

Silicon Valley aside, why are Americans more willing to risk a startup? - weebro

I'm based in the UK and am hoping to apply to YC in Oct. We are currently looking for strong hackers to co-found with us, if they like the idea.  We cannot, however, find anyone in the UK even remotely interested.  The concept of 'it's not what you do but when you do it' simply does not exist here.  What does the US have that we don't?
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uuilly
American's love David and Europeans love Goliath.

The British believed in their Empire. They believed that it was right to put
Squash courts and Polo fields in far flung countries. They believed that
Britishness was the most natural state of man. The French, Russians and
eventually the Germans felt the same way about themselves, only more so and
less sucessfully. These empires were Goliaths and their people were proud of
them.

The US was the first major colony to successfully break free from the Brits.
The most formidable military force ever deployed sailed into the East River
and bore down on a bunch of un-uniformed barefoot rabble representing our (at
that time) pathetic revolution. Yet somehow we won. That picture was chopped
up and burned into the DNA of every American. We re-live it when Bruce Willis
crawls through air-ducts and elevator shafts to outwit German terrorists. And
again when he leads his band of blue collar drillers to blow up a merciless
asteriod. And his goals are simple too. Bruce just wants to get home in time
for dinner whereas James Bond is "keeping the British end up." Americans are
wary of higher causes which makes them distrust things bigger than themselves.

It's everywhere in this country, Big is bad and small is good. We hate
Wallmart, Microsoft, Nike and Exxon. Nevermind that Target, Adobe, Reebok and
Shell are doing the exact same thing as their bigger counterparts. They're not
big so we can't hate them. The only thing that will "kill" Google (IBM / MS
style) will be bigness. We will turn against them once they become Goliath.

Our people (formerly your people) banded together way back then and forged our
ideals in violent reaction against bigness. And so it's been ever since. We
were the 12th biggest army just before WWII and few thought we would outlast
the Soviets. But once the Soviet Empire fell we became Goliath and we have
hated ourselves ever since. The Brits and Russians in their prime would have
no problem with Iraq. The Russians would roll in and kill everyone and the
Brits would pit the Sunnis against the Shias and colonize what's left. We have
gone in half cocked and we don't truely believe that it's our place to tell
other people how to live. It is cruely ironic that we may have to sail back
across the pond and ask our British cousins how we can best play the part of
Goliath.

This is all a long way of saying that revering startups is just natural to us.
It's what we've always done and for better or worse, it's all we know. I'm
actually not sure why they were ever called startups. Upstarts is way more
fitting...

~~~
kingnothing
I agree with the first two paragraphs, but not the rest of it. Somewhere in US
history, things changed. The average American is clearly accepting, if not
loving, of Walmart and other big companies, otherwise they would not be the
juggernauts they are today. There would not be over 3800 Walmarts in the USA
alone if we loved small and hated big.

~~~
uuilly
We have a love hate relationship w/ our captains of industry. We glorify their
rise and then sue them into a corner and call them robber barrons when they
get too big. I would say walmart is reaching its tipping point. MS has passed
it and spends most of their revenues on lawyers. Walmart is close behind. As
of now they get sued every 5 minutes.

~~~
euccastro
I think that's sufficiently explained by noting bigness makes you more worth
suing, and the associated power and high stakes tempt you to do stuff that
deserves suing.

~~~
uuilly
Nobody makes scathing documentaries about Burger King, Target or Ford.
McDonalds, Wal-Mart and GM are the lightning rods for our hatred of bigness.
The smaller guy's legal fees are also way lower in relation to their size than
their bigger counterparts. If you have an economist login check this out:
[http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E...](http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_VPDDRTS)

------
rms
<http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html>

"I think what holds back European hackers is simply that they don't meet so
many people who've done it. You see that variation even within the US.
Stanford students are more entrepreneurial than Yale students, but not because
of some difference in their characters; the Yale students just have fewer
examples.

I admit there seem to be different attitudes toward ambition in Europe and the
US. In the US it's ok to be overtly ambitious, and in most of Europe it's not.
But this can't be an intrinsically European quality; previous generations of
Europeans were as ambitious as Americans. What happened? My hypothesis is that
ambition was discredited by the terrible things ambitious people did in the
first half of the twentieth century. Now swagger is out. (Even now the image
of a very ambitious German presses a button or two, doesn't it?)

