Comment by javier123454321
5 days ago
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-europe-doesnt-have-a-te...
Reminds me of this article. Everyone knows that Europeans could compete, and the world stage would welcome it, but they have put themselves into a bind where taking back any social service or loosening regulation and allowing markets to operate would take their air of superiority over stupid Americans and they would rather kill off any chance at becoming world technology players than that. Also it is just political and cultural suicide, ask Paris right now.
So if they don't let corporations trample all over people then their society will obviously collapse?
It's genuinely disturbing to see how many here apparently favour GDP over human development indices and quality of life metrics.
If USA growth was 1% lower per year over the past 50 years, we'd be as poor as Tunisia.
GDP growth is very very important.
It’s also disappointing how people make the assertion that the two are adversarial to each other with no proof at all. Says who?
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Who expressed favoritism? This is just a description of life as it is. I suspect that most people will favor whatever society they were raised in, and many who don't will move. Silicon valley is full of immigrants, who apparently hate life?
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Stopping the stiffling of innovation does not mean trampling over people. Europe has outsourced defense to the US, and in return theyve gotten nothing but a slowly crumbling relevance in the world stage. As a person that believes in Europe and is incredibly thankful for the historic contribution to the western intellectual canon, it saddens me.
No, this article gets its core premise wrong: labor laws are not the main issue. The issue is that if I wanted to found a new company, I'd be confronted with lots very strict regulations with lots of implications and induced overhead. The list is too long for a HN comment.
It's not impossible to overcome, but it is an added commitment for any new company. Founding is not very attractive and that's why we don't get that many crazy wild bets here (Tesla was one initially too).
Are labor laws not a regulation?
I will accept your argument that there are additional onerous regulations on top of that. But that seems like the same "core premise".
No, labor laws are fine exactly as they are. Not importing US style at will hire and fire culture is an asset. That's all budgetable and relatively minor. If you are seeing a need to downsize your company early on, the fundamental mistakes already happened way earlier by choosing a path that was unsustainable. Such a company doesn't usually have a future.
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> The issue is that if I wanted to found a new company, I'd be confronted with lots very strict regulations with lots of implications and induced overhead
Yes, like for example you have to actually pay your employees for the time they work, and give them a certain amount of paid annual leave
This is something anathemic to USian companies, who see skilled workers as essentially disposable single-use devices.
Is what I wrote confusing? I have nothing against labor laws in the EU. It's that there are a lot of other well meaning regulations that bog down young businesses. They are mostly justified, but they are also pretty daunting chores for founders.
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Yes regulatory burden is my best bet as to why Europe has produced almost nothing of worth aside copying uber and doordash. Skype was cool for a moment there.
> Relative to income, it costs large companies four times more to lay off Germans and French than American workers
Yep, so saying Europe can build software is pretty much like Western factories trying to compete with slave or child labor in some developing part of the world.
I mean most Americans probably don't want to open their own sweatshop garment factories. But it does mean that if we start ww3 that shirts may be harder to come by. I think it's probably a good thing that the entire world is too interdependent to want to start shooting at each other? (G10 at least)
As a software developer in an at will arrangement, i dont quite see the comparison with sweatshops. Look, the US isnt perfect by any means, and Europe has the brainpower. Were waiting for a European Tesla, that should have been your domain. Yet here we are, Skype and Angry Birds being the last big hits. Maybe Lovable is a current exception. Your Nordic countries really doing heavy lifting.
Cost of layoff is wrong measure of competitiveness, to start with.
Production of innovative technology pushing the frontier of whats possible is the measure. Cost of laying off is one possible non exhaustive diagnosis as to why it might not exist in Europe.
Let's just assume your claim is true, and it is impossible to build software in Europe.
European companies can still build software in different countries. Nothing stops them from building their software in an US subsidiary they fully control. A lot of good software developers are currently looking for a job.
Nobody is going to build any software in US when nearshore is 2-3 times cheaper. American engineers are overpriced and not competitive on the global market.
My claim is never about lack of brainpower in the EU. Clearly theres talent. Its a bit cultural, yes, but mostly its part of a framework that does not reward innovation. For a place with the best car manufacturing in the world and such a drive towards renewables, youd think Tesla should have come from EU. Or even should be replicated there. Why wont it?
If you want dirt cheap contractors who largely accomplish nothing, the US is indeed the wrong place.
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https://www.perplexity.ai/search/4bbc8dde-531f-4178-a3b1-c60...
I would call this theory "No tech leadership without enshitification."
Or maybe, just hear me out, that's an American delusion, promoted to justify the oligarchy here.
Well we don't really have a counterexample yet