
Europe’s old money mingles with tech startups - hhs
https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-old-money-mingles-with-tech-startups-11583511875
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seemslegit
Unfortunately they tend to bring old-money sensibilities along with them,
meaningful employee equity is rare even at executive levels in European
startups.

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Barrin92
employee equity in particular in startups isn't really as unambiguous as the
term suggests. Given how many startups die out you may as well interpret it as
a creative way for company owners to shift risk on employees. After all, the
failing startup is the norm, by a huge margin. And one step further these days
it looks like going public is then the next step to load risk off from
employees and founders onto retail investors.

to be honest I'm not really too sad that this culture hasn't really taken hold
over here. Most 'old money' in Europe isn't old billionaire heirs anyway but
the small and middle-sized business who treat their employees quite well,
employ them for decades, don't lay them off at the first sign of trouble and
so on.

If tech in Europe is looking for a business culture I don't mind them going to
the old money and family business in the German South rather than Silicon
Valley.

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lacker
Right now, base salary is typically higher in the US for software engineers
than in Europe, _plus_ equity is better.

~~~
peteretep
You also need to pay Americans more to compensate for health insurance, insane
holiday policy, poor worker protections, huge student debts that can’t be
bankrupted out of, and so on.

~~~
RestlessMind
I have worked for almost 15 years in SV at multiple tech companies (FANG and
non-FANG) and at all the places, I have seen health insurance, at least 15
vacation days per year, 9-10 holidays and generous salary to pay off the
student debt.

So your comment just reads like a somewhat inaccurate meme.

~~~
sentenza
You are comparing the best the US has to offer with the standard for European
employees.

Here in Germany, you have health insurance, no student debt, multi-month paid
maternity/paternity leave, 30 days of vacation per annum, paid sick leave,
multiple bank holidays.

Notice how I didn't specify a company or location?

Because this is the standard for every full-time employee in the whole
country, irrespective of location or profession.

The German model has two draw-backs: Pay never reaches the levels in the US
and it is relatively hard to land your fist job. Also, some gig economy jobs
fall through the cracks.

For an honest comparison and a complete picture, you can't take a software
engineer from SV and compare it to a software engineer from Berlin.

At least not just.

For a complete picture, you should also compare a software engineer from Boise
to a software engineer from Düsseldorf. And a call center employee from
Oklahoma with a call center employee from Mecklemburg-Vorpommern.

The ones who "made it" will always be better off in the US. But everybody
else, not so much.

~~~
RestlessMind
If you want to compare worst or average of the US, why not compare it to the
worst or average of Europe - say, Romania or Spain or Moldova or Greece? Why
compare it to one of the best places in Europe?

Or, to use your words - the Germans will always be better off in Europe. But
everybody else, not so much.

~~~
raverbashing
The EU is probably not as homogenous as the US, still, in Bucharest, yearly
salary is 20kEUR (92kRON) for your average Sw Eng (not to mention cost of
living would be low).

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TazeTSchnitzel
> Europe has a higher proportion of fortunes controlled by heirs, not
> innovators, than do the U.S. or Asia

I wonder what they consider to be heirs? The difference can be just one
generation.

~~~
hef19898
It even gets murkier when you consider people like Susanne Klatten, one of the
heirs of BMW. Definitely a heiress, but then she did pretty well with what she
inherited. So, entrepreneur or heir? Or both?

~~~
Scoundreller
Maybe there’s more than the English Wikipedia article about her, but it
doesn’t show much more than continuing existing stakes.

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neonate
[https://archive.md/JITqe](https://archive.md/JITqe)

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dehrmann
I feel like there's been more dumb money going to tech, lately. Some PE,
pensions, Saudi via Softbank's Vision Fund. Now add Europe's old money.

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ThePhysicist
I think it's really positive that these companies / networks open themselves
for startups, still it would be better if they would try to change their
companies so that all startups have a fair chance to work with them. This
would be beneficial to them as they would have a larger sample to choose
partners from. Right now these VCs present maybe 50-100 companies to them
(LaFamigila for example has 34 investments as of now, I think), which is still
a very biased and restricted sample, so they are almost surely missing out on
some great innovation opportunities.

Doing B2B sales to large enterprises in Germany I found that it takes a lot of
side channels & social engineering to sell into large organizations as a
startup. Maybe this is just part of the "game" but I can't stop thinking that
those companies miss out on so much innovation because they simply don't have
good processes in place to systematically and fairly build relationships with
small, innovative tech companies.

Founders from different regions, how is your experience with this?

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kfk
The thing with big companies is that you have to fit in whatever reality they
are telling themselves in that moment. Then you need big credibility points to
give them a way to say you were the best at xyz, pity that you failed. They
care 0 about innovation, unless they are telling themselves they need it but
even then it’s likely to require the small startup to have accumulated a lot
of credibility first.

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notlukesky
It seems that the old money has finally got the angel investing bug. It will
become a flood if the returns are there or shrivel up if not.

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ChuckNorris89
Depends. I know wealthy Europeans with inherited wealth and most of them are
putting it into real estate.

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rolltiide
Yeah you can pretty much forget about wealthy Europeans doing anything at the
speed of any business cycle. They are scared oldest sons managing a family
office who have no idea what they are doing aside from breathing and making a
baby in wedlock.

These people will put down $1 million dollar deposit to make it seem like they
are serious about completing a deal, and will just let the timeline expire
forfeiting the entire deposit!

Forget about the negative interest rates. Unless you can tap into the high
yield corporate debt market, then dealing with these rich people is hopeless.

Source: Been around a lot of wealthy Europeans that talked a big game. It is
the most ridiculous stable business climate on Earth. I do not recommend,
especially for tech.

~~~
bawolff
I don't know anything about that world...

But honestly that sounds reasonable to me. Old money wants to keep their
money, so they are risk averse. New money is in the process of making their
fortune so they are more interested in betting big.

~~~
rolltiide
Yes that is precisely what is going on, but they know they want to get out of
real estate and yachts and public equities, and want to feel close to the
action.

Scared money doesnt make money.

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fnord77
have a feeling grifters are going to take advantage of this

