring in, we may come to see SV (or rather, the Bay Area)
quickly extend its domination into other areas like say, automotive (well, if
Tesla ever gets off the ground).

~~~
api
I know lots of people ask this question but: what, in your opinion, drives
this and why don't we see more of it in other places?

~~~
Aloisius
There isn't one reason.

I think a lot of people really underestimate the power of the Silicon Valley
brand. Silicon Valley has over 60 years of history as being a place where tech
companies come from. It has had nearly the same amount of history of venture
capital investment. Just like the United States was branded as the place where
roads were paved of gold, Silicon Valley is branded as the place where dreams
become reality.

This is powerful. It means we draw in the young, the dreamers, the motivated,
the intelligent, the networkers and (generally) the doers. We drain other
areas of their talent. We drain entire countries of talent. Plus we have three
world class universities with stringent entrance requirements that put out
huge numbers of people that were literally surrounded by peers starting
companies in fields that have easy financing (berkeley -
tech/cleantech/biotech, ucsf - biotech, stanford - tech/cleantech). A few
National Labs (Berkeley, Livermore and SLAC) and the NASA Ames research center
didn't hurt either.

On top of that, we have an area where nearly everyone is a potential beta
tester. We're talking about a population of 7 million people who all know
someone in tech or related to tech that are willing to try out your random
product. Who will talk about it in the coffee shop. There is a large enough
initial user base in the bay area alone to get you over the network effects
threshold which is important to a whole host of companies (not all of course).

The reason you don't see this in other places is because it took _decades and
decades_ to happen and several cultural anomalies were instrumental in it
continuing. A big one was that startup founders who got lucky in the early
days also didn't hoard their money. They reinvested it in the next generation
of companies which really helped keep SV strong. They also tended not to move.
Once you come here, you stay (your kids on the other hand are a different
matter).

~~~
sirkneeland
"A big one was that startup founders who got lucky in the early days also
didn't hoard their money. They reinvested it in the next generation of
companies which really helped keep SV strong."

Nor was their money taxed away. It was theirs to reinvest. Does this hold true
in Europe?

------
Nursie
>>Take London as an example: 27% of job growth in London last year came from
the tech sector, with the number of tech startups growing by 76%

These two numbers say nothing at all about how valuable startups are to the
economy or to people. The source pdf mentions startups a lot and then mentions
established companies with years of history behind them.

I'm not sure about SV envy, or if investors here are just less likely to throw
heaps of money at young companies trying to be the next flash-in-the-pan web
thing because the SV valuations are utterly unrealistic and are only
predicated on equally insane 'exit' values.

~~~
memracom
Agreed. SV is driven more by gambling and outrageous risk-taking. That paid
off when the market for technology companies was young, but now it is maturing
and there are more entrants from around the world, i.e. more competition. So
Europe's lower investment amounts really amount to putting more players into
the game to compete against SV. It's a reasonable strategy to try.

------
sabbatic13
I found this article rather superficial. It touched on a few (very few) points
of comparison and ignored a huge number of factors affecting entrepreneurship
in Europe.

Rather than waste time expanding on that though, I have a question. In this
statement " If we truly believe the next global superstar in tech will hail
from Europe, why would we only fund them at one-fifth the amount of their
future US competitors?" Who the hell is "we"?

Of course, this question begs the question of whether "we" believe any such
thing, because no such idea follows at all from the preceding disquisition. We
have several arguments, weak arguments, trying to prop up the idea of a
healthy startup ecosystem, and then suddenly we are defining success by the
measure of outliers.

But in any event, who is we? The would-be pundits? The startup people in
Europe? VC's? The people who give VC's money? Only the last two have any real
say in where the money is invested, the VC's much more than the funders.

Do VC's generally believe this? If not, why? Is the claim that they are
benighted and too envious. I would find that surprising, given that all the
San Hill people I know are hyper-capitalists, to put it mildly, and crunch
numbers as readily as most people blink on a windy day.

It's commonplace for VC's to get article and interviews published, given that
half of their job is self-marketing, but to be blunt, the attempt to sound
like a pundit/prophet is usually much better than this.

