Why Europe is behind USA in creating tech companies? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 11:31:16 am
content: What factors contribute to Europe and many places'lagging' behind USA in creating tech companiesin past 25 years?What can be done to improve the situation?Will enhancing STEM education for young or very young students help?

author: brabus
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 11:39:20 am
content: USA: ~330 million people on a flat piece of land, speaking the same language.Europe: 27 countries, 24 official languages, very different cultures and traditions. Not to mention very different tax systems.Tech companies do exist in Europe, but good luck finding the manpower and infrastructure to grow them on a global scale.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 11:44:44 am
content: I have been thinking about this recently. I think there are a few factors.Over-regulation and monopoly-breaking leads to extrication of the best companies. Look at what EU has done to Google in terms of privacy regulation and antitrust lawsuits. Morally, the right thing to do, but if you are a big American corporate investor, the first thing you will look at doing when investing in an EU company, is to encourage the movement of that company to more friendly markets.A generally higher tax rate for corporations and private investors. Makes the return on investment lower, so less willingness to take risk. Having said that, US and UK corporation tax are comparable (and indeed the UK was much below the US at one point), yet US has far more investment, so probably only a small factor.Lower government investment. Silicon Valley came about because of military investment in technology. The US military continues to spend vast amounts of money on new technology. I cannot say the same is true for UK or NATO allies. The investment is very far behind except in some very big flagship projects like Eurofighter. The US spends almost a trillion dollars a year on its military, and the vast majority of that is reinvested in the US. UK and EU also don't have active policies to purchase equipment from their regions in many cases (some EU countries do but this is not universal). This leads to export of money and more technology development in the USA.Generally cheaper borrowing costs. Not sure exactly why when base rates are about the same, but corporate loans are cheaper in the US. I guess this makes it cheaper to expand.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 11:54:00 am
content: The imaginary evils of capitalism and freedom of speech, association, and expression explain why America has tech companies. Not even X is banned in America. I can't deny we have problems, and our system works slowly, but the results are worth it.

author: Sorama
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 11:54:22 am
content: I find that a pretty bold statement.Apples and peaches or whatever the saying is.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 11:59:58 am
content: Also, history; while wars also cleanse and drive innovation, WW2 was pretty destructive in Europe to the point of driving development backwards, but not so much in the USA the continent of which was saved and who mostly participated in material, which is the kind of participation which drives technology forward in non-military fields as a side effect.But then again, Europe has surprisingly lot of tech innovation and business, probably we are not just as good in making noise about it. Which is also language and culture related. If a US tech startup does something, it's all over US press, in English, accessible to the whole world. If, say, a German tech startup does the same, it's in German newspapers, in German, and only Germans read about it.But in most tech fields, once you get involved in them, you find out there are many European players on the market, just that you hadn't heard about them before getting heavily involved.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 12:31:04 pm
content: Europe (EU27 plus about 10 more) have similar collective GDP, population. May be just slightly lower in number of universities in the top 20 list.Somehow Europe does not create much of those vast money earning 'new tech' companies, Google, Facebook, and about 10 more.In past 25 years, huge surge of these newly-invented'new tech'companies providesoftware based serviceto users, instead of the traditional companies producingphysical goods, cars, train, airplane, TV, home appliances, hair dryer,...

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 12:37:02 pm
content: How Europe (EU27 plus about 10 countries) can encourage more kids to take upElectronics/Computing as hobby?Will enhance STEM exposure in early age help?Dave has two videos (year 2010 and 2024)recalling how he talk upElectronics as hobby in early ageCan wereplicate thisnowadays? If so, how?

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 12:59:43 pm
content: Quote from: Sorama on December 19, 2024, 11:54:22 amIMHO in my humble opinion based on real working experience. Others can differ

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 01:00:27 pm
content: Also we Europeans seem to be somehow ashamed of our technology. Think about a vacuum cleaner company. Take a look at this forum for a case study which resurfaces every few months: the amount of pure hate andthird-party embarrassmentfrommultitudeof British members of this forum against Dyson is... how would I say it... interesting, from a relatively objective perspective (as someone who has no opinion of this company in any sense whatsoever, just looking at the shitstorm on this forum eyes wide open, like what's behind this?). If it was an American company, Americans would be proud and noisy about it, regardless of some possible shortcomings. We Europeans are instantly ashamed if some of our countrymen do something, from sheer risk ofsomething going wrongandruining our reputation. Finns are specifically prone to this secondhand embarrassment. It is damaging to Finland and Europe because it makes people self-moderate their output too much, and do things quietly.European success stories mostly growaccidentally- some small business invents something useful and is relatively quiet about it, the market sees it in snowball effect. While delivering, we are afraid all the time "when will this fail?" In America, success stories are planned and built deliberately; most of course fail, but that's acceptable. It's a big cultural difference. And it drives an impression that America is doing better than it actually is, and conversely, that Europe is doing worse than it actually is.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 01:07:44 pm
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 19, 2024, 11:31:16 amYou are seeing that wrong. Most technology is developed / invented in Europe and then commercialised in the USA.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 01:24:58 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on December 19, 2024, 01:07:44 pmYes, you are correct. Europe invented many tech, steam engine, jet engine, early jet liner, radar.... but USA IMHOcreating tech companiesin past 25 years. Seem we both agreed on the wordcommercialised

