Comment by larsnystrom

Well the other large advantage is that the US is one single market with one common language (English) and while there are variations by state, pretty much one set of rules. So by starting a company in the United States you of course have access to incredibly deep capital markets, but you also have access to 350 million people mostly operating under one set of rules with one common language and largely one common culture. It's the same market advantage that China has, by and large.

Also culture. I had a friend try with several German companies, but she said the leadership would default to "no", and every decision would need too much review. She even worked with some that opened offices in SF hoping to learn to move fast, but even those were way too cautious to succeed. Lots of premature optimization, and trying to establish structures and systems before any proof of concepts could be made. Obviously, this is just anecdotal but she had a real desire to have European growth in SF communities.

I don't think capital is that much of a problem.

We have it, and it's been growing consistently.

What we lack is risk appetite, young people dreaming to be entrepreneurs, talent, a truly unified market, regulations and proper corporate law. Say what you want but stock options essentially don't exist in Europe, so you either give equity upfront or you don't at all.

I kind of wonder, capital wise. the GDP isn't too far off US and there's def companies/families w/ insane amount of capital esp in luxury goods etc. Unless they're just hoarding it like Smaug and not investing it back into the economy, in which case the problem isn't capital but business culture.