I write this from a hotel room at Newark airport in New Jersey. I’m half way home from a wonderful week in Paris at the Le Web conference where I mingled with 1,700 or so attendees. My mood: jetlagged, sated and cranky.
My week was spent in luxury. I was treated to a business class flight to Paris, a stay at one of the nicest hotels in the city, and at least three of the best meals I’ve had since the last Le Web conference in 2007. I’m still a little dazed after a five hour, fourteen course dinner last night at Restaurant Guy Savoy, my first foray into a Michelin three star restaurant, for example. A fleet of Peugeots sallied us across town. Europe is more formal than Silicon Valley, so I wore a suit each day to the conference. In all, an atypical week for me in every way (jeans, tshirt, Jet Blue and Motel 6 is how I roll on most of my trips).
Life is good in Paris.
The conference agenda was packed with excellent content. There were a few well documented logistical hiccups (there was effectively no Internet connectivity either day, and the venue was cold). But apart from that Le Web was a success.
As an American I found that I was treated more warmly than any time I’ve visited Europe in the last few years. Obama is on deck, and the Euros like him. America is cool again.
But Europe’s persistent background pessimism was out in full force, even at an event full of entrepreneurs. Americans dominated the stage and spoke mostly about the tremendous opportunities that arise in down markets. Engineers are much easier to hire. The press have fewer startups and stories to divide their attention. The pond certainly gets smaller, but there are far fewer people fishing, too. For most startups, this is a time to blossom.
The last session at Le Web was a live Gillmor Gang It will be posted soon but you can watch it below, care of Ustream. At about the 14 minute mark a discussion of Europe v. Silicon Valley erupts.
Conference organizer Loic Le Meur (a French entrepreneur who moved to Silicon Valley for his most recent startup Seesmic) says that Silicon Valley moves too fast, and that Europeans enjoy a good two hour lunch just to experience the joy of life.
My response, at about 17:40: the joy of life is great, but all these two hour lunches over a bottle or two of great wine and general unwillingness to do whatever it takes to compete and win is the reason why all the big public Internet companies are U.S. based. And those European startups that do manage to break through cultural and tax hurdles and find success are quickly gobbled up by those U.S. companies. Skype (acquired by eBay) and MySQL (acquired by Sun) are recent examples.
The crowd jeered but the stark reality of it all is unavoidable. And the fact that the panelists on stage, all either American or living in America, suggested that you can somehow succeed with a startup while maintaining a healthy work-life balance is unfortunate. Too many people choose to be entrepreneurs as a lifestyle, without realizing that it takes everything you have and more to win. And if you aren’t in it to win, why not just take that nice job down the street that gives you five weeks of vacation.
Two hour lunches are great. But when you have investors to answer to and employees (and their families) to provide for, something has to give. Perhaps that’s why many of Europe’s hardest charging and most successful entrepreneurs tend to move to Silicon Valley, where they are surrounded by like minded people.
The panelists would have better served the audience by urging them to help shift European culture to be more supportive of their entrepreneurs. These people need a fighting chance to survive, and just telling them what they want to hear isn’t helpful. Joie de vivre is fine once you’ve sold that startup and have a summer house in the south of France. In the meantime, get to work. Le Web needs more Europeans on stage next year, and it just may be you up there telling the world how you overcame European culture and grew a successful company.
Update: An offended Le Meur asks his readers if I should not be invited back after I expressed these opinions on stage and in this post. My response is here.
have never seen such an excellent host(following your trip description it was even better then i thought) so humiliated in stage interview performance and direct personal attack. Writing this article makes it even worse. Congratulations for setting the bar of arrogant loud mouthed Americans even higher. Somehow i expected more of you but you failed, again.
I failed to tell you what you want to hear.
Mike, Israel’s most successful CEO, Gil Shwed, CEO of Checkpoint (which has offices in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv) made the point to me in this video http://www.fast...-place-business that Silicon Valley is ascerbic to business when compared to Israel. I wonder what you’d say to his claims.
