The Technology Revolution is Leaving Europe Behind (msn.com)
- Reference: 0177701127
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/23/0926234/the-technology-revolution-is-leaving-europe-behind
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-tech-industry-is-huge-and-europe-s-share-of-it-is-very-small/ar-AA1F5FSp
The productivity gap has widened dramatically since the digital revolution began. European workers produced 95% of what their American counterparts made per hour in the late 1990s, but that figure has dropped to less than 80% today. Only four of the world's top 50 technology companies are European, and none of the top 10 quantum computing investors operate from Europe.
Several high-profile European entrepreneurs have relocated to Silicon Valley, including Thomas Odenwald, who quit German AI startup Aleph Alpha after two months, citing slow decision-making and lack of stock options for employees. "If I look at how quickly things change in Silicon Valley...it's happening so fast that I don't think Europe can keep up with that speed," Odenwald said.
The challenges extend beyond individual companies. European businesses spend 40% of their IT budgets on regulatory compliance, according to Amazon surveys, while complex labor laws create three-month notice periods and lengthy noncompete clauses.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-tech-industry-is-huge-and-europe-s-share-of-it-is-very-small/ar-AA1F5FSp
Silly metrics ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... give silly results. In actual reality, Europe is doing fine. It is just not greed-infested as the US is. The super-rich are not an advantage for a country or region. They are a liability.
Oh, and "quantum computing investors"? Seriously? Europeans can tell this is all bullshit and are simply not interested.
This is simply yet another meaningless propaganda piece pushing a non-existing US superiority.
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Maybe part of the problem is looking at an emerging technology in which the two most powerful nations are investing heavily and calling it BS.
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Quantum computing is not "emerging". It was a failure 40 years ago and has continued to be a failure since then. There is no sane reason to expect it to ever amount to anything. The only reason to look into it at all at this time is because of side-results.
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There's actually a solid history to show that being a late adopter isn't always a bad thing. There's clearly some value in LLMs, but at this point most of what we are hearing is speculative hype intended to kite stock prices. Basically a ponzi scheme.
I'm sure that some value will drop out of this in the end. I am not at all sure what it will look like, except, probably not much like what the hucksters are promoting.
When things are clearer, it will make sense to invest. Right now, it's probably best to let o
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The case for quantum computing is also pretty heavily tilted by the specific clandestine applications. If you could have one that does RSA factorization of useful sizes earlier than people think you do your spooks will love it; have a fantastic time. Maybe that is worth eleventy-zillion to you.
If you don't think that is doable, or your spook budget isn't big enough; it's much less obvious why 'quantum' should be different than 'classical' in terms of being expensive enough to manufacture that you can jus
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It has worked pretty well for Apple. :)
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There are areas where Europe leads too. High end chip fabrication, some aspects of telecomms, EV development and adoption, renewables...
Okay, China is giving us a good run for our money, but we are ahead of the US. Intel has nothing on ASML. American vehicle manufacturers are many years behind those in Europe.
A lot of what people tout as the US leading is of questionable value. You touched on quantum computing, but far worse are social media and AI. We can live without more extremely wealthy companies if it
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
^^ This is exactly why we should ditch NATO and the UN and see how you Eurotrash really get on without your American betters, let the whole world see!
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yes please leave NATO, since inception NATO have been built purposely to give the US as much power as possible.
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Please do. I would love to see the US slide from being 2nd world into being 3rd world.
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I guess the silly metric that we look at the most is GDP/capita. I looked at the Wikipedia IMF nominal GDP per capita [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and that shows that between 1980 and 2020, the US, Germany, UK, Italy, and France grew by 410%, 326%, 276%, 275%, and 211% respectively (the Berlin wall fell in 1989, so I am suspicious of the cited GDP per capita in Germany in 1980.) If we adjust for inflation using the CPI, we get a real growth of 56%, 29% 14% 14% and -5% respectively. So, by that met
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_past_and_projected_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita#IMF_projections_for_2020_through_2029
Growth at all costs (Score:1)
Consider value. Did those 241 companies create anything of value or did they just raise money, hire people, and burn electricity to look busy?
Is most of our growth a self fulfilling prophecy so we can go out and raise money?
Recursive loop -> need money, hire people, outta money, need more people, pitch for more money
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Growth sounds like a good self-fulfilling prophesy. Don't people usually use that term to refer to something bad?
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When you have eternal growth in a finite location, and that location is a body... you call it cancer.
Our economic system is carcinogenic.
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exactly... to promiscuously mix metaphors... the merry go round has to stop at some point... we're going to be out of runway sooner or later... with AI agents taking entry level jobs... hmmm... no one to train the new people... this ends with no jobs for young people... inflated stock market... siphoning cash out of the bottom levels of society... cancer is a good metaphor... get me out of here!
