
EU's Tusk warns of risks in rise of U.S. tech giants - kerng
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-poland-tusk-tech/eus-tusk-warns-of-risks-in-rise-of-u-s-tech-giants-idUSKCN1S91AO
======
andreilys
A similar case can be made for Chinese tech companies, many of whom are
actively complicit in human rights violations [1] [2].

Yet EU countries like Italy have no qualms about supporting the geopolitical
aims of China, inevitably strengthening the position of the Chinese tech
companies. Which should come to no surprise given their close ties to the
communist party [3] [4].

[1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-01/alibaba-b...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-01/alibaba-
backed-face-scans-show-big-tech-ties-to-china-s-xinjiang)

[2] [https://www.thestar.com/news/huawei/2019/03/27/canadas-
partn...](https://www.thestar.com/news/huawei/2019/03/27/canadas-partnership-
with-huawei-immoral-as-well-as-risky-researcher-suggests-as-report-calls-out-
human-rights-abuses.html)

[3]
[https://www.ft.com/content/5d0af3c4-846c-11e8-a29d-73e3d4545...](https://www.ft.com/content/5d0af3c4-846c-11e8-a29d-73e3d454535d)

[4] [https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/02/tech/china-tech-communist-
par...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/02/tech/china-tech-communist-
party/index.html)

~~~
markdown
> A similar case can be made for Chinese companies, many of whom are actively
> complicit in human rights violations

Snowden showed us that US companies routinely do this, with FISA forcing them
to participate just like the Chinese Govt does to Chinese companies. Also, US
law only protects the human rights of US citizens, while non-citizens get
their privacy invaded routinely (in contravention of Article 12 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

~~~
andreilys
US tech companies routinely aid the government in systematic ethnic cleansing
[1]?

Also last time I remember there being a showdown on privacy between Apple and
the FBI, Apple refused their request to side-load software that would allow
them to crack a terrorists phone. I can't imagine Huawei being able to refuse
such a request from the Communist party.

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-
opinions/ethn...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-
opinions/ethnic-cleansing-makes-a-comeback--in-
china/2018/08/02/55f73fa2-9691-11e8-810c-5fa705927d54_story.html?utm_term=.658166352bf7)

~~~
Shivetya
well many of them have no problem using China for a manufacturing base and
frankly how is that different from companies based there? I scoff at companies
like Apple touting their concern for rights when they effectively turn a blind
eye to China's behavior because the market is too valuable

------
Mirioron
Maybe the EU and European countries could've fostered an environment where
tech companies could've been successful as well?

~~~
m0zg
Venture capital and socialism (+overgrown, multi-level bureaucracies in the
EU's case) can't really coexist. Nor can $200K+ US salaries coexist with $70K
EU salaries for software engineers. So I wish Tusk good luck dealing with this
one.

~~~
djohnston
god the pay cut is so real :( .. hopefully the experience makes up for it,
temporarily

~~~
johannes1234321
The "pay cut" is one-dimensional. In Europe I don't have student debt. In
Europe I pay less for health care. In Europe I have more time of. In Europe I
have better public infrastructure. In Europe I pay less for housing than the
Valley.

Of course you can validate those things differently, but only looking on
salary tells little.

~~~
m0zg
You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the government
that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes. The cost structure
is different, that's true (European doctors also make a lot less, and US
pharma companies subsidize non-US customers for some reason), but that doesn't
matter with a typical US SWE salary.

And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if you
had it in the first place (substantial fraction of students receive financial
assistance).

Best of both worlds: get your "free" degree in Europe, move to the US, make a
killing. This, in short, is Tusk's problem.

~~~
johannes1234321
> You don't pay that much less for healthcare. Remember, it's not the
> government that's paying for it, it's _you_ paying, with your taxes

Well, if I look at
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_h...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capitaexpediture)
per capita is almost double to many European countries.

But even then comparison is hard, since treatments etc. differ.

> And with a fat $200K+ paycheck student debt goes away in a few years, if you
> had it in the first place (substantial fraction of students receive
> financial assistance).

