Google, Apple, Amazon, ... are not startups, they are behemoths backed up by the USA government. Europe has many very good startups that are just purchased with USA dollars once they are successful.
> we'd have to adopt the lax corporate regulations of the US
That would only ruin Europe standards of living and open us more to be purchased by USA companies. The other way around is the way. It worked for China. Forbid non-European companies to purchase key software companies.
USA is not successful because capitalism, USA is successful were the government puts a lot of money: Military, I+D.
What I meant was that they were startups at one point.
I could have given other examples but there are so many that it's hard to decide. Dropbox, Reddit, imgur just to name a few. This site should know plenty of VC fueled startups.
The point was not which startups to name as examples, the point was that lack of regulations make this whole VC system go around.
I could never see that system working here because bureaucracy slows everything down and forces corporations to do things like care for employees and pay taxes.
But with that said, recent news shows that Sweden has given tax exemptions to Facebook and Amazon just like everyone else. To curry their favor. It's frankly disgusting.
Again, you are getting it the other way around. Taxes to invest in education and Development and Research and high qualified citizens is what allows innovation and good companies.
This is incorrect. The current big tech companies became successful and massive without any special government deals. Google dominated search, Microsoft dominated all business and home PCs for decades, Apple and Google dominated mobile for consumers and businesses, Amazon beat them all to cloud and ate online retail with free fast shipping.
It’s only recently with JEDI that Amazon/Microsoft tried to attach directly to the government’s wallet in a big way. And even with losing that, it will be a drop in the bucket for either of them.
These companies were successful because they were allowed to move quickly and beat out competitors. The entire Internet industry blossomed and gave birth to these companies before the government even took the Internet very seriously.
Where did their finance came from: previous SF companies and angel investors
Where did these companies get their funding from: US government
The current companies are only the "daughters and granddaughters" of massively government funded companies in Silicon Valley
Very good point. Many people forgets how much money the state invest, as it should, on technology and to create an industry. From ARPANET to the WWII computers (or NASA), technology needs a level of investment that only states can afford.
It feels like the rampant capitalism in the United States, and lack of regulations, fuels the VC economy. Making startups like Google, Amazon and others possible.
I can't imagine a company running on hundreds of millions in dollars of VC money with no real profit coming in, just hoping for an exit.
That's a very strange phenomenon, sort of like the .com bubble never burst but just got bigger.
I'm afraid that in order to see the same rapid development of cloud companies here in Europe we'd have to adopt the lax corporate regulations of the US. Which in turn would lead to other issues like workers losing rights.