Which is great, but manufacturing those products doesn't generate the kind of cashflow or global influence that US tech companies generate.
Curious how many people here praising these hidden champions has worked for or wishes to work for one. I worked for a couple and it was eye-opening on never doing it again and avoiding them like the plague since they provide no high paying jobs and generate nearly no innovation as they simply survive on having cornered a niche market where neither US nor Chinese companies bother to compete because either the margins or volumes are too low and the decades-long relations with their customers are more valued in those businesses rather than cheaper price or better products.
By your logic everybody should just try to become a tech mega corp and use VC until they set the latest trend or die.
There is a lot of arrogance here on HN.
Except that's not what I said. I said, competing in a market making widgets is not as desirable for a modern country/economy/company/employee vs one that exports software and innovation, like the US, as manufacturing, more often than not turns into a race to the bottom of reducing costs and I don't want to work in such an industry anymore since I saw how the sausage is made and I have goals in life that are not compatible with working in manufacturing.
>There is a lot of arrogance here on HN. >Somebody has to make air filters, lighting, brake pads, ropes, etc., you know?
Would you like to be this 'somebody' working in a factory making oil-filters or would you rather be in a a high demand, high paying job?
This is what's funny to me about the HN crowd. Saying they won't take jobs in Embedded Software/Hardware or the Video-Games industry because WLB is poor and it "pays peanuts" but at the same time preaching that 'someone' should work making stuff in factories, where salaries and WLB is actually poor. Not them of course, but 'someone' should do it.
Nice straw man you set up there. A company can make these things by building machines to do it. Funny thing: European companies are really good at making machines to do such things.
Did you have any experience in this sector or it just an amrchair argument from an ivory tower of an white collar worker? Because I have first hand experience and factories, even in Europe still need quiet a few personnel.
And not all industries are automated, just ask people working in the meat packing industry or in Amazon warehouses, how their jobs are. Yes, in Europe.
In Germany, there are a lot of so called 'hidden champions' - companies that are small but focus on some higher end, niche products, e.g. oil filters,special purpose ball bearings,etc. The same is the case in many other European countries. This stay small approach is hard understand from the US,or Chinese perspective,where if you don't make $1B in revenue, nobody's going to put you on a map.