If a European however, isntea dofnoayingnof debt has some money to invest
there can be long term benefits (also Europeans often have better retirement
funds)

All just to say that is complicated and comparison is hard. And true, it can
financially be beneficial to get a good education in Europe and the go to make
some money. Tusk's issue however is that digital world is important and US has
a big leap and control.

~~~
m0zg
Sure, but as a SWE you're making 3 times as much and paying half as much in
taxes. You have to take that into account when deciding which is better for
you economically, and it won't be in Europe's favor.

~~~
djohnston
3x and .5x in US taxes are pretty hefty exaggerations, but I agree,
financially you're better off working in the US. that being said, im moving to
the UK for a year or two with the intent of traveling a lot through Europe, so
there are other considerations that may sway your decisions :)

------
ComputerGuru
I'm not sure why the comments here are unusually toxic, but I think it is good
to hear this. The EU tech sector has an opportunity to create customer-first
text services with a strong focus on privacy and data portability, but it'll
need some concessions and some support. There's no reason why the EU cannot
replicate at least _some_ of the success the US has had in the tech market,
and even internally it has a large enough market to give rise to some healthy
entities.

Of course these might be actually sustainable businesses and not startups
playing the unicorn game with VCs, trading at impossible sky-high valuations
instead of what they're really worth and without a vision for profitability,
so whatever metric you use to calculate success should definitely take that
into account.

~~~
akersten
I don't think it's toxic to criticize the regulatory practices that have
created the business environment that the article laments. Actually I think
it's more than fair to do so. "Blunt" may be a better word to describe the
comments here.

~~~
ajuc
In which way does regulation create the business environment that the article
laments?

EU was always behind in internet stuff, even when there was no regulation.

~~~
adventured
Indeed, Europe has been behind the US in tech since WW2. The lead the US
acquired in the following ~20 years has proven impossible to overcome. It
spawned so many various advantages that compound and build on each other (to
say nothing of the single market of enormous size).

If they knew what they were doing, they'd start by massively increasing the
pay for software developers across Western Europe. Software is why the US
dominates global tech. 1.25 million software developers earning a median of
$105,000 in salary.

Software is why Japan wasn't able to dominate tech, despite that being the
near universal thought - that it was the inevitable outcome - in the late
1980s and early 1990s. They couldn't do software well, it's the difference
between Apple doing the iPod and Sony flailing after the Walkman. It's also
why Apple murdered Nokia, it's the software: the smartphone is about the
software, not the hardware (which always drifts towards commodity, low value,
low margin; Apple was focused on building a device that could effectively run
serious software programs). The rise of Microsoft from 1975 to its eventual
position as global tech titan by the time Win95 came out, charts the course of
the US solidifying its position in tech via software margins. Most of the
value gradually shifted from hardware to software, from the 1970s to the
1990s. The immensely profitable nature of most software pours an endless
deluge of profit into the US tech machine (which is then used to keep
expanding it and buying up global competition).

US cloud dominance is similarly all about the software, rather than hardware
in the cloud (again, low margin, low value). It's why Europe can't compete
with AWS. Imagine if the US tech dominance were dependent on competing in
server hardware, black rectangle smartphones or PC boxes. The US would have
entirely gotten its brains stomped in by now. Instead, the US moved upstream
and got all the profit in the tech industry: it's all in the software margins.

It's the software, Europe. Pay your software developers a lot more if you want
to compete.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
That arc of software history is recognizable to me. There are excellent devs
all over and pretty much every large company has divisions with european
offices with devs. There's something about the business of starting large
software based enterprises that seems to work better in the us though.

Also, I think China is coming for the us software industry's dominance. If
they can figure out how to get around the worry of chinese govt access to
external to china customers, chinese software companies could out compete the
us, just like microsoft with windows beat out ibm maybe.

~~~
Slartie
That "something" is the huge, relatively homogeneous, english-speaking and
thus very "international-by-default" single market.

It's the one and only actual moat that the US has over Europe when it comes to
developing huge corporations in the winner-takes-all online markets.
Everything else (like better VC situation, more attractive environment for
international talent) is just a result of this original moat and would have
just as well developed the other way round if this one advantage had been on
the other side of the Atlantic.