Good thing Trump is ruining businesses in the US (Score:3)
... and forcing foreign talent to leave.
So Europe will get another chance.
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But given the sometimes-wonky nature of EU regulations, good luck growing a tech company in Europe.
Re: Good thing Trump is ruining businesses in the (Score:1)
I work with the European Innovation Council - there is a lot going on that is not in the news.
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> I work with the European Innovation Council - there is a lot going on that is not in the news.
LoL. I'm sure you do. I have a 3 foot penis and x-ray vision.
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Maybe Europe should just let the tech bros run the country without a single vote like america?
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I'd honestly be a little surprised if that specific area of policy is the problem. The American arrangement of being able to get health insurance automatically under a group rate if you work for someone else; but only as a risk-assessed individual on generally less favorable terms yourself(somewhat moderated by the Obama-era attempts to curtail the more aggressive culling of undesirable policyholders) is pretty much the most direct "Yeah, you should go work for the man unless you are young, healthy, and chi
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Oh, you are mistaken. The concept of "welfare" is not about giving alms to the poor as an incentive to keep them from working (a too common misconception).
Welfare is about providing equal opportunity to everyone, giving everyone the opportunity to grow, to innovate and become entrepreneurs.
For one thing, it is about allowing anyone to get a college education, even if your parents aren't rich.
There are downsides to this, too, of course. Nothing is perfect.
One is that most jobs now require an education, with
Are billion-dollar companies a good thing? (Score:2)
In my experience, billion dollar companies treat customers like dirt. They've "made it" so they don't have to keep trying to earn the business of customers. There are a few exceptions, but very, very few.
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I'm not sure where the exact size is(I suspect that it differs, potentially substantially, based on the margins and barriers to entry in a given industry); but there's sort of a sweet spot where a company is small enough to be hungry but big enough that you don't need to deal with suppliers going out of business all the time. Unless you are doing some "Walmart seeks lowest price for container of toilet paper" thing having vendors who will give you the shirt off their backs isn't actually ideal; since then t
Maybe Europe's antitrust regulation is working (Score:4, Interesting)
Huge companies do not have the best interests of customers at heart. Europe has taken a firm stand against monopolies and oligopolies. Maybe their regulation is having a positive effect.
One principle I often rely on, is do business with the #2 or #3 company in an industry. They treat you better than the #1 company in that industry.
I'm thinking Europe's "failure" to create more huge companies, is a good thing.
Quantum computing?? (Score:1)
You lost me there mateâ¦
Tax and Fine (Score:1)
Doesn't matter. The Europeans can just tax and fine the companies that produce stuff. They'll be ok.
Per hour? (Score:3)
Per what hour? Are we assuming 8760 hours in a year? Or are we assuming the USA's 1765 hours worked in a year and correcting for the fact that I'm here sipping my coffee listening to music while you guys are a slave to your dollar?
Personally I'll take my 1430 hours worked over your extra efficiency any day. Especially since I couldn't give a shit if we have a tech giant or not. It's not like we have less tech as a result.
Jokes aside, efficiency metrics are stupid. A race to the top there is a race to the bottom in quality of life. It's not a race worth competing in. Please keep working for our benefit, just make sure I get the next Google maps update rolled out before I go on holidays. Cheers!
Re: Per hour? (Score:2, Informative)
The American dream is to own a house, then lose it when you are swamped with medical debt. Then live in an apartment where the rent can be increased capriciously according to a secret algorithm operated by a private company. Europeans have no idea what kind of freedom they are missing.
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Productivity is a hugely important measure; it's just that you can usually tell who is interested by exactly which productivity measure gets trotted out.
Your ability to have goods and services is fundamentally capped by your ability to produce them or produce other stuff that you can get people to provide them to you for; so a society simply cannot be more wealthy without being more productive. However, anyone who trots out 'per person per year' productivity statistics is usually a member of team "we are
Should I have heard of this guy or something? (Score:2)
This Thomas Odenwald is, according to the beigest social network, an 'independent consultant' described as "Tech-savvy, growth-oriented business executive with strong sales growth record".
Is there some reason why the article is following him like he is the provider or denier of Europe's hope for technology? It seems particularly weird when much of his experience is apparently with such noted innovators as SAP and HPE. Sure, somebody's got to shovel ERP and commodity boxes with attitudes that have outgrow
What is the benefit to the American public? (Score:2)
Historically corporations have been permitted to exist because they can be an effective way of getting objectively desirable things done. Things like shareholder value and market capitalization are at best orthogonal to whatever public goods they may produce. Look at the top ten US companies by market cap: Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Berkshire Hathaway, Tesla, UnitedHealth Group, and Johnson & Johnson. Most of them are widely hated. The assassination of United Health's CEO wa
options are a joke anyhow (Score:2)
Options make me laugh: They seldom can be cashed, and they usually must be given back when employment is terminated.
