1) ~160M people in those countries vs. ~320M in the US. Per capita, those countries are doing about as well as the US.
2) People in France (and many other countries) simply don't work as many hours as we do in the US. That can hurt productivity in some cases. I'm certainly not saying it's a bad thing overall though.
3) It's much cheaper to start a company in the US than many European countries. It costs a few hundred dollars to get incorporated, and then you get tons of tax breaks.
4) We have a lot of nonprofit and institutional support, as someone else mentioned. The Kauffman Foundation is an incredibly important source of money that gets sunk into startups (literally sunk -- it's a charity, and little of that money will see a return).
1. Europeans are more risk averse, and there is not the same entrepreneurial spirit.
2. You're comparing it with the home of tech and startups so it's not going to compare well. More of a question would be why does the US generate more fast-growing tech startups than the whole world put together.
3. European investors are comically small-minded, stingy and don't have much cash to use.
Also there's a regional language issue in Europe, and English is not the native language in most countries. People in CH are expected to learn 2-3 languages, with English usually being the optional language. Hiring people from outside the country becomes a problematic issue esp. for startups.
1) ~160M people in those countries vs. ~320M in the US. Per capita, those countries are doing about as well as the US.
2) People in France (and many other countries) simply don't work as many hours as we do in the US. That can hurt productivity in some cases. I'm certainly not saying it's a bad thing overall though.
3) It's much cheaper to start a company in the US than many European countries. It costs a few hundred dollars to get incorporated, and then you get tons of tax breaks.
4) We have a lot of nonprofit and institutional support, as someone else mentioned. The Kauffman Foundation is an incredibly important source of money that gets sunk into startups (literally sunk -- it's a charity, and little of that money will see a return).