------
shmerl
EU officials are totally helping things with Article 13 and Co.

~~~
rasz
For reference, _his party_ was pushing Article 13 in EU Parliament. September
12 everyone from PO voted for censorship:

    
    
      Michał Boni (PO)
      Jerzy Buzek (PO)
      Danuta Hübner (PO)
      Danuta Jazłowiecka (PO)
      Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz (PO)
      Barbara Kudrycka (PO)
      Janusz Lewandowski (PO)
      Elżbieta Łukacjiewska (PO)
      Jan Olbrycht (PO)
      Julia Pitera (PO)
      Marek Plura (PO)
      Dariusz Rosati (PO)
      Adam Szejnfeld (PO)
      Róża Thun Und Hohenstein (PO)
      Jarosław Wałęsa (PO)
      Bogdan Wenta (PO)
      Bogdan Zdrojewski (PO)
      Tadeusz Zwiefka (PO)
    
    

Final April vote pro censorship:

    
    
      Danuta Hübner (PO)
      Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz (PO)
      Barbara Kudrycka (PO)
      Julia Pitera (PO)
      Bogdan Zdrojewski (PO)
      Tadeusz Zwiefka (PO)

~~~
d33
I found it quite surprising and decided to double-check. This source doesn't
seem to agree if I'm reading it right:

[https://saveyourinternet.eu/pl/](https://saveyourinternet.eu/pl/)

Could you let me know where you have this information from?

~~~
rasz
you are right, I was missing

    
    
      Danuta Jazłowiecka (PO)
    

so the final list is 7 for Article 13

~~~
d33
Either of us is reading it backwards - for example, Michał Boni is "green" in
both "Vote on Possibility to Change the Final Text" and "Final Vote on
Copyright Directive". Doesn't it mean he opposed it? Or is the first list of
yours referring to a third voting, not mentioned on the website?

~~~
rasz
First list is "September 12 vote", the very first ACTA 2 one.

Just for reference, official PO party twitter posted this
[https://twitter.com/platforma_org/status/1015184834623365120](https://twitter.com/platforma_org/status/1015184834623365120)
"No to ACTA" in July, and in 2012 Tusk (very same from main topic, head of PO)
officially announced Polish position as "categorical YES to ACTA, nothing will
change our mind" [https://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/premier-
podpiszemy...](https://www.tvn24.pl/wiadomosci-z-kraju,3/premier-podpiszemy-
acta-nie-ugniemy-sie-pod-szantazem,198325.html)

PO party is a Platform of corruption and lies, they used to change tune every
poll/elections and are implicated in every major corruption scandal to date.

------
wazoox
EU officials don't understand the current trade war. The US keeps coercing EU
companies, buying them out by force (Alstom), pushing them out of markets
(Iran), using extortion against EU banks, generally pressuring the EU in the
position of an obedient vassal; but the EU doesn't get it, at all. That's a
tragedy (for us Europeans).

Eu officials are completely bought into the free market ideology and "gentle
commerce". Nowadays strategic companies are even sold to the Chinese, because
"free markets". Morons. EU is inept, useless.

It's quite saying that Russia, with its limited means, limited population and
GDP inferior to Italy, successfully kept its digital independence (mostly).

~~~
temp-dude-87844
A lot of core EU policies are based the neoliberal "gentle free markets" model
of the world, like the rules to privatize infrastructure, transport, and
telecom. They're largely to allow an EU-wide market where protectionism
applies at the level of the entire bloc and not at the level of individual
countries, but they are easily taken advantage in an asymmetric setting. It's
not unlike how US companies go into China to show growth, yet complain about
the coercion and theft of their IP, as if these happenings weren't an open
secret.

The US takes advantage of EU's tech landscape being worse paid, more
regulated, and less nimble, and takes advantage of the difficulties of
policing the interaction between users and Internet-delivered services.

China takes advantage of the naivete of the EU and the greed of the US. Other
players, like Russia, UAE, and Qatar play a similar game, but unlike China
they don't use hardware and software, but stick to property ownership and
influencing hearts and minds.

~~~
wazoox
Except that no protectionism at all happens at the EU level, because officials
are completely clueless. Or bought-out, I don't really know. that's my point
when I say that they're useless, toothless really.

------
fithisux
EU failed to gather participating countries in an equalizing force of progress
freedom and wisdom. It transform to a hegemony like the first Athenean
alliance. We failed to our targets and in the meantime,, the external empires
got stronger and lesser democratic. We failed miserably. I believe in the
European dream, but not with these European politicians. We have no relation
to the universal human, we have transformed to consumer/money junkies a new
generation of cyber aboriginals ta satisfy our inner appetite for quality with
beads like 500 years ago. Shame on the homo universalis, shame on the European
christians.

------
ycombonator
Tusk stuck between a rock (America FANG) and a hard place (China/ Huawei).

------
panpanna
"The European Union has been in the forefront of efforts to tighten control on
how social media companies handle the personal data of consumers"

Yeah, that's why.