It would be surprising if European attitudes weren't affected by the disasters
of the twentieth century. It takes a while to be optimistic after events like
that. But ambition is human nature. Gradually it will re-emerge."

~~~
rms
Did I Godwin this thread? It's a good essay, but I disagree with pg about the
ambition being discredited by certain actions in the twentieth century. It
just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

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chaostheory
I think it also has a lot to do with the way Americans view failure (versus
Europeans and a few Asian countries).

In America while failure is not a good thing, it is also not a permanent thing
that can scar you forever as a pariah in both society and the business
community. You can try again and again... I could be wrong, but I don't think
this is the case for Europe or countries like Japan; it's much harder to try
something entrepreneurial more than once if you failed the 1st time...

Case in point, I think it took Sam Walton over ten tries before he got it
right with Walmart. (Hell look at Edison too)

(I think as Americans we're just crazier than the Europeans.)

~~~
chaostheory
I forgot to mention this: Americans are either descendents of risk takers or
risk takers themselves (if they are immigrants). I've forgotten the
article/research but even in horrible times of famine, economic disaster, or
war; for some reason very few people actually leave their country. I think
less than 30%. I'm willing to bet that the US probably has taken in a huge
majority of the people that were willing to take a risk in a place where they
know little of (including the native language) for greater opportunity...

------
daweedo
On a quick note...I would have to say that the laws of the US provide a unique
and time-tested opportunity for startups. This has driven the US to become a
destination for many of the world's immigrants, leaving their own countries
less populated with potential risk takers.

The notion of a free market is what distinguished the US from its European
counterparts at its inception and has since demonstrated the ability to learn
and grow. The benefit of the US at that time was a clean slate economy without
all of the potential 'baggage' that the European countries possessed in the
monarchical systems. What's more, for the most part it didn't matter where you
came from or who your family was in the US. All that mattered was market
potential.

Though European countries have moved their economies in much the same
direction they still have to contend with the history of their governments.
Culture and history are slow to let go of a people group. New ideas take time
to be successfully introduced on an indigenous level if they are to become
part of the cultural paradigm and identified history.

~~~
lupin_sansei
I would agree about the market being freer in the US than Europe, but the UK's
market is almost as free as the US'
[http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cf...](http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm)

... there has to be something else that the US has got too. A population of
300 million (vs. the UK's ~60 million) springs to mind.

------
kingnothing
I believe another part of it has to do with the cost of incorporation. In most
places in the US, you can do it yourself for under $100. Comparatively, in
most of Europe, it costs between $2,000 and $10,000 to form a company.

Also, with America's long standing tradition of entrepreneurship comes easy
money for financing a new venture. In Europe, the spirit isn't there so to
speak, so I assume the money would likewise be harder to come by.

I don't know anything about European law. Are companies in Europe afforded the
same rights as in the US?

~~~
weebro
I'm a lawyer in NY (where I used to work) and the U.K., I also have a company
here (in the U.K.). Cost of incorporation in the U.K. is GBP25 ($50), takes 1
Hour max and can all be done online with the incorporation docs emailed to you
after 30 mins. Incorporating a Co. is very, very easy here. Bankruptcy
blacklisting also only lasts 3 yrs now (excluding students trying to write off
their student debt by incorporating and folding - former loophole).

As for E.U. V's U.S. Corporate (chancery) law it all hinges on a thing called
'The Delaware Effect'. In this E.U. this was tested in the European Court of
Justice (our highest court) in 'The Centros Decision' where a Danish couple
avoided the $4,000 incorporation fee in Denmark by incorporating in the U.K.
and opening an office in Denmark. The ECJ ruled in their favour citing the
free movement of persons (corporations are non-natural entities having the
rights of a natural person).

The U.K. (Corp tax 22%) and Ireland (Corp tax 12.5%) are the Delaware's of
Europe due to a rich body of corporate case law, ideal business law and
economic climate and lenient laws on corporate responsibility. Your Sarbanes
Oxley Act has resulted in a dilution of the Delaware effect and an
uncompetitive business environment due to the expense of compliance. Its
introduction has lead to London (and the LSE its stock exchange) becoming the
preferred place of incorporation and IPO, and in London becoming the Largest
Financial centre in the world. More money was invested in venture capital, and
more takeover activity took place, in London this year than in the USA in the
past 3 yrs. I was a stockbroker for 18 months after leaving law so sorry for
the legal and finance lecture but hope this clarifies a few things.

Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Paypal, Dell, IBM and ebay all have their main base
of European operations in the Republic of Ireland where they enjoy a 10%
corporation tax (as the got in before it went up to 12.5).

Soooooooo, I'm not sure why YC are still incorporating companies in Delaware.

~~~
kingnothing
Great info, thanks for the education!

------
lupin_sansei
As an (expat) British person myself I notice than many British people are very
pessimistic about the chances of success compared to what I can gather from
Americans.

------
jsmcgd
I'm not convinced that there are fundamental differences between attitudes in
the US and Europe or at least Britain. The industrial revolution began in
Britain and was a time of immense innovation and entrepreneurism. Us Brits
still point to that as an example of our inherent entrepreneurial spirit
however I reluctantly feel compelled to pour cold water on that idea. I think
that period in our history could have taken place in any country given the
same economic, educational and scientific conditions etc.

So my point is basically that you can find people with the right attitude
anywhere. But that also is kind of the problem; unlike in the US, we don't
have a Silicon Valley to gravitate towards. Some entrepreneurial people
gravitate towards London but unlike Silicon Valley every other person you meet
isn't going to be a budding empire builder. So in conclusion, they are there
but you'll just going to have to look that much harder to find them.

------
queensnake
Desperation. Lack of security to any in the long haul, unless you make it big.
The fire is always below your feet, here. Any given job sucks, until you can
make your own, work on something you /want/ to work on and make it. Bleak, but
that's behind my own attitude.

------
menloparkbum
Some of them might be telecommuting for a US based startup. For instance, it
is very hard to find people who are good with audio/video signal processing in
the USA. The good ones are all in Europe. We have guys in France, Spain,
London, and Estonia.

~~~
weebro
Thanks you America (and those from the UK) who pitched in on this thread.
These are the types of things we should discuss in this forum (I find people
chat a lot of sh*t on here, none of it related to start-ups or being
entrepreneurial)

I also appreciate that Americans appreciate they are the descendants of
Europeans. The word entrepreneur is French after all, so we must have had it
somewhere along the line.

I have lived in your country and a couple of European countries and even in
Saudi. In my experience and, in my opinion, Americans are entrepreneurial due
to historical reasons. Those who left Europe went there to set up on their own
and escape the 'system' in Europe.

'All men are created equal'. This one line explains it all (first suggested by
an Italian). Any country in the world could create what America has in
proportion to its population and size (yes that's a caveat of context and
proportionality). It has to do with attitudes and these attitudes are, as
rightly pointed out by PG, informed by trends, society, accepted norms and
experience i.e. examples around you.

Experience has taught me, sadly in a personal sense, that accepted norms and
historical attitudes which prevail to this day are the major reason for this
differing of opinions. My parents are not particularly happy with my deviance
from the legal profession, a traditionally highly respected profession in
Europe. I was good at it, I qualified as a barrister and passed your NY Bar
exam with 5 weeks study. But it had no creativity to me, I would create
nothing but documents and a name for myself (which dies with me) and I began
to realise that I did not measure success by virtue of a persons professional
position.

In the USA success is measured by your contribution to society not your
position within it or control over it.

I will say no more, I've gone on to long anyway. But hey give an Irishman a
platform and expect to have warm ears X or sore eyes as the case may be.

------
andyn
Out of curiosity, where have you been looking and what would you expect from
people if they joined you? Is it a part time thing?

(You have an interesting looking product there so I think you could do well
out of it if you get it going)

~~~
weebro
Hi Andy, I've been put on to a few resources by YC companies (I'm a relentless
networker) so am contacting programmers directly) Our current project
(Quarrysell.com) does require a part time PHP, MySQL, Joomla, HTML experienced
developer. This is because Quarrysell is only the first stage of a greater
concept which you will not be able to guess from it right now.

So yes, Quarrysell needs a part time hacker. Our YC application needs full
time hackers of course and we would prefer to have them on board sooner rather
than later. If you (or anyone else is interested) drop me an email.

