Yes we are. We are a resource poor continent and we need tech to make the difference. We are not the US where they have both. Investing in tech is the only way forward.
Betteridge’s law says no.
Yes, for decades now.
> While Europe’s track record of supporting startups is commendable, it’s time to shed the suspicion of big tech.
Linking to an article on regulating big tech, citing McKinsey. So this is just a propaganda piece to prevent regulation.
Some AI mentions to link the story to the hype of the day.
[Booking.com](https://Booking.com) is another company that makes profits by being a quasi monopoly and by being able to squeeze hotels because of this. Another example why regulation is needed.
Yes, I always wonder why this kind of articles pop up from time to time? Are we blind or really sleepwalking? Its way too late already
Germany certainly is
What about ASML and Zeiss?
Yes and no.
just read about germany opening a TSMC factory. did i mess anything?
I have a question to this article: what could be done to overcome this problem? Is it too late for Europe to react or can we keep up with the leaders still?
Yes it is. Less bureaucracy is the first step.
Europe sleepwalking into irrelevance in general tbh.
I spent several years working in booking, and it saddens me if booking is truly considered a European tech champion. If their tech approach is the solution to “tech irrelevance”, it makes me even more upset.
Moving on to RnD, the company receives a tax break if it reports it did “innovation” (WBSO). As a result, Booking tends to categorize a lot of its work as innovative. However, the real question is: where is the impact? There’s little to no impact on company growth (it does exist, but it’s slower than before), no fresh ideas that have benefited the company or the public, and even if Booking succeeded in RnD, it would just aid in maintaining its market monopoly. What disappoints me is that the public foots the bill for this lackluster “innovation” through taxes, yet no public interests are addressed.
So, how does one foster innovation? Is it through centralization or by creating numerous competitive companies? Depending on the situation, a significant concentration of resources may be required for a groundbreaking discovery. Other times, the market might require competition among many companies to adapt such a discovery.
Typically, use of centralized capital does not foster innovation. Instead, it is used to capture a portion of the market before your competitors. The drive to make a profit is what usually dictates where to invest money. And when extraordinary profit-making becomes unrealistic in the EU, venture capitalists are inevitably driven to reassess where they place their investments.
I must admit, I don’t have all the answers to these questions or solutions to these issues. But I fervently believe that we should be skeptical of corporations who promise innovation in exchange for more benefits. With political determination, we can identify the type of innovation that we want to pursue and then understand what is holding us back from achieving it. We need to accept that hands-off (cut taxes, give benefits to corporations) does not work and we need more elaborate approach which balances interests of the public, private companies and future generations.
When it comes to unicorn companies, all of Europe has less than San Francisco alone (165 vs 176).
Out of 50 largest tech companies by market cap, 3 are European.
It’s pretty clear that Europe is not doing well in the tech sector, and it doesn’t bode well for European economy in the near future.
Not only in tech, the same goes for biotech, pharma and likely many more.
Pay for white collar jobs is low compared to US. Also all the business goes there because it’s more profitable.
Meanwhile EU focuses on regulating everything and we jerk ourselves off to free, useless degrees and public healthcare, which can’t be used when in need of a prompt visit anyways
Its a bit fragmented I suppose, I moved here to Netherlands after working in seattle for 4 years. It was a very easy and streamlined process to get blue card visas and most firms were quite open to salary negotiations. My experience with a few German companies wasn’t that nice, they took weeks or months to even schedule an interview, certain others just flat out said they don’t want to deal with visas even though on paper German immigration is very simple and offers more incentives when they hire skilled workers. Bureaucratic hurdles are proving to be a problem in some countries but I am seeing a lot of them trying to woo students and foreign workers alike.
As long as one Dutch ASML embargo can completely disrupt Chinese industry it is not ever near as dire as these articles might make it look.
Is? No. Has it already happened? Yes.
Kind of wild that Europe hasn’t produced a single cloud giant. America effectively has a monopoly on the infrastructure that hosts our applications and data.
The only alternative is China…
Not sleepwalking. We actively ban modern technologies by law.
Yes, but not because of over regulating or not apeasing to big tech.
I mean, with the money they are giving to Intel and TSMC alone they could kickstart the whole semiconductor industry in Europe and controll it instead of a smallish part of it and be always dependent on the overseas owners and whims of political forces like Trump and its minions.
Europe at least need to have more direct investiment, be it on public enterprises or at least with deals to keep the bussiness on Europe for the long term.
We are certainly giving up wealth by overregulating tech. I doubt there will be a big European player in AI and Large Language Models as the planned regulations would kill all innovation in that area.
Europe still has the best quality of living and is the most functional democracy so I wouldn’t trade it for anything but I hope people are aware of the longterm costs of privacy, strict employment protection and bureaucracy. All good things but they come with a steep price.
As long as being “tech relevant” means deregulating and allowing fucking idiots like Musk or the Ocean Gate CEO to do whatever the fuck they want, then I fucking hope we stay “irrelevant”.
Europe has tech, we don’t need to jump headfirst into AI or whatever the fuck, those are not needed technologies.