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 01:28:12 pm
content: I see it as a knock on effect of trying to beat the commies,first with the cold war and then with the space race.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 03:26:44 pm
content: You only see the successes, not the myriad failures.Not being American but having worked in tech companies founded and based in the US, and if you're talking about the companies of the last 25 years, I think the lesser accountability for failure, legally and morally plays a part in this. It's not onerous to create a new tech company in the US , and in years gone by at least, not difficult to persuade a VC to part with first, and possibly further, stage funding (look at the current "AI bandwagon" if you want a contemporary example). And little account to be paid when you've spent all of someone else's money on marketing, nice offices and team building and had to shut the doors again.Allied to that, in certain European countries the hiring and firing laws don't make it easy to "fail fast", or indeed at all, without onerous responsibilities to employees.TL;DR: Startups are risky and the US is more accommodating of such risk.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 03:48:56 pm
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 19, 2024, 11:31:16 amNo. The "skills shortage" in sciences and technology that the British government and the press like to promote in order to support other agendas, is largely (if not entirely) non-existent.The primary problem is the lack of investment available for home-grown enterprise. Successive UK governments just don't and haven't valued tech incubation as it did in the past, preferring to pursue economic 'growth' through service industries, including the financial sector.Look at what was created during the days of the "white heat of technology", versus the sad state of affairs today.There's little point in churning out vast numbers of highly educated and skilled students if you're incapable of seeing, let alone harnessing their potential.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 04:40:15 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on December 19, 2024, 03:48:56 pmThere is a skills shortage to an extent - but the bigger issue I think is some employers in the UK simply aren't willing to stump up the cash. I've heard of job openings remaining unfilled for ages because as soon as the applicant finds out the salary they bugger off. For instance, FPGA engineering is a field in constant demand. Contractors I've seen on rates of £80-100ph. Yet salary the job might be £80kpa for a senior. Sure, the contractor has less job security... but they are nearly always busy and they're not poor.I have noticed that this has started to soften somewhat but there is still a hard ceiling in this country as an engineer, roughly around £100k pa if you are really really good, hard to get beyond that unless you go into management, and the skills of engineers don't match those of managers. Don't get me wrong, £100k pa is doing well, but it's not *rich*. Our American cousins can look to getting $300k a year as a principal SWE working for a SV tech company with similar CoL to a London-based engineer. And they pay less tax.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 04:44:43 pm
content: Actually, now that you've gotten me to think about this, from a step back, wider view, I would have assumed that the older established cultures (Europe being older cultures), that the 'senior' cultures and economies would naturally dominate.Especially some of the older sciences and mathematics came from regions, that are at least similar continents. That would be Iran and India, but those haven't held any dominance as the centuries passed, recently.So I would have been wrongly assuming that longer lived cultures would continue to hold an advantage. Certainly, WW2 did material damage.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 04:48:34 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on December 19, 2024, 03:48:56 pmYeah. The situation is similar in most European countries I think. Specifically here we have educated a lot of people into STEM fields and after demise of Nokia we have both ex-Nokian people and a lot of those who graduated unemployed from designed-for-Nokia curricula during the demise.For tech companies it is easier to specify they want people who are <30 years old, have 30 years of experience in full stack everything, and work for 10€/hour, and then publicly cry about "shortage of suitable workforce". And it's understandable, building a capable team of say 5-10 people here is pretty expensive, for example due to progressive taxation, real experts who expect payroll comparable to USA cost 3x more because tax is 70% of pay. Then people like me work as entrepreneurs / private consultants doing long days and getting relatively little compensation but hoping the business flies. So the system which supposedly removes risks from workers (and places it on employers) does exact opposite, the risk is on those few who are willing to take it. The problem is, not many are; many would prefer to work in a reliable day job and not entrepreneur. Specifically someone who worked for say Nokia for 20 years is extremely unlikely to start their own business. But also no one can afford hiring 5 of them for two-three years to build something, there simply are no angel investors in Finland, it is a mythical creature that exists in stories but no one has ever seen one.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 05:12:21 pm
content: In general doing electronics engineering as an employee pays crap in Europe. Being a process operator at a plant pays better.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 05:23:32 pm
content: Quote from: brabus on December 19, 2024, 11:39:20 amThat was all true in the first half of the 20th century, and yet many countries, especially Britain and Germany, were far ahead of the US in most areas of science and technology. The US was doing better at developing high volume consistent manufacturing, but was weak on most other aspects of progress.Quote from: brabus on December 19, 2024, 11:39:20 amTech companies were doing well in Europe until the 90s. Now only a handful are at the front of the pack in their field. So few they are easy to count. Airbus, SAP (widely hated, but widely used), Rolls Royce, ARM, some car makers to some limited extent..... I'm running out. The EU and the US have similar populations. Manpower is not an issue. Whether it is developed and encouraged, or driven to America or Asia is the real issue. I know of several people who have developed interesting biological technologies in UK academia in the last few years. I believe all of them are now in Asia, as it was so hard to get a startup off the ground in the UK.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 05:28:03 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on December 19, 2024, 01:07:44 pmMuch of it is commercialised in the US by Europeans who found it too hard to get anything started in Europe.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 05:44:04 pm
content: All of the magic is created in Silicon Valley supported by Stanford University (and maybe a bit of Berkeley). It isn't the US that's prolific, it's Silicon Valley. I suppose something comes out of MIT and a couple of the other elite universities but when it comes to raising money for startups, Silicon Valley raises plenty.Smart students + outstanding university + loads of money => commanding position in magic.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 05:52:23 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on December 19, 2024, 03:26:44 pmThomas Watson (former CEO IBM) quote:Quotehttps://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thomas_j_watson_187195

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 06:24:50 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on December 19, 2024, 05:28:03 pmThank you for refining my comment on capitalism. President Coolidge (silent Cal) said words to the effect, "The business of America is business."

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 06:32:38 pm
content: I also think a factor in UK/EU success is a general practice of conservatism in business - there are few companies willing to take big risks with high returns, but with a chance of failure. I notice American companies are much less risk averse especially in technology sectors.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 06:42:44 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on December 19, 2024, 06:32:38 pmIt isn't really UK companies who are averse to risk. Companies generally have a spread from averse to enthusiastic. Its UK sources of funding which are strongly averse to risk, which strangely means they end up with a lot of risk, because their actions lead to managed decline. From what I have seen this is also a problem in much of the EU, but not always as extreme as in the UK.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 07:12:44 pm
content: US companies spread the risk by going public (issuing stock) and letting the stockholders carry the risk. Of course there is the possibility that the risk will be rewarded and shared with the stockholders. The system works well.Startups let the employees share in the risk by issuing stock options in lieu of salary. Nothing replaces employees with skin in the game.

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 07:15:38 pm
content: is this the successor to "why is all high tech created in the US and stolen by other countries"?

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 07:52:59 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on December 19, 2024, 07:12:44 pmHere, going public is considered something you would maybe do after being 20 years in business and grown to a 100M value or so with at least 100 employees, nobody thinks it's a way to raise money to build a company, which I think was the original purpose of (even public) stock market (but this really isn't my expertise so maybe I'm wrong).Practically the idea here is that we have a CEO and maybe 2-4 other shareholders who put some tens of thousands of their personal money for material expenses and work their assess off as entrepreneurs without pay while their wives go to regular work to pay the bills, and hope that some day their stock becomes valuable. This is the only effective way because taxation is so heavily payroll-dependent so working for free works. But this has the big problem that it's hard to employ any decent engineers. You can get some taxpayer subsidy like "pay 140k salaries, get 70k of that back as free money" but that is spent quickly, you can hire an inexperienced intern with that money and that's it, then you spend your time watching over that intern instead of growing your business so you are worse than before.That makes tech startups e.g. in Finland resemble hobby projects, I mean they are driven by a few ambitious people but lack the momentum money could give. Without money, you can't get hardware (e.g. manufacture stuff in rapidly increasing volume), and you can't hire experts. You can kinda-sorta replace this lack of money with perseverance, learn to do everything yourself instead of building a team; increase production in small steps so that the current step pays for the next; but this adds delay and in high-tech time is crucial, time is money. Someone else takes the market. Or potential customers lose their interest while waiting and hearing empty promises.But we don't have any shortage of people who talk and are ready to give their opinions and advice. And share the potential future revenues, of course: take some stock options in exchange of their "business expertise", without giving even a single eurocent of their money, thinking and making others think their opinions are so valuable. Beware.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 08:37:04 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on December 19, 2024, 03:26:44 pmUSA CA style VC is 95% company fails and the 5% success make it financially profitable.Moral is a bit complicated. Some tech company did break the laws and people went to jail.Under informed free-to-choose principle, whole-sale inverster and employee know what they are getting into before joining. Retail-inverser may be less inofrmed but still have the general picture. And there are class action laws.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 08:54:20 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on December 19, 2024, 05:44:04 pmEurope, about 35 countries collectively, have top-20 universities ranking not far away from USA.May be the money$$$$

