Comment by yobbo

The difference isn't mainly in ethos or culture; those startups make services with zero marginal cost, and where growth and eventual near-monopoly is the only successful outcome. Europe lacks investors for those types of startups.

"Mittelstand conditions" are replicated for digital products/services that are 1) expensive to build, 2) are very useful/profitable for customers, and 3) have small/fixed addressable markets.

More sustainable examples would be engineering consultancies building embedded systems for infrastructure, machines, robots, etc.