Gimme actual company stock instead.
Could be a good thing. We need smaller companies (Score:4, Interesting)
That sounds like a good thing. We need more smaller businesses to provide things instead of huge companies that can just take over industries making it harder for startups to compete. Let dozens of smaller companies provide tech to get more innovation and competition. The number of billion dollar companies a country has can have many meanings.
Real Society (Score:1)
So what I'm hearing here is that Europe is closer to being a real society, and America's heaps of wealth for those at the top are built on top of everyone's shoddy working conditions.
Too Many Rules (Score:3)
It's nearly impossible to get anything done over there
Sure (Score:2)
Sure US, you are the best. ...
Yawn...
Define "value" in a corrupt system. (Score:2)
> Europe has created just 14 companies worth more than $10 billion over the past 50 years compared to 241 in the United States..
Uh, let's just stop right here and look to define "worth" and "value" before we proceed with selling or believing clickbait bullshit.
Given how many times the American stock market has crashed in the last 50 years, that perceived "value" within 241 companies tends to smell like shit sold on a silver platter. How many of those 241 companies will exist 5 years from now?
America has proven time and time again that a $10 billion dollar valuation is NOT the same thing as a $10 billion dollar company.
Lasting stabi
And yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would prefer to live in Europe any day.
So all those regulations maybe, just maybe, they make happier people?
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> I would prefer to live in Europe any day. So all those regulations maybe, just maybe, they make happier people?
Seeing how we have tons of people saying they'd "prefer" to live in Europe (and inexplicably remaining in US), and tons of people *actually moving* to US from Europe - apparently not.
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A sound, reasonable, and salient point. So of course you were modded down.
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> A sound, reasonable, and salient point. So of course you were modded down.
There was no point. It was just some rambling without any sort of relevance or facts. Why would I believe his some very fine people like statement that tons of people are not *actually moving* to US from Europe?
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Apparently so. From 2015 to 2024, the EU had a total net migration of approximately 18.26 million, while the US had about 8.78 million, indicating the EU's net migration was roughly twice as high. And before that, from 1990 to 2015, the EU had a total net migration of approximately 25.3 million, while the US had about 17.9 million.
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, let me see. Much less poison in food, clothing, etc.? Check. Tap water is drinkable and no health risk everywhere? Check. Good public transportation? Check. Less privacy intrusion and consequentially less identity theft? Check. Health insurance for everybody? Check. And quite a few other things. No, Europe is not over-regulated, even when the occasional asshole likes to claim it is.
Yes, I definitely prefer to live in Europe. The only thing I would do with a Greencard is throw it away.
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In my view, 40% of IT budgets going to regulatory compliance is a clear sign that regulations have gone too far. That's just ridiculous. You aren't children, you don't need to be treated like it.
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And yet look at the abuse that is so normalized in the US that people there can't even imagine companies not doing it.
If 40% of an IT budget is going on compliance, there is a damn good reason. That company must be doing something that needs heavily regulating to prevent citizens being exploited, and to protect their privacy.
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I guess it is save to assume that that 40% number is pulled out of someones ass.
As soon as an IT system is running: it follows all regulations. What the fuck would there to be done continuously to keep it following regulations and that costs 40% of the budget?
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It wouldn't entirely surprise me if the ass-pulling is a collective effort.
There's the obvious incentive for the oh-woe-is-me-crushing-regulatory-burdens types to want to make being forbidden to shift risks to bystanders sound as cruel and oppressive as possible; and there's the less public-facing but more likely to be systemic interest within IT in using regulatory compliance concerns(often but not necessarily honestly) to push back against things that they otherwise wouldn't have the clout to.
The sy
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Auditing, for one, can be very expensive. There may be paper trails that need to be constructed continuously. (Relevant experience: I've worked in highly regulated industries for >20 years - medical for the last 13, previously security/fire safety). So it's easy to see how regulations can create large ongoing costs. But anyway, the reason I even replied to this thread is that reading it I see an exact parallel with offshoring manufacturing to places with lax pollution laws. Move your factory to a country
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The problem with IT is that many of the faults don't affect the business directly, but have a large fallout to other people not involved in the IT departement's decision. If customer data is leaked, the daily business is not affected in the slightest. This means that those faults are not really on the radar of the businesses, because it's literally "none of their business", besides them handling the IT being the cause of the fault. It's like companies duming their waste poisoning the ground water - none of
Re: And yet... (Score:3)
In a former job here in Denmark, the IT compliance burden actually came from the US, because a part of the company was selling military equipment across the Atlantic.
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Yes, indeed - not to mention Sarbanes-Oxley!
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And in the US then a huge amount of the budget goes into tracking people in minute detail just to sell ads.
Whatever you do you are getting a stick with crap in the end.