23 comments
Yes we are. We are a resource poor continent and we need tech to make the difference. We are not the US where they have both. Investing in tech is the only way forward.
Betteridge’s law says no.
Yes, for decades now.
> While Europe’s track record of supporting startups is commendable, it’s time to shed the suspicion of big tech.
Linking to an article on regulating big tech, citing McKinsey. So this is just a propaganda piece to prevent regulation.
Some AI mentions to link the story to the hype of the day.
[Booking.com](https://Booking.com) is another company that makes profits by being a quasi monopoly and by being able to squeeze hotels because of this. Another example why regulation is needed.
Yes, I always wonder why this kind of articles pop up from time to time? Are we blind or really sleepwalking? Its way too late already
Germany certainly is
What about ASML and Zeiss?
Yes and no.
just read about germany opening a TSMC factory. did i mess anything?
I have a question to this article: what could be done to overcome this problem? Is it too late for Europe to react or can we keep up with the leaders still?
Yes it is. Less bureaucracy is the first step.
Europe sleepwalking into irrelevance in general tbh.
I spent several years working in booking, and it saddens me if booking is truly considered a European tech champion. If their tech approach is the solution to “tech irrelevance”, it makes me even more upset.
Moving on to RnD, the company receives a tax break if it reports it did “innovation” (WBSO). As a result, Booking tends to categorize a lot of its work as innovative. However, the real question is: where is the impact? There’s little to no impact on company growth (it does exist, but it’s slower than before), no fresh ideas that have benefited the company or the public, and even if Booking succeeded in RnD, it would just aid in maintaining its market monopoly. What disappoints me is that the public foots the bill for this lackluster “innovation” through taxes, yet no public interests are addressed.
So, how does one foster innovation? Is it through centralization or by creating numerous competitive companies? Depending on the situation, a significant concentration of resources may be required for a groundbreaking discovery. Other times, the market might require competition among many companies to adapt such a discovery.
Typically, use of centralized capital does not foster innovation. Instead, it is used to capture a portion of the market before your competitors. The drive to make a profit is what usually dictates where to invest money. And when extraordinary profit-making becomes unrealistic in the EU, venture capitalists are inevitably driven to reassess where they place their investments.
I must admit, I don’t have all the answers to these questions or solutions to these issues. But I fervently believe that we should be skeptical of corporations who promise innovation in exchange for more benefits. With political determination, we can identify the type of innovation that we want to pursue and then understand what is holding us back from achieving it. We need to accept that hands-off (cut taxes, give benefits to corporations) does not work and we need more elaborate approach which balances interests of the public, private companies and future generations.
When it comes to unicorn companies, all of Europe has less than San Francisco alone (165 vs 176).
Out of 50 largest tech companies by market cap, 3 are European.
It’s pretty clear that Europe is not doing well in the tech sector, and it doesn’t bode well for European economy in the near future.
Not only in tech, the same goes for biotech, pharma and likely many more.
Pay for white collar jobs is low compared to US. Also all the business goes there because it’s more profitable.
Meanwhile EU focuses on regulating everything and we jerk ourselves off to free, useless degrees and public healthcare, which can’t be used when in need of a prompt visit anyways
Its a bit fragmented I suppose, I moved here to Netherlands after working in seattle for 4 years. It was a very easy and streamlined process to get blue card visas and most firms were quite open to salary negotiations. My experience with a few German companies wasn’t that nice, they took weeks or months to even schedule an interview, certain others just flat out said they don’t want to deal with visas even though on paper German immigration is very simple and offers more incentives when they hire skilled workers. Bureaucratic hurdles are proving to be a problem in some countries but I am seeing a lot of them trying to woo students and foreign workers alike.
As long as one Dutch ASML embargo can completely disrupt Chinese industry it is not ever near as dire as these articles might make it look.
Is? No. Has it already happened? Yes.
Kind of wild that Europe hasn’t produced a single cloud giant. America effectively has a monopoly on the infrastructure that hosts our applications and data.
The only alternative is China…
Not sleepwalking. We actively ban modern technologies by law.
Yes, but not because of over regulating or not apeasing to big tech.
I mean, with the money they are giving to Intel and TSMC alone they could kickstart the whole semiconductor industry in Europe and controll it instead of a smallish part of it and be always dependent on the overseas owners and whims of political forces like Trump and its minions.
Europe at least need to have more direct investiment, be it on public enterprises or at least with deals to keep the bussiness on Europe for the long term.
We are certainly giving up wealth by overregulating tech. I doubt there will be a big European player in AI and Large Language Models as the planned regulations would kill all innovation in that area.
Europe still has the best quality of living and is the most functional democracy so I wouldn’t trade it for anything but I hope people are aware of the longterm costs of privacy, strict employment protection and bureaucracy. All good things but they come with a steep price.
As long as being “tech relevant” means deregulating and allowing fucking idiots like Musk or the Ocean Gate CEO to do whatever the fuck they want, then I fucking hope we stay “irrelevant”.
Europe has tech, we don’t need to jump headfirst into AI or whatever the fuck, those are not needed technologies.