------
wozniacki

      King is now the largest social gaming company in the world  
      in terms of users
    

King is hardly the gaming company you'd want to shower praises on or use as an
example of Europe's startup success stories. [1]

That would be a bad precedent. Surely there are much more upstanding
companies.

Supercell, perhaps.

[1]

King.com, makers of Candy Crush Saga – Trademark Trolls with a Double
Standard?
([http://junkyardsam.com/kingcopied/#](http://junkyardsam.com/kingcopied/#))

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7114291](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7114291)

CandySwipe Open Letter to King regarding trademark
([http://www.candyswipe.com/king.html](http://www.candyswipe.com/king.html))

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7225945](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7225945)

King Candy Crushes Developers, The Saga
([http://www.gemfruit.com/articles/king-candy-crushes-
develope...](http://www.gemfruit.com/articles/king-candy-crushes-developers-
saga/#))

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7129708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7129708)

------
w1ntermute
We always hear about Israeli tech startup successes. What have they done
differently from the Europeans that has allowed them to succeed?

~~~
fredoliveira
Start-up nation is a pretty good book that tries to answer that exact
question: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-
up_Nation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-up_Nation) (I'm not affiliated
in any way)

 _The authors argue that a major factor for Israel 's economic growth can be
found in the culture of the Israel Defense Forces, in which service is
mandatory for most young Israelis. The authors believe that IDF service
provides potential entrepreneurs with the opportunities to develop a wide
array of skills and contacts. They also believe that IDF service provides
experience exerting responsibility in a relatively unhierarchical environment
where creativity and intelligence are highly valued.[6] IDF soldiers "have
minimal guidance from the top, and are expected to improvise, even if this
means breaking some rules. If you're a junior officer, you call your higher-
ups by their first names, and if you see them doing something wrong, you say
so."[1] Neither ranks nor ages matter much "when taxi drivers can command
millionaires and 23-year-olds can train their uncles," and "Israeli forces
regularly vote to oust their unit leaders."_

------
gametheoretic
Honest question. Seriously. For Britons only--

What's with the Guardian and "From my perspective, America's not so great!"
articles? Not, like, "how could anyone think that?" but why does it seem to be
such a regular feature? I admit upfront my being American may cause me to
imagine/over-remember this phenomenon.

~~~
cyphunk
If it is a phenomenon it's only because of a different phenomenon you may not
perceive: the incessant portrayal as US=Gods Country. This is pushed so much
that many may see it worthwhile to counter and put it in check with "Come on,
it's not that great... see XYZ"

~~~
gametheoretic
Fair; I was under the impression most of that talk stayed in-house, so to
speak. Are you referring to portrayals just by Americans which reach British
shores, or portrayals by Britons as well?

------
nlstitch
This article is very shortsighted. Ambition is not the problem;

1.) Subsidies are broken; The company with the biggest mouth gets the money
instead of the best idea. I've seen it dozens of times with the weirdest legal
constructions; Companies create holdings with different companies under them
and those companies "hire" each other instead of hiring other parties outside
of the holding, so they get all the hours and money.(Lots of tax money is
evaded that way)

I know a company that got !3 million Euros! in EU-funding in the last 6 years
and no one knows what they do. Now nobody wants to do business with them.

2.) Startup hubs DO need help; As much as I love the passionate startup hubs,
they are not going to get traction without help from a bigger company. I think
that the startup scene of London wouldn't be so vibrant if it wasn't for the
Google Campus. Companies would be funded more/easier if your being backed by a
worldwide-known brand like Google (even if its only the desk your sitting at).

Please see [http://www.larrypage.nl](http://www.larrypage.nl) for my quest to
bring Google to The Netherlands and start a Startup Campus here. P.S: The
United Kingdom is NOT Europe.

~~~
mrgordon
Google has been in The Netherlands for a while FWIW. That doesn't mean a
startup campus isn't a good idea though!

