I think differences in cost of living and social benefits do not fully explain it, popular as that line of reasoning may be.
A few exceptions aside, Europe just doesn't have VC capital. VC capital translates in Dutch as "risk capital". We have neither the capital nor the risk taking.
A fitting example of this shortcoming is Blendle. Once called the "iTunes for news", this app would let you read articles across news publications and magazines. Imagine the convenience of that, and the massive total addressable market.
I would expect that a US entrepreneur would easily put a few hundred million (if not billions) into the idea, trying to aggressively seize this new market. To try and replicate what Jobs did for music, but this time for news publishers and magazines.
The Dutch/European way is starvation. A peak of 50 employees and a payout to publishers of a few million. Next, the founders barely hanging on by raising another 1 million at best, which is an amount a SC startup may burn in a day or week or so.
The big capital just isn't there. And you need big capital to pay for large amounts of 150K engineers.
A second factor, not sure if true across Europe but definitely in the Netherlands, is that people doing actual work are underappreciated. Trade-based as this countries' legacy is, the "real" business is the finance, sales and purchasing departments. The rest are just "hands", replaceable units. The idea of an ordinary worker earning 100-200K is quite alien to Dutch society.
If this were true, wouldn't we see those US VCs come running to Europe with their capital? Especially now, when they can attend board meetings over zoom.
Even with wider geographic distribution of US startups, there are still a lot of fish in the US VC pond. A deep-pocketed firm could pretty easily differentiate themselves in Europe with aggressiveness and comp.
VC sector in Europe is 15-20 years behind to that in the US. VC in the US want to play on a turf they understand- the local legislation, infrastructure,etc. When some random guy from Latvia shows up, he gets the money but it's pocket change compared to what the guy from Chicago would have gotten.
A few exceptions aside, Europe just doesn't have VC capital. VC capital translates in Dutch as "risk capital". We have neither the capital nor the risk taking.
A fitting example of this shortcoming is Blendle. Once called the "iTunes for news", this app would let you read articles across news publications and magazines. Imagine the convenience of that, and the massive total addressable market.
I would expect that a US entrepreneur would easily put a few hundred million (if not billions) into the idea, trying to aggressively seize this new market. To try and replicate what Jobs did for music, but this time for news publishers and magazines.
The Dutch/European way is starvation. A peak of 50 employees and a payout to publishers of a few million. Next, the founders barely hanging on by raising another 1 million at best, which is an amount a SC startup may burn in a day or week or so.
The big capital just isn't there. And you need big capital to pay for large amounts of 150K engineers.
A second factor, not sure if true across Europe but definitely in the Netherlands, is that people doing actual work are underappreciated. Trade-based as this countries' legacy is, the "real" business is the finance, sales and purchasing departments. The rest are just "hands", replaceable units. The idea of an ordinary worker earning 100-200K is quite alien to Dutch society.