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 08:55:37 pm
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 19, 2024, 08:37:04 pmYes, very occasionally some high level examples are made, e.g. Elizabeth Holmes. But there's outright criminality such as hers, and then the many shades of grey with which snake oil is still being peddled to investors, large and small, on an ongoing basis e.g. SpinLaunch.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 08:59:45 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on December 19, 2024, 05:52:23 pmNot sure to what extent is truth, Business text books say 3M and Google encourage and fund staff time and money to work on pet project as in-house startup.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 09:04:50 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on December 19, 2024, 07:52:59 pmFrom 2005 thru 2021 that was true of the median value in the US too. That was a period of enormous growth in tech companies.https://www.statista.com/statistics/251149/median-deal-size-of-ipos-in-the-united-states/#:~:text=The%20median%20size%20of%20initial,compared%20to%20the%20previous%20years.In 2023, the median was only $10 million. Why? Perhaps regulation stifles growth? Fear of a second term by Biden? Nothing new to be invented? (Often attributed to Charles Duell, Commissioner of the US Patent Office -- now USPTO -- 1898-1901. Wikipedia now denies he said that.)

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 09:08:28 pm
content: If Yurp is behind the US in terms of tech companies, product development and new technology, that may not be true for very much longer, given the piss-poor state overall of education in the US. And without qualified tech graduates ...

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 09:14:50 pm
content: If you don't agree with the others, I'll offer you another reason - gravity well.It's not the US that's ahead when it comes to technology incubation and innovation, it's one or two small areas of just one state. The reason for that is plain and simple - this is where the lion's share of people of a particular mindset, skillset and ambition can be found, if you need them (cue 'A Team' theme). Over the past 25 years, the tech world has beaten a path to the valley and the bay area, green cards in hand where necessary, as this was seen as the cosmic cradle of all such enterprise.And the origins of that in turn, and remaining very much so still today, is that physical connectedness and proximity of such networks is crucial, regardless of what linkedin et al. would have us believe. The entire reason that there is a Silicon Valley is down to the personal relationships of the leaders of the "Fair Children". Apple exists because its founders lived and played in proximity. And it's not really so much different today, at the levels of organisations where spin-offs, investments and acquisitions live and die.Nothing lasts forever, not even a black hole. However, the inertia is still very high and only time will tell whether that will abate. The next US administration may, or may not, play a large part in that.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 09:16:10 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on December 19, 2024, 08:55:37 pmSays, another former executive chairman of Nikola

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 09:20:10 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on December 19, 2024, 09:08:28 pmUS education has always been poor. European education has been largely dragged down to US levels now. The US has been innovative by sucking in people, sometimes highly educated, sometimes very smart, sometimes very driven. As long as the US remains a magnet for people who want to get things done it should prosper.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 09:40:07 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on December 19, 2024, 09:20:10 pmReally? Harvard? MIT? USC, UCLA, UCB? Yale?That's quite the sweeping generalization, and most likely very wrong.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 09:44:10 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on December 19, 2024, 09:40:07 pmThat depends on the level you look at. US post graduate education at the better colleges has always been pretty good, but school and 4 year degree standards used to be way below Europe.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 10:04:28 pm
content: Ne666 I see your comments about 'Special Cradle' as a term for the South Bay Area, and the effect as a magnet. I agree.I had Apple Computer coming up, through those years, 1977 - 1986 'ish.Not recognizing the special qualities until a bit later. Plus others, like INTEL and HP.So much a special effect that even San Jose, right there 3 or 4 miles from Apple, (or so it seemed, maybe it's more 5 miles.)I probably could have landed some Engineering position, if I had 'known' about the culture and history...a bit. I say it that way because that stuff wasn't, yet, history.(We were more worried about Pres. Reagan.)Fast forward, and the whole 'Silicon Ghetto' effect has expanded, to maybe 60 miles, diameter, (although westerly is the Pacific Ocean). We had, uh, TESLA, ahem. I was keenly aware of their presence, 7 miles from my door, as a kind of symbol, some upgrade from friggin disability survival. First thing I thought, lol, is "I need to buy a really good looking suit and tie", (and go in to Tesla HR for an interview)That HR dept. is, now maybe at 957 miles, to Texas. I think part of the concentrated Silicon Valley 'effects' was unplanned but helped by the inertia of having nearby investors and creators and THAT happened by way of the defence airspace investments, as noted earlier.Looking back, I believe it was the TRAFFIC hell and RENT hell that pushed myself into being a surfer (Santa Cruz), and nature lover.Should have at least taken time, to check out Apple, or even INTEL; I didn't even own a suit and tie, (or do frequent showers).Immaturity, but I'd say the whole phenomena was birthed by military spending, as others say here.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 10:17:16 pm
content: It's not just tech companies. There's a very different approach to entrepreneurship between the US and Europe in general, and it hasn't changed all that much in decades. Very much linked to risk-taking and also what people see as professional "success". It's also linked to the usually much heavier administrative constraints in Europe, which don't help.It's definitely not a skill issue, although obviously whatever students chose to study largely depends on job perspectives - so that the fewer jobs/the less attractive jobs are in tech and the fewer students in tech fields. Ends up becoming a vicious circle.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 10:20:02 pm
content: Quote from: RJSV on December 19, 2024, 10:04:28 pmYes, we did. And let's not forget where they were, and how they got their start (at least manufacturing-wise):They took over the former NUMMI plant down there in Fremont, the one that was built as a joint venture between Toyota and GM.I remember all the complaining about the major job losses when that plant closed down.Then just up the road (580) from them was that solar company that went tits-up, forget their name: major financial screw-up there.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 10:21:24 pm
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 19, 2024, 08:59:45 pmI have no info on 3M, but I'd love to hear from some current Googlers whether their "20% time" still exists as policyand in practice. Because from what I've heard from through the grapevine from local Googlers is that they've been doing massive layoffs, but taking a "frog in the cold pot" approach, in that rather than doing it all at once and getting huge media attention, they've been doing it a few people at a time in each time, steadily shrinking the teams while leaving the survivors to a) do all the work, and b) unsure of whether they're the next to be axed. Morale is apparently abysmal, and from what I gather about the workload, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that they can actually take 20% of their time to work on pet projects.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 10:36:24 pm
content: Quote from: tooki on December 19, 2024, 10:21:24 pmEven from their early days, I've never talked to anyone who had a time at Google who spoke about the experience in a positive way. It has always seemed like a place to avoid. Perhaps working on the core search engine - which was so core to them they were unlikely to change direction on it, and kick you out - might have been OK at one time. The people I've met were mostly in their various VoIP and collaboration efforts, which they kept starting, changing direction and killing projects before they'd had a chance to succeed or fail in the market.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 10:56:39 pm
content: The only difference I see is that the USA is better at building monopolies in a financial de-regulated wild west. There are plenty of tech companies in Europe. The barrier to enter to the market with a product here is much cheaper. We make better cars, better commercial airplanes (hello boeing), better white goods and better industrial products. And there are still family businesses here, not only conglomerates, that will betray you for a cent of profit, or drop you as a customer because blackrock decided your esg score is low.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2024, 11:42:16 pm
content: One problem with the EU is long standing delusions of grandeur, which leads to such ideas as "we've always done it that way, who are you, as a customer, to question us?"Another thing is their attitude to the rest of the world outside Europe.When I worked in TV Broadcasting, I could ring up the bloke at Sony in Sydney & ask for a part, he would look it up on his computer & say either:- "OK, it will be on the next airfreight," Or "We don't have any in Australia, but I did a search, & one is coming from Singapore (for instance), & it should arrive in Perth by the day after tomorrow".Contrast trying to order a part from a EU manufacturer:-No "parts guy"---you had to order through the local agent, who sent the order off to the "home office", who lost it for a couple of weeks, & when it was found, they then searched for the part, which was put aside till the next time there was a container headed for Australia.Three months later you had the part!Not that the USA was much better. ----In the late 1950s when TV started up in Oz, much of the Technical equipment was from the UK, EU, or USA, but by the late 1970s/80s, it was from Japan.With digital TV there has been a drift back to EU, etc, but my point remains.