~~~
ahartmetz
That is really total rubbish. How could 1-2 year old regulations go back 30+
years to stifle the European "tech scene"? By the way, there is other
technology than that which is used to sell advertising on the internet.

~~~
repolfx
It's a long standing and complex trend.

It's worth remembering that Silicon Valley got started way back in the 50s
with Shockley's transistors. Then Microsoft in the 80s and Amazon, Google in
the 1990s.

What was going on in Europe during these times?

For most of the 20th century continental Europe was a hotbed of dictators and
extremists. The first half was dominated by two world wars that flattened
everything. The second half saw dictatorships across all of eastern Europe
that kept it impoverished, there were dictatorships in Spain and Greece and
significant political instability and corruption for decades in Italy.

Britain, which came out of WW2 the strongest having been on the winning side,
was nonetheless totally wrecked and worse still, the population concluded that
the government must be pretty good at things due both to the victory and years
of news suppression which prevented people learning about government errors
(e.g. Exercise Tiger). So Britain became strongly socialist and remained that
way until Thatcher in the 80s. The economic destruction this socialist
environment wrecked was extreme enough that the UK had to go to the IMF for a
bailout and was suffering things like electricity shortages during the worst
periods of the 1970s. It was a place where even established businesses
struggled to survive, so the idea of a startup culture or creating advanced
tech firms was totally absurd - the government had given up even attempting to
fix things and unions under the control of Marxists were practically shadow
governments in and of themselves.

In other words, if you look at the time that the USA was establishing startups
like Intel that'd become huge tech firms, which then spawned generations of
technically skilled VCs, Europe was mostly either actual communist
dictatorships or so hard left that the idea of creating dynamic new businesses
was a pipe dream. There was no environment in which to create the generations
of successful entrepreneurs that America benefits from.

Interestingly, Germany did much better than Britain during this time because -
having had their faith in government wisdom destroyed by the Nazis - Germany
deregulated and experienced much better economic growth, despite having been
cleaved in half by the Soviets. This sowed the seeds of German economic
strength dominating the Euro today.

Things only really changed for most of Europe in the 1990s with the fall of
the USSR, reunification of Germany and Thatcher's reforms having turned around
the UK. But then Europe collectively decided that the right path into the
future was to slowly merge together under a vast centralised bureaucracy
centred in Brussels, one which had its roots in the Ventotene Manifesto, a
document written by communists in the 40s. Remarkably, the EU to this day
still has never really shaken a vague sense that communism was roughly in the
right area. Its ultra-powerful unaccountable Commission President (Juncker)
routinely makes statements like "when it gets serious, you have to lie" and he
travelled to the birthplace of Karl Marx where he defended Marx's legacy:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/karl-marx-
jea...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/karl-marx-jean-claude-
juncker-defends-legacy-a8337176.html)

The EU has historically often had former communists in its most senior
positions and does things in ways that are reminiscent of the USSR (e.g. a
Parliament that can't actually overrule the unelected parts of the
government). No surprise that it takes an ambivalent view of business,
especially successful American business, and largely defines itself as a
defender of The People against Capital.

Combined with no culture of granting equity and we have today's situation.