There's no really good reason for companies to grow to gigantic proportions. The bigger they are the harder they fail. Too big to fail is an alternative reserved for only a few companies.
I'm personally not in Facebook, so if it goes down I wouldn't be impacted.
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But do you have almost daily mass shootings? [1]https://www.massshootingtracke... [massshootingtracker.site]
'MURICA!
[1] https://www.massshootingtracker.site/
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The primary damage from mass-shootings is not the people killed. It is the erosion of trust in society. Yes, I understand uyou are too dumb to see something this blatantly obvious.
Re: And yet... (Score:2)
Less lead poisoning in European schools than the US. It's irresponsible not to seek anyway to immigrant there.
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Judging by the way they seem to be destroying themselves as rapidly as possible, I don't think happiness is the outcome.
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Well, some people really like being told what to do.
This is one reason I think all the "news" about US scientists moving to the EU is so much BS.
Move there for what? Higher taxes? More regulation?
I just don't see it happening.
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You keep refering to freedom & taxes.
But if it's the freedom for my neighbors to have guns? Low taxes to have no public transport and schools and hospitals?
I see myself as part of a society that agrees on freedom restricting rules for the greater happyness. Not mentioning more sustainable lifestyles.
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And that makes you anti-freedom. Maybe you're happy but someone who does not fit the mold ends up very unhappy.
that is the trade off.
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You're a product of quasi infinite energy availability...
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> And that makes you anti-freedom. Maybe you're happy but someone who does not fit the mold ends up very unhappy.
Anti-personal freedom maybe, but IMHO personal freedom is not the only form of freedom. Living in society always comes with compromises of personal freedom, but provides for that different form of freedom.
As example, who is more free, a man completely off the grid that has complete personal freedom but is burdened with having to deal with everything by himself, or the man living in the city who has to abide to the rules of society but can rely on society to unburden him of many of his needs?
If you ask many
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A comment about "Freedom" from the land where it's against the law to even cross the road where you want to *rofl*
Re:And yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Are taxes higher when you consider that they include universal healthcare costs?
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The cost to individuals in Tax and direct payments of healthcare in the USA is more than twice as much as in most European countries
For this extra you get worse outcomes, or little to no actual healthcare at all
the average US citizen pays more for Medicare and Medicaid that a European citizen does for universal healthcare, and cannot use either
then pays nearly the same again for Health Insurance, co-payments, etc to get actual healthcare
America the land of the free (Score:2)
Some of us don't have the right to petition the court or respond to accusations.
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As a scientist who lived in the US for a while. I definitely prefer Europe.
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for a (regulated) american company but am based in the EU.
One of the problem is the different way regulations are written and enforced.
In America the regulator comes in, says "You need to do X, Y, Z to get into compliance". We do X, Y, Z and next year the regular is "all good".
In the EU the regulator comes in and says "These things aren't right. X, Y, Z must to be done". We do X, Y, Z and then next year the regulator is "This isn't good enough, That previous report wasn't a list of things to do, it was a list of things that definitely weren't right".
This makes it much harder, and much more expensive to comply. Not least because there's a constant conflict between "is this enough?" and "should we spend more money to do more?".
We now have a good relationship with the regulator but it was a painful few years.
I don't know much about the asia side but I think the regulations are more strict, easy to accidentally violate when a bug gets introduced, but easier to understand and know when you are and aren't in compliance - therefore at least in our company they're considered easier and cheaper to deal with.
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That's because in Europe you are expected to act like a grown up and comply with the spirit of the law, not just the letter. If you make an effort to comply with what the rules are aimed at achieving you won't have a problem, it's the minimal effort do only what we are explicitly told to attitude that gets you into hot water.
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> That's because in Europe you are expected to act like a grown up and comply with the spirit of the law, not just the letter.
So entirely unwritten legislation that you're supposed to just mind-read is the norm, got it.
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No it is all written down, AmiMoJo simply misinterpreted what the regulator in OP:s comment said.
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It's actually better than the situation in the US where you have to guess how a court will interpret individual words and hope you can lawyer your way out of any ambiguity. If the intent of a law is not clear then it's a bad law.
Re: And yet... (Score:2)
And yet somehow here, in the US, apple just got slapped for doing exactly what you're talking about. Meanwhile, in Europe, they're still getting away with it.
Re: And yet... (Score:2)
Most European companies are privately held, due to crazy regulations and capital gains taxes which make trading shares on stock markets expensive.
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Nobody stops you. Go. It's within your rights. As for all those regulations making happier people, it depends on your definition. There's an enormous cultural difference between America and most european countries. The American defines freedom as freedom "to": freedom to build their own business, to define their own path in life, to do and own and build whatever they want as long as they do not directly impact the freedom of others. The average euro definies it as freedom "from": from thinking too much, fro