author: Postal2
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 12:51:48 am
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 19, 2024, 11:31:16 amBecause need to invite the Chinese, and not gather cannibals from all over the world.

author: all_repair
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 02:28:27 am
content: Quote from: Postal2 on December 20, 2024, 12:51:48 amMany places have the same desire, the people and government keep pushing initiatves and making initial investment, but at the end do not see the corresponding result.IMHO it is the reward system that the society put in, many times is dictated by government policies. People in the other trade and service industries are rewarded much more due to many reasons, as compared to the tech industry. Then again rich-poor divide is not as great as in the US. It is complex equation everywhere, striking the balance just in favor of tech is also not the correct equation.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 02:54:38 am
content: Maybe the US also got some alien tech. It's happening guys...

author: thermistor-guy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 10:02:15 am
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 19, 2024, 11:31:16 amIt wasn't always that way. Before WWII, the scientific and intellectual centre of the western world was Germany.Engineering, physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, music, literature, philosophy - a degree from a good German university in any of these fieldswas a mark of high distinction.Berlin was a highly innovative place in the 1920s:https://www.dhm.de/blog/2016/08/25/the-electrification-of-germany/After WWII, with Europe in ruins, and with much European talent fleeing those ruins, America became an economic,political, and technological powerhouse.Both Europe and America were profoundly influenced by the Enlightenment, with the value it placed on rational enquiry,material progress, and individual liberty.But I think Americans had and still have two extra factors. One is a belief in opportunity, that people can shape their own lives, and riseabove their circumstances, through persistent hard work and risk-taking.The other is a belief that making money is inherently a good thing; a national pastime that anyone can engage in.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 10:13:11 am
content: The Americans also pardoned a load of Nazi scientists who worked on military technology, under the condition that they work on American technology instead. Wernher von Braun developed V-2 rockets and later chaired NASA's space program for example; he was a member of the SS and Nazi party, but that was conveniently ignored because he was very good at designing rockets.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 10:44:18 am
content: WWII destroyed Europe and European countries had to start from scratch. They had to reinvent themselves and they reinvented themselves as welfare states with strong government intervention which, after all, was the trend before the war. The welfare state is very nice but it has the negative effect of stifling risk taking, entrepreneurship, etc.This dis not happen in America where, even before the war the state was less intrusive. This created a different environment, more favorable to risk taking, to investing in oneself.In Europe higher taxes means that if you succeed the state will take a big bite and give it to those who didn't (and keep a big chunk in their own pockets as a "processing fee").The culture, the mentality, are very different on each side of the Atlantic.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 11:06:40 am
content: I'd also consider that, in the time when the current US tech landscape had its origins, the US was still a 'young' nation. We're all that bit more risk-taking, ambitious and visionary in our youth, than in our mature years. European cultures have had longer to slip into decadence and decline, and once those attitudes set in, they are difficult to reverse. I have no doubt that ultimately some form of 'tech fatigue' will come to western shores too.Thinking on those origins, there is also very much a case for "necessity being the mother of invention". In the post-war, and then cold war eras, almost unchecked tax payer spending on national defense, the military-industrial complex and a manned space program were considered such a necessity. It's not difficult to see how the fruits of those massive investments cross-pollenated commercial development in related technological fields, including computing and semiconductors.