Google Amsterdam Claude Debussylaan 34 Vinoly Mahler 4 Toren B, 15th Floor
Amsterdam, Netherlands

------
christianhern
Hi all, I'm the author of the article which was a 750-word cut down version of
the presentation I did at Slush and the subsequent blog post I wrote:

[http://christianhern.tumblr.com/post/67066816410/why-i-am-
lo...](http://christianhern.tumblr.com/post/67066816410/why-i-am-long-on-
europe-madeineu)

Agree with some of the comments below that it was short, generic and "mass
market". The thread below was (and is) the only intent of the presentation,
blog post and subsequent article... to make this a topic for debate.

-Do I believe a European startup can compete with an American startup Day 1: YES -Do we have the same level of ambition: Sometimes -Do "we" (VCs, Angels): take as risky bets?: NO -Is entrepreneurship the best way for Europe to grow and Europeans to thrive: YES!

Judge me on my actions not my words (which, fair enough will take some time to
prove).

(and the role of government and hubs is for another time... different mutator
which varies greatly across Europe)

------
comatose_kid
Anecdote: the head of a 3000 person tech company that I chatted with for over
an hour thinks of Europe as a flyover continent because most of the disruptive
change is happening in Asia and America.

------
fredgrott
Okay, I guess I should speak about this..

I am in the USA, state of Indiana, and the state government got together with
a non-profit to set aside some $40 million of tax money to grow the Indiana
startup community.

Only problem, or one of them, is their ignoring the out-flows in that at least
for Indiana we have a large outflow of graduating STEM. And of course those
that do not leave are saddled with debts.

Of course you can get around these obstacles by analyzing what 'small'
startups can be done via hackathons etc by creating a communit/workspace
environment where those things are exchanged.

Compared to say Chicago:

Chicago $1 Billion invested in new startups 2013 $2 billion in M&A in startups
2013

Indiana Not even $100 Million in either category

In other years Indiana was spearheading biomedical startups centered around IU
and Purdue ot keep their Medical grads with STEM home based.

Can anyplace really do the duplication of Silicon Valley as piecemeal?

~~~
mbesto
> _Can anyplace really do the duplication of Silicon Valley as piecemeal?_

Categorically the answer is a simple "no". Most of these government sponsored
programs are attempts to "inject" life into a system that has basically
nothing. AFAIK, there isn't anywhere in the world where this has successfully
worked. SV is SV purely because of capitalism.

Interesting discussion on this: [http://steveblank.com/2014/01/20/bigger-in-
bend-building-a-r...](http://steveblank.com/2014/01/20/bigger-in-bend-
building-a-regional-startup-cluster-part-1-of-3/)

------
workhere-io
Discussions like this on HN always tend to bring about anecdotal evidence from
people who only have experience from a single European country and extrapolate
from that. So let me just take this opportunity to remind HN'ers that
conditions (be they cultural, legal or otherwise) vary to an extreme degree
between European countries.

In other words, don't be scared to start a business in e.g. Germany just
because someone on HN says that starting a business in France is problematic.
They are completely different countries with different laws and mindsets:
[http://soimovedhere.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/stop-
generalizi...](http://soimovedhere.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/stop-generalizing-
about-europe/)

------
return0
It's not the funding that is the problem.

Europeans have no need for Silicon Valley. Most of Europe is technologically
conservative and averse to trying out new stuff, in a way that other audiences
are not. Governments will go at great lengths to make sure that the law
forbids any entrepreneurial action that threatens the status quo in just about
anything. In other words, severe and chronic risk aversion from both the
entrepreneurs, their audience and the regulatory environment.

Would companies like Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, Snapchat be ever able to grow if
they had targeted Europeans?

How many of you european entrepreneurs here actually target primarily the
European market or expect to grow in it?

