> The whole story is that Europe has made it very difficult for people to start a business, raise capital, innovate and get the reward for taking that risk, so why would anybody?
This has been the elephant in the room in the EU startup world for a while.
For some obscure reason, European regulators are extremely afraid of competition.
The consequence is that if you have a non trivial position (even IC) at some EU startup you will usually be slammed with a few "I own everything you produce and you cannot compete with me for a few years lol" clauses on day 1.
This isn't even something you negotiate, it's something you find out about when you have already left your previous job and companies assume you will put up with it.
Also since the vast majority of jobs pay below 6 figures in EU and it is an increasingly expensive place, saving up a bit of money so you have some runway is easier said than done.
The main difference is that in the US I could walk away with semi-fuck-you money if I held a similar position. In the EU I have a comparatively minuscule salary, due to lack of competition among other things.
Pro tip to any aspiring politicians out there; if you characterize a certain position as "the chad reaction", you will be rightfully ignored.
Nevermind the fact that this is just another plainly wrong comment that demonstrates how shallow the average VC 'moon or bust' mindset is. You'd ignore ARM and STMicroelectronics and TransferWise and Siemens and the rest of the globally-influential European businesses? Just so you could rally support behind businesses the Department of Justice says is anticompetitive?
> You'd ignore ARM and STMicroelectronics and TransferWise and Siemens and the rest of the globally-influential European businesses?
Technically, ARM hasn't been an EU company for a while so a lot of EU regulations probably don't affect them anymore. Also, it is mostly owned by some Asian bank.
What is the graph supposed to show? Surely Japan doesn't have a higher GDP than the whole of the EU, and the legend suggests that it's supposed to show GDP rather than GDP growth rate. I don't think it makes sense if it's GDP per capita, either. Very odd.
This has been the elephant in the room in the EU startup world for a while.
For some obscure reason, European regulators are extremely afraid of competition.
The consequence is that if you have a non trivial position (even IC) at some EU startup you will usually be slammed with a few "I own everything you produce and you cannot compete with me for a few years lol" clauses on day 1.
This isn't even something you negotiate, it's something you find out about when you have already left your previous job and companies assume you will put up with it.
Also since the vast majority of jobs pay below 6 figures in EU and it is an increasingly expensive place, saving up a bit of money so you have some runway is easier said than done.