author: u666sa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 11:53:38 am
content: Yahoyy!Technology has layers. Toppest layer is military space, then comes civilian space (including all dual purpose stuff), then comes military, then industrial, and only then civilian. Often times high tech stuff from space and military makes it to civilian market years after it is invented. (for example microwave ovens and internet)You don't have this layering in europe. Whatever technology you come up with, has to compete with tech that has been inveted years ago.The only countries that have this type of layering are United States, Russian Federation, and China. Japanese are amateurs, their electronics is funny, like automatic toilets. Japanese used to be in electronics what Germans used to be in cars, keyword for both is used to be.United Staces is a super power, she invests into the future minds, and provides opportunities, that's why there are more tech jobs in United States. Whereas europe is an economic union in which farmer from another country can come and outsource the farmer from your own country -- that's why the Britain brexited.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 01:56:23 pm
content: Another factor I think is a recent obsession that lawmakers and authorities this side of the Atlantic seem to have with changing regulations after the fact, and then declaring that the costs should be covered by companies that operated under the old rules.A small example, I had a car loan a while back. I paid it off in full well before the due date. But I'm likely to be entitled to compensation because it's been ruled that the loan company paid commission to the car company for getting the loan. This was a common practice but it's now been deemed unlawful, but despite it being only unlawful now, I'm entitled to a small amount of compensation for a past loan. OK, I'm not going to sob over that: but how can companies operate in a marketplace where regulations might affect *any* past action they did? It's really going to make companies nervous.Another example is the cladding crisis, with developers expected to cover huge costs for cladding that was soldto themas being appropriate for the application. Rather than going after the likes of companies like Arconic that fabricated the test reports they go after developers who only have access to what's made available to them, test reports on the safety of the material in X application. The UK government does not want to go after Arconic because they're an international megacorp and they're worried about retribution, and then they have the gall to go on about how no one wants to build anything in this country. Arconic should be sued for billions for its part in the crisis but nothing seems to be happening there.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 02:04:02 pm
content: QuoteThe previous mob wouldn't because they may have lost at least one of there donors

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 03:36:16 pm
content: Belief that quality of life is not improved by technology and general views that motor use is lazy, they seem quite happy with a manual sprocket drive though. They also don't seem to like air conditioning at all. Excellent insulation but its bulky and hard to work around I think (german walls).it's like active systems are disliked, and improvements to passives are slow, and then they need massive volume.I had a feeling that they think we are insane for having a 4 inch thick wall and a heat exchanger instead of a 12 inch wall and possibly a fan. They might fare a bit better during power outages though.I swear europeans are god damn obsessive about preserving heat. Open a door to the outside in the winter and you are met with a hostile investigation. I kind of wonder what would happen if you left a door ajar at night.Its kind of like those loading docks where you need to walk through the plastic curtain to get in that preserves heat. Who else hates that shit?tech is active systems!!! and it can crash pretty hard.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 03:45:57 pm
content: QuoteAll comes down to the cost of energy.whether its for driving them sprockets or warming your home.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 03:48:01 pm
content: I found they do not even like electric spice grinders that run for 15 seconds. I think the majority just don't like motors.They love calling it lazy.. But sometimes I loathe the manual technology. The one that is built like old car seats that has plate sliding around cams.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 04:24:15 pm
content: I've considered making a vague argument that the social upheavals loosely labeled as the '60s (1960's).I'd call that period 'The hippies' or various other labels that could be applied, to early Apple Computer Corp. and symbolically a 'barefoot' Steve Jobs working on the Apple I in a local garage (Sunnyvale).That maybe wasn't such a big driving force, but a cultural shift. My point being that the U.K. had similar 'hippy' culture, freeing up the old, stuffy 'suits', with more casual Beatles listeners.Lockheed-Martin culture transmuted into charming, bow-tie Apple employees is perhaps only a smaller part, of the Silicon Valley, but I'm not able to see that as a total overturn.But the whole, 'hippy revolution' certainly put a delightful 'charm' into the history.No Silicon Valley effect, around LONDON, but again, there are lots of small business ventures that have that whole, relaxed or casual approach to business.

author: mendip_discovery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 05:55:39 pm
content: I think the US had a few big players that are encouraging the next batch. I feel that many of the European start ups get snapped up by the giants if they get spotted. There might also be some out there we just forget they are not US based. I can't prove any of this but when has this stopped anyone from saying stuff on this forum.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 08:01:24 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on December 19, 2024, 09:14:50 pmText books has a term 'reduced friction' when this group of people practically know each other, at least in-directly, by referral, business transaction is quicken (reduce friction) when people 'trust each other' (to an extent) and behave in 'norm' of that sub-culture.Stanford university gave birth to Fairchild semiconductor, then Intel and then spreaded like a family....

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 08:17:02 pm
content: Quote from: tszaboo on December 19, 2024, 10:56:39 pmEurope car reliability is now not good as reported in insurance-data-backed consumer report.Recent newshttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/opinion/germany-scholz-government-election.html

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 08:25:04 pm
content: Quote from: RJSV on December 20, 2024, 04:24:15 pmThe place people like to compare Silicon Valley to in the UK is the area around East Kilbride in Scotland, often termed Silicon Glen in the 1980s. There was lots of innovation, and numerous manufacturers there in the 70s and 80s. That snag was they were all American owned at the start, with the Japanese joining in later. Almost nothing was locally owned, and as circumstances changed the fabs and then the R&D moved out.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 08:27:58 pm
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 20, 2024, 08:17:02 pmLong time Toyota and Honda owners complain a lot about how the latest models are far more troublesome than 20 years ago. Yet, with all that drop in reliability its still Toyota, Lexus and Honda that dominate the top 20 most reliable cars in Europe.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 08:50:17 pm
content: Quote from: RJSV on December 20, 2024, 04:24:15 pmThere were vacumn tube, then transistor. IC was invented in 1959Those commercially successful TTL 7400/7490, uA709, uA741 OP-Amp, NE555 timer, 723 linear regulator has tens of bipolar BJTs instead of one BJT. IC was a major enabler at that time, like Newton get hold of optical lens for microscope, that lead to major jump in medical industry knowing that previously unseen microbug are causing illness.IC was one layer. Recently seem they are talking about hundreds layer for SSD memory.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 09:08:15 pm
content: Googled "list of tech companies by market cap".Not much Europe companies. But some has key technology that the world will not run (in present form) without them. ASML, ARMhttps://companiesmarketcap.com/hkd/tech/largest-tech-companies-by-market-cap/

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 10:56:19 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on December 19, 2024, 06:42:44 pmI'm replying to myself here, but I was just thinking about something an American in startups told me years ago about why US style startup financing won't work in many countries. I can't remember the details, but it relates to tax regulations. If they invest in lots of risky startups in the US, and only 1 in 20 score a big hit when they exit, they can spread the few wins over several years, mixing is with the failures, to arrive at taxation on a fair long term mix of outcomes. However, the tax environment in many places means when they get a big hit, they end up with a huge tax bill for the year in which they exit, and the overall mix of outcomes has to be reasonably low risk to be viable as a long term business. Does anyone know the details of how this works out?