~~~
dfrage
Exiting WWII Britain was fully competitive in computer technology, look
particularly at the University of Manchester, home of the Williams Tube and
many pioneering computers:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_computers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_computers)
which Ferranti was barely able to move the needle in commercializing.

~~~
repolfx
The UK had a small but modern computer industry in the 1980s, via Acorn and
the resulting ARM chips that are world-beating today. It also had firms like
RIM, Sinclair etc.

Until ARM was sold to SoftBank it was _the_ primary British high tech computer
firm. Little known fact - ARM is one of the very few European tech firms that
incentivised its employees with equity sharing. It was and still is standard
for firms outside the USA to keep all equity for the founders and investors,
with none for early employees.

It's hard to know to what extent Acorn struggled to compete with Apple because
of Europe-specific factors vs just bad luck: Acorn computers were very slow to
get FCC regulatory approval in the USA, and they had a failure in their supply
chain at a critical moment that pushed Brits towards buying US computers
instead. They sold 300k machines but could only get 30k from the factories.
There were a few other problems that stalled their expansion, and all this was
taking place in the context of a country going through a major recession as
Thatcher ended a government policy of employment targeting to bring inflation
under control (inflation hit 22% in 1980). In the end they never recovered -
US firms grew too strong and outcompeted them, despite initially stronger
technology. Given that Acorn and ARM showed the same cycle of former employees
becoming entrepreneurs and investors themselves, it's possible if things had
worked out a bit differently for Acorn it could have been the "British Apple"
and seeded a British computer industry competitive with Silicon Valley. But -
it didn't.

~~~
dfrage
How much of Acorn even having a chance is consistent with your correct as far
as I know history of the British economy, with socialism only being (partly)
rolled back by Thatcher? I'd also note that Apple et. al. were also subject to
similar macroeconomic headwinds, although our inflation rate's peak was "only"
15%.

Bad luck indeed, although looking at the details of e.g. the Acorn Electron
which had that production bottleneck doesn't suggest they had significantly
stronger technology at the time, pretty much all 6502 based stuff like their
competition except for e.g. the also local Sinclair Research with its Z80
based systems. In the US market there was also the Z80 based and monstrously
successful Tandy TRS-80, per Wikipedia significantly outselling the Apple II
for a long period.

Tandy also had a _huge_ retail network to sell its wares, it's Radio Shack
stores were _the_ place to buy random basic electronic stuff all over the USA.
Per Wikipedia, in 1982 4,300 company stores and 2,000 independent franchises
in towns not big enough for a company store. One reason I mention this is to
ask, how big was it in the U.K. post-WWII until Thatcher? It became a very big
thing the US in the 1950s, combining local capital and market focus with
centralized and bulk product planning, technology, marketing, and often
purchasing.

Hmmmm, Tandy also did a Motorola 6809 based "Color Computer" of some note, but
its expensive/superior CPU prompted them to forgo things that made competing
6502 systems more popular, like built in sound and graphics for e.g. games.
There was also a very American cottage industry style market in Z80 CP/M
systems built around the S-100 bus.

~~~
repolfx
Radio Shack was pretty big in the UK. I remember them having stores when I was
a kid.

I think the general macro-economic and social conditions may explain why Acorn
was rare, whereas the US birthed many such companies. But then again, the UK
has less than a quarter of the population of the USA, so presumably that right
there should slash the number of companies.

I've also done a focus switch in this discussion, from all of Europe to just
the UK. The rest of Europe was still very messed up outside of west Germany
and the small northern states, either dictatorships, or just exited from
dictatorship, or were France:

[https://uramericansinparis.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/france-i...](https://uramericansinparis.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/france-
in-the-1970s-%E2%80%93-a-time-of-decline-doubt-and-anti-americanism/)

West Germany gave birth to SAP in 1972, UK gave birth to Acorn and a few other
small computer firms that didn't really make it, only SAP and ARM still
survive and only one independent. I don't know of any big French tech firms
from this era, but maybe there is one.

So I guess Acorn and maybe SAP are the exceptions that highlight just how dire
conditions were in most of Europe at this time.

------
plandis
Of course he is, US is in a much stronger position than the EU in the
technology sector. You think he'd be saying the same thing if Google, Amazon,
Facebook, Microsoft, etc... acted the exact same but were EU companies? I
doubt it.

------
ga-vu
I'd be worried more by Chinese companies. At least you can sue US companies.
You can't do the same with Chinese ones.

~~~
qnsi
how often do you use apps created by Chinese companies?

------
vfclists
Is that measly article worthy of posting to HN, or was it crafted especially
for HN?

------
lazyjones
I'm sure the bureaucrats in charge of the EU will have great success with
their "EU last" policy.

(apologies for cynicism by a disappointed European)