~~~
kjjw
Absolute nonsense.

~~~
amenghra
France has been hurting entrepreneurs in various ways. E.g.
[http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/global-observer/is-france-
ab...](http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/global-observer/is-france-about-to-
hinder-its-entrepreneurs/)

I'm not sure risk aversion is always the core reason, but there is often a
lack of understanding from gov & people. In Europe, you also need to market
your products to a very diverse market (dozens of European languages,
different social standards in different countries, etc.). In USA, the market
is more homogenous.

------
polskibus
What we need in Europe is a larger risk appetite. This is something we lack
and SV has built-in. However, the systemic tolerance for risk comes not from
SV, but from foundation and role of capital markets in US and old UK/Europe
economies. In US capital markets were used to sponsor large investment
projects on a regular basis, whereas in Europe it was rare.

I'm not talking about fancy CDOs, etc. but enterprises before that, which
helped shape the societies' attitudes toward risk in general. This difference
is explained in Perry Mehrling's videos available on Coursera if you want to
learn about it in greater detail.

------
jkaljundi
Many sides to it. Fully agree on what Christian says about European startups
raising too little and not being able to execute on their vision because of
that.

At the same time agree with entrepreneurs raising this little, as the
valuations often are much lower than in the US and there is less investor
selection available.

Then coming back to investors, the low valuations are often correct, just
because there are much fewer exit opportunities available. Just count how many
European exits there were last year. No exit opportunities means no sense to
exit into startups as an investor, because your chance to get the money back
is much less.

For Estonian (nation of 1.3m in Europe and one of the poorest in EU,
extrapolate from that) related startups, 2013 was the best year ever, with
32mEUR raised by 40 teams. 20% of that money came from Estonia, 80% from
Europe and US. There has been almost double growth between 2011-12 and
2012-13. So the growth in European tech and investment ecosystem is definitely
there.

------
lasermike026
Europe shouldn't try to beat Silicon Valley by becoming Silicon Valley. If
they want to be superior to Silicon Valley they should develop business
models, industries and technology that is superior to anything in the world.
Silicon Valley is pretty old and their practices are dated. Getting over
Silicon Valley is a matter of development.

------
WiseWeasel
Yes, Facebook is distraught by the fact that European startups are offering
themselves up for aquisition on the cheap. It's apparently their own fault for
not asking for more money.

Don't worry about the money you could be making in SV, you're fine where you
are! We'll come to you.

------
nirnira
I think the problem is much deeper, and has very little to do with attempts to
foster tech success. Europe as a whole is broken: depressed, angry and locked-
up, largely as a result of the colossal fuck-up that was World War 2. They
think they know better now, but really they're still completely mind-fucked
over it. They don't believe in themselves - they don't even trust their own
emotions (look how wrong things went every time Europeans have been excited
about Big Ideas.) The older generations are seething. And the young Europeans
I meet are all in one way or another trying to escape this anguish - by
"living the dream" overseas (South America! Australia!) or partying themselves
into oblivion, or running headlong into the tight, blinkered embrace of an
anonymous middle-class life and career. Sure, Europe has it's large,
successful industries - but often this is another form of escape - easier to
pour your life's energy into building a more perfect car engine than face up
to the devastating emotional history of your country.

Ultimately what you want in a country is happy, confident, well-adjusted
people. Until someone finds a way to heal Europe's soul, arguments about
impediments to the European Silicon Valley are academic.

~~~
memracom
This does not sound like the Europe I lived in for 11 years. You have a
typical America-centric view of the Europe that is totally out of touch with
reality.

Europe is not a simple place because it has many cultures and a huge
population, but it is far from broken. America on the other hand, appears to
be an empire in decline.

Also, be wary of defining Europe based on its history. Europe is going through
great change. In particular, the younger generation of Europe has a lot more
in common across cultures than the previous over-30 generations. And they are
every bit as driven to succeed as the folks in Silicon Valley. In fact, I
would say that if you look at the whole under 30 age group in America and
compare it to the same age group in Europe, you will find a lot more pessimism
and self-destructive behaviors among the American group.

~~~
nirnira
Thanks for the reply. Just noting that I'm not American (don't assume every
ignorant-sounding person you meet on the internet is American!)

I have visited several European countries and met and interacted with many
young and old Europeans, and I hope to live there permanently in the future,
and so find add more depth to my admittedly incomplete data. I do know that
every part of Europe is different - some parts are in my experience much worse
than even than the picture I painted (Hungary for instance). I guess I was
exaggerating for dramatic effect. Still, I think there are serious emotional
problems in modern Europe, and I'm not satisfied that people are really
acknowledging or facing up to them.

I really do have a lot of love and hope for Europe. It just frustrates me I
suppose. Perhaps a corollary of meeting primarily younger, party-oriented
Europeans?

Hope this explains my views a little better.