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 20, 2024, 11:48:16 pm
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 20, 2024, 08:50:17 pmMicroscopes: are you confusing Newton and Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek?They were both Fellows of the Royal Society.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 01:03:53 am
content: Quote from: RJSV on December 20, 2024, 04:24:15 pmThat is an urban legend. I recall Woz in his book saying Jobs wire wrapped proto boards at home. They were brought to the garage to put chips in and test.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 01:09:44 am
content: The "garage" legend (true in this case) properly belongs to Hewlett & Packard who started HP in a Palo Alto garage.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 01:11:41 am
content: Quote from: Bud on December 21, 2024, 01:03:53 amI wonder how much of the cool stuff got denied when they had to deal with tons of stuffy stiff business banker suits"WHY, I NEVER."Look how much trouble Elon Musk got in for trying to be cool. Apple was like 30 years ago. They probobly had to make some shit up about going to church and this and that to get into the big leagues, whatever was 'respectable'.did you remember to pay the father?

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 02:28:28 am
content: Thanks for mention of Stanford University.If a person does a geographical sweep, of the things near to Sunnyvale, it could be like this:Going down the peninsula, South from San Francisco, I know there is Stanford University. , then around the South Bay curve is Santa Clara with INTEL, and back heading North, passing Moffet field (Air Force ?), the you are passing Fremont, Union City,...those had the smaller businesses, that catered to the bigger companies. Such as independent software developers, and small software development companies, much of those considered 'vender's.Then you make it up to Berkeley, having U.C. and, later, PIXAR.Everything else, IMO, was either a vender to big companies, or Cities with 'wanna-be' sites, many of which eventually started filling up.That's up to circa. 1985, approx ten years into Apple's tenure. A zillion mechanical drafting and PC Board venders, in places like Mt.View and San Mateo.Much of the local ongoing discussions were similar to:"Housing is getting really tight, with soaring rents."."Freeway system is hopelessly overloaded."Many long-term residents don't really know many details, of the 50 years (since 1974) and some of the newer business things were, for good or bad, isolated, almost completely, from day to day working people, even the Engineers and Managers. The big stuff happened off somewhere, privately.That's why my account, which has a lot of details, misses a lot of what the OP is asking about. We just did Engineering, and watched from the sidelines, when a big layoff occured, or a new manufacturing building.A good business historian based in St. Louis, for example, knows way more than myself.The bigger expansions, 1995 on, started getting area like Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, but many of those outlying areas haven't gone to the crazy density of tech activity, that you can see in Cupertino.Lots and lots of L.A. places too, just maybe without the 'glamour' of witnessing internal 'drama' in Apple.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 05:38:38 am
content: Quote from: RJSV on December 21, 2024, 02:28:28 amNope. Pixar's in Emeryville, of all places.I know, because I lived in a part of Oakland that for some reason senders of mail thought was in Emeryville. (Had the same zipcode; it was in what I called the "tri-city" area, Oakland-Emeryville-Bezerkeley).But it wasn't, and the proof was that all my parking tickets were issued by Oakland.* Historical note:Emeryville used to be a wild place back in the early 20th century, with speakeasies, brothels and gambling dens. So much so that then-Alameda County DA Earl Warren, later Chief Justice Warren, famously called it "the rottenest city on the Pacific coast".

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 05:56:10 am
content: Ha!San Pablo Avenue, in approximately Oakland, but that's a weird area, for knowing which of the 3 cities a person is in actually.Kind of a Bermuda Triangle, where poor women pushing shopping carts down the middle of San Pablo Ave.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 06:35:43 am
content: It's what they call the Golden Gate neighborhood: roughly between Alcatraz and Stanford, and from Hollis on the west to about Market St. to the east. Includes all 3 cities, Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville. Has a Carnegie library on San Pablo Ave.You can almost see Pixar from behind the CVS store on San Pablo. In between to the west is the site of the former Oakland Oaks ballpark, which hosted a black baseball league in the 1940s. All gone now.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 10:46:57 am
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on December 21, 2024, 01:11:41 amMusk got himself into hot water by breaking long-established, well-understood, and necessary regulations on investments and trading. Which isn't "cool", if you want a continued supply of investors with the confidence to support future enterprise.

author: Overspeed
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 02:49:29 pm
content: HelloIn France there is law on patent , a company established in France ( whatever it is a foreign company ) or a French citizen , which / who claim a patent in France , the French Gov have a priority to purchase the patent at the price estimated by the French Gov ..... that why IBM have move a research center from France to Poland .Second concern . laws , rules , regulations , taxes , controls in France are just hell so if you want to develop something better to move in another countryRegardsOS

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 03:34:05 pm
content: Microscopes: are you confusing Newton and Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek?They were both Fellows of the Royal Society.Sorry for my confusion on person. May be my point is still valid as referring to the invention and mastering on the art/science/engineering on the practical use of optical lens

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 03:45:32 pm
content: Quote from: RJSV on December 21, 2024, 02:28:28 amThey used to make poster map of the maphttps://qz.com/942714/apple-ibm-intel-a-1983-map-of-silicon-valleyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Literacy_Bookshops

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 04:04:42 pm
content: Quote from: u666sa on December 20, 2024, 11:53:38 am"layers" is new to me. Could you please explain more on "layers"?What it is? How it shape action, behaviour and the underlining people mindset?How layer affect direction of tech development, market, bringing tech to market (and make big money when companies reaches top 200 in past 25 years)?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 04:16:45 pm
content: Quote from: u666sa on December 20, 2024, 11:53:38 amThis is a rather obsolete view. In the 70s if you were in military work, in the US or Europe, component vendors beat a path to your door to sell you the latest and greatest. You might not be in the market for large numbers, but the value of each part was high enough to get their attention. Now the electronics market is many times the size. If you are a silicon vendor you only aggressively pursue military sales if you are concentrating on a niche, like wide temperature range parts. Even there, the SiC vendors think a lot more about things like cars than military applications.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 05:15:30 pm
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 21, 2024, 03:45:32 pmAnd this map illustrates the power of "critical mass". Companies are started by people, and usually by people who know each other. As companies get older they tend to become more conservative and accumulate deadwood. Much of an older company's energy is put into maintaining and evolving existing products, which slowly become obsolete as they are unable to take advantage of newer technology without painfully disruptive upheaval of product architecture and threatening the legacy product profits.And the environment always changes, many times more rapidly than legacy companies can recognize or adapt to. This can easily render a good product obsolete.When this happens (and it inevitably does) some people see the opportunities that are being missed, and form a team to launch a new company for the new environment. This is called evolution.In a place like Silicon Valley, where essentially everyone knows, or is at most one degree of separation from everyone else, it is pretty easy to put together a team of known high-performers. Given the widespread "churn", especially in times like the 1990's, a "known high-performer" faces little risk when quitting a job and joining a new team. Venture capital investors invest in people first, then in product areas, and if a start-up crashes and burns, the capable employees usually have many other other opportunities. Contrast that to the less obvious but even more dangerous risk of becoming obsolete as you continue to work with outdated technology and products, while your company slowly contracts and eventually fails.An environment that rewards this type of dynamic will create much more value and technology advance than one where stability is the priority. Yes, sometimes it makes more sense to cling to what you've got, but a person should recognize a good opportunity and take action.FWIW, in the USA there are indeed tax advantages for the start-up investor. And in a start-up, the employees are (or can be) investors, often at extremely small cost -- pennies on the potential dollar (in my case it has been 1/100th of a penny on the eventual dollar). When starting the company you purchase your stock, with a vesting period, so if that stock becomes valuable you have a gain which is not taxed until you sell the stock. If you re-invest some stock sales-proceeds in another start-up the gain on that stock gain is further deferred as well. Eventually you need to pay tax, but this may be treated as "long term capital gains", which gets you a lower tax rate than ordinary income. These policies further incentivize new-company formation.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 05:22:57 pm
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 21, 2024, 03:34:05 pmSorry for my confusion on person. May be my point is still valid as referring to the invention and mastering on the art/science/engineering on the practical use of optical lensThe Royal Society is an important example of international co-operation on scientific discovery: van Leeuwenhoek was Dutch, but the Society was incorporated in Britain."The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence." (their website)The important advances in lens design of the day were Italian.Huygens (also Dutch) and Newton were important natural philosophers working on understanding optics.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 05:59:44 pm
content: Aside from organizational things,I've found that, for Engineers and Programmers, there are two basic personality types, in regards to their creative work:One type is not intimidated, by large or vast swaths of 'empty' territory, whether that be the relatively HUGE 64kbyte memory in the iconic Commodore64, or in cases of huge, empty marketplaces. Meaning in that latter example that a 'hungry' mass-market, and no developed product yet, can be intimidating, vs some little older niche.The product or software developers that crave such 'empty or new markets' are the ones found way, way ahead of the established product curve.The TOY market is actually wild, this way, chaotic and often unpredictable.(Like Tickle Me Elmo [tm, probably] ).Of course that market is extremely dependant on newness, but has conservative elements as well.I fondly recall the irony, of going to Toys 'R Us, to purchase my first home computer.Some of the Toy market had to adopt the risk and innovate forms of competing.Plus, I think much of the Video game and Toy markets electronics products served as a sort of 'icing on the cake', of the more sober manufacturing industry, and provided a kind of a 'name brand' for the whole deal, including short quick terms like 'high tech', applied both to silly toys, and to life-style or life career choices.'Go work in an office' just doesn't have the appeal, of 'Go work at PIXAR Office'

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 06:51:12 pm
content: FWIW, in the USA there are indeed tax advantages for the start-up investor.For the investor, can loss from multiple projects be accumulated to be offset by the few successful project gain? Says, 19 projects fails (which is normal) and one project become very successful.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 07:09:03 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on December 21, 2024, 10:46:57 amno I mean his countercultural activities with herbs that are not tobbacothey try to bust everyone for that to get leverage/deal in high finance I think. I don't think that one has anything to do with your political affiliation, its just like the smell of blood to sharks

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 07:35:04 pm
content: Why some companies canbetter utilize'present day tech' to turn into products?The OP was specific onpast 25 years, "What factors contribute to Europe and many places 'lagging' behind USA in creating tech companies in past 25 years?"Military spending has been declining as percent of USA GDP after the end of cold war. Newspaper used phases like 'peace dividen' and year 2019 'NATO was brain dead' (now changed)https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50335257In those 25 years, since 1999, successful companies are those that can best utilize 'present day tech' to turn into products. Google and Facebook use (existing software TCP/IP, C languages, etc.) software to create services suiting mass market consumer.This type of companies was non-existance and now they (may be far) more valuable than traditional physical goods produced like Toyota vehicles. It takes a lot of capital to build factory to make one million car annually. Someone typing on keyboard can reach much higher number of (many are hiddenly paying) customers. Very high ROI (return of investment)

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 07:37:32 pm
content: Part of it is refusing to spend on R&D. You can't add new technology unless you find out how it works and effects your product. How many companies refuse to spend on R&D and just wanna keep printing money?? Its VERY common even with higher end technology products.New tech is hard to integrate, especially with stale tech that barely got upgraded for a decade or more. Something as simple as passing EMC test might make a boss go "HELL NO" after they get whooped by higher frequencies that are becoming more common in modern products. And they don't like hiring fresh people, its always 20 years experience from a parallel industry that is sitting on its ass like they are*. Suddenly they are hearing that they need to upgrade the chassis shielding, add filters, redesign wiring, have inrush problems.... and then you have the thermal incompatibilities between new and old products. With how stale it is, a single module upgrade can mean a entire systems redesign... and combine that with the problem they are having from parts obsolescence (making them weary of any new technology), it s not surprising that the whole situation smells bad.*because they don't want to train people... people that have the skills needed to integrate new systems into new or improved designs, they don't have the old knowledge that industry sub-segment developed... and they don't want to have to get the bosses and managers to figure out how to modify their operations to accommodate fresh employees. Try getting training.. They will bitch that you are unqualified, but equally you can bitch back that they are unqualified to do the improvements/modernization/new stuff that they want!!!! Are you trying to improve or stay the same?? I consider this a culture problem with the leadership getting really comfortable and refusing to acknowledge that they are not being conducive to modernization with their policies. They have a totally unrealistic view of supply. And it shows, with things like positions that never get filled. Plenty of people wanna work. They don't hire because they don't realize their requirements are ludicrous, and the thing they want at their comfort level and price point does not exist. Sorry, your gonna need to take meetings and criticism from a new hire inexperienced person that happens to know a thing or two about what you want, mr big boss. Yeah he is gonna be wrong about a few things but hes also gonna be right about a few of the new things you don't know. It means work.Like get this, if your company decides that the priority is gonna be a new product that has all these new fangled problems that your not used to. You know what it means? Suddenly, by way of a decision, your OWN PEOPLE are not qualified for what they want to do, for that goal. They need to learn it and get up to date information from people that don't know what they know, as hard as it is. At that point its painful, you have a generation gap, gen-z rudeness or disrespect and whatever else... but you gotta accept that its the only way your gonna get your goals finished.The culture/generation gap reminds me of that movie 'enemy mine'. Right now its hard to even understand the new language variations, but face it, its fresh people with a different mindset and outlook then you, which is required for innovation implementation.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 07:42:26 pm
content: Quote from: Wilson__ on December 21, 2024, 06:51:12 pmLosses and gains can be offset anywhere. The important question is how they can be offset for tax purposes. This is critical to encouraging risk.

author: soldar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 07:58:54 pm
content: Quote from: Overspeed on December 21, 2024, 02:49:29 pmI have a feeling this is quite common in Europe. My feeling (rather than analyzed thought) is that after WWII there was a generation of statesmen who understood the problem that caused WWII and developed and started implementing the solution which was the common market. This idea of unification was developed well in the beginning, common market, customs union, etc. I don't know exactly where I would put the date but a later generation of politicians took over, found themselves in an office but really did not understand the purpose and just started doing things which were not only not part of the plan but wee detrimental to the plan. For a time now Europe has not been going towards greater unity but quite the contrary. Politicians are just up there making more and more legislation which not only does not help but hinders.They do things which sound good on paper but get in the way of real economic activity. Then they just pat each other's backs and think they are doing a great job.They should have been doing more to unite the European economy.In America, like in China, you can buy and pay from one end of the country to the other end and shipping and bank payments are simple and straightforward. Same thing for phone calls. These things are crucial for business and need to be simplified.In Spain it is easier for me to buy in China than in Germany. This is the kind of thing the EU is supposed to be fixing but they have lost sight of the target and are now legislating about feel good measures.There is no well developed plan for the future. They talk about electric vehicles and renewable energies but there is no definite plan and they change from one day to the next. Who is going to invest in this climate?There is no clear and steady path marked. Politicians talk about smoke while Europe's business and industry goes down the drain. Politicians in their countries finance and support the EU institutions and are later rewarded with useless post in the EU. The whole thing has become a useless charade.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 08:04:01 pm
content: England's BREXIT certainly is a big sign that the above is true.That "move anywhere you want in the EU" deal that you used to get with Europe was a big perk for going there. Certainly seems safe. Actually having significantly different cultures that you can try if you make a mistake.Strong nationalism always has a big effect on industry... its like liquidity but with technology instead of finance.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 08:08:08 pm
content: Quote from: Overspeed on December 21, 2024, 02:49:29 pmThere is something like this in many countries, usually for the purpose of controlling military technology."Can I patent this?""No.""Why?""I can't tell you.""Has it already been patented?""I cannot comment at this time.""What is the patent number?""I cannot comment at this time."

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 21, 2024, 08:10:33 pm
content: bit of a "im bigger then you' landmine.I don't know if its the best idea, because the soviet union did this, and had some really advanced technologies, in Kazakhstan.'And then despite the rockets, your own people try to over throw you because they gotta crank washing machines, possibly because some motor controller was used to steer a rocket and remained top secret for 50 years.Sometimes I wonder about how long high power solid state inverters might have been around for, before we got to use them for reasonable things, like home appliances and yard tools, that could improve your GDP and quality of life so much that you don't need the rocket steering.I am 100% futurology is extremely difficult to determine (i.e. look at how ridiculous 1950's futurologists thought the world would be by 1990), and the only avenue that they have for determining the utility of secret technologies... is basically futurology! So its not a safe bet to think your probobly right about a technology being more or less useful for society.Like they are gonna predict what basically tens of thousands of product designers will imagine for some particular secret tech.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2024, 09:28:21 am
content: Quote from: soldar on December 21, 2024, 07:58:54 pmThis is true and it's ridiculous. And I don't think you can even blame EU legislation for that (although you are right they could do more to help), it's a weird cultural thing:European companies are not willing to sell their products. Years ago I thought it's because I'm too small of a customer, but really it's not any easier even when you are bigger. You basically need to hire some extrovert businessman to full time begging/negotiation job. China is so much easier, if you want just a quote for a stock item or something custom, just send an email and you get a quote back within hours and then you just order what you need.

author: NE666
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2024, 10:11:19 am
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on December 21, 2024, 07:37:32 pmThat's definitely one side of the coin. However, the other is knowing when to stop spending, the so-called "sunken asset facility". I've worked in the (very well funded) R&D sections of two large organisations, and too often I've seen large amounts of resource committed to projects that it was quite obvious weren't going anywhere, and had spent years not getting there. Either because customer feedback (or the lack of customer engagement at all) was ignored, or wasn't solicited because "we know best" and "we've already spent x million on this, we must have a product now to recoup that".Real innovation is hard, and even in the largest of organisations it really comes down to having the right individual(s) on the team, at the right time, at the right stage of their own career/knowledge. R&D investment is, as you say, essential. But how you spend it, and the willingness to see much if not most of the spend as a total right-off, in most cases, is a factor too. Which is why governments that allow tax right-offs for R&D spending (as does the US), are the right way to go.

author: Tation
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2024, 12:18:33 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on December 22, 2024, 09:28:21 amAlso my own perception. But also works the same way intra-country. It is easier for me to buy from China than to buy from local (in my very same country) companies.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2024, 12:23:00 pm
content: Quote from: NE666 on December 22, 2024, 10:11:19 amIt works both ways. What gets funded has more to do with fashion than analysis. So, some things get funded when they are going nowhere. Other things take time to align with the needs of customers, and have a protracted start up, but just as the orders are starting to roll in the development gets killed.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2024, 08:31:42 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on December 21, 2024, 08:10:33 pmHeh; I'm still waiting for my backyard nuclear power plant.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2024, 09:16:00 pm
content: In my last company our "futurology" was limited to perhaps a 1 or 2-year timeframe. We designed our system using some key components that we believed would be available in quantity at an acceptable price -- not now, but when we needed them for volume production. We tracked and often worked with vendors in that space (example: 10 Gbit/s lasers and detectors for single-mode fiber). We used expensive prototypes during development when necessary, but when it was time for customer shipments the initial component price/availability targets had been hit, or were at least within sight. This technology required no scientific breakthroughs, just hard work, and the evolving communications network meant that there would be a strong demand for these components.This approach has risks but potential big payoffs when you can leapfrog your competition by a full generation, and this is exactly what our Venture funders were looking for. We ended up redefining our market segment and got the big payoff.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2024, 09:45:28 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on December 22, 2024, 09:16:00 pmIt sounds like you were doing it at a reasonable forecast level. The government however, decides to do things like 20 year predictions for secrets, or something like that, based on the same sort of reasoning.Kind of like what malcolm was explaining in jurassic park.. in the long term its a fluke to get anything correct.

author: Wilson__
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 22, 2024, 09:55:25 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on December 22, 2024, 09:16:00 pmWell said. The A phone has been doing this since, kind of, 20 years ago. Making their product kind of 0.5 size and 2x functions. So, they can demand end-user 2x price and 10x or more profit per device (as reported by iFixIt on their component cost).until recent 5 to 8 years that the mass manufacturers catch up