Mike,
People move to the US because investors here will fund almost anything that moves.
That is going to come to an end here for a few years. Until it does, Europe will be the better place to live and work. The financial crisis is not even 50% over. Yes, fortunes will be made in these environments, but many more will be lost.
What the government has done through all these bailouts is systematically remove risk from the equation. Companies should not be protected from failing, at the same time only M1-M2 monies should be protected. There is no other way.
What our government is confused about is the difference between being illiquid and being insolvent. There is a difference, and until we realize that our economic woes will only continue to deteriorate.
In the face of such an environment, I would argue that a 2-hour lunch is far superior. Your comments make much sense, but you are living in yesteryear.
The world has changed. We are experiencing regression to the mean, and you’ve always been above the mean line so I don’t blame you for not understanding what lies below.
Maybe the best thing at the next Le Web conference is to only invite Americans who tell the audience that everything is going to be ok, and not to work too hard at winning.
Bundling all europeans into one category has never been a sign of smart to me.
Also, europeans have a 2k history of pushing the limits to make a buck, so I don’t think americans suddenly own the concept.
Also, even though you know zippo (null) about european internet companies, does not mean that there aren’t a lot of them and operate mostly in language of their own country, which in most European cases is not english.
Le Web seems like a total waste of time (like most of them are), with a lot of backslapping among the same companies from one conference to the next without any real good reason.
Without raison d’etre for the conference, I would suppose they bring out the Americans to go through the slides, because they usually are entertaining in their own language, whereas europeans fail at the jokes not on their own language.
We should extend their lunchbreaks an extra 2 hours too. After all, it may help them feel better.
Only from below niveau looks like arrogance.
For Michael Arrington’s helpful “Europe is more formal that Silicon Valley.”, I just have to say: James Howard Kuntsler would throw his arms partway around you for educating your sweatshop / homebody peeps by pointing this out; his *field guide to world travelers* would say that you can always spot Americans at airports because they’re the only rich people (he would say ’slobs’) who are dressed–and shaped–like Wal-Mart shoppers. For ‘comfort’.
Your mind’s genius and synthesis is exciting to behold, but the ‘winning’ lifestyle you’ve chosen broadcasts to the world your own body’s neglect like a billboard. (Or, to reflect the renfaire portrait you’ve posted above, the airship Hindenburg.) Be true to yourself, and everyone else–the French especially–can just get the kcuf out of the way. (Or be crushed.) Olé!
Announcing–big ol’ bull in the truffle shop.
To all the people across the pond,
Mike puts across an interesting point, Europes inability to catch up in the innovation realm when it comes to technology infrastructure and web 2.0 initiatives is obvious and has been for a long time. While in America corporate greed and governance impede Large companies from innovating, innovation occurs on a much smaller scale and to a much more wider audience.
America has been known for innovation and at this point does own the innovation concept to Pizarros’ comment. America has the ability to be nimble and agile in many respects that Europe cant seem to grasp. Its shows in the European consortium placing huge fines and tarrifs on American companies doing business in Europe.
The EUC want to spur European growth and European ideas but from observations over the last few years. The ideas that come out of Europe are rehashed and repackaged goods of web 2.0 yesteryear. Europe has always played catch up in this realm and will continue to do so. Europe seems to be stuck in the “Dark Ages” of computing and information sharing and leveraging.
It has yet to experience its second Renaissance if you will a “Renaissance Web 2.0″ as it appears its stuck in Web 1.5 and at best Web 1.8. While American innovation is pushing the limits to Web 3.0.
If an event planning entity like Le Web cant get thier collective arse’s in check and get with the program as Mikes so painfully pointed out Europe will always play catch up and there is nothing TheEuropean Union Consortium can do!
- thanks Mike for sharing,
- J
why the fuck is marc canter on this panel? he’s about as useful as a blubbering vagina.
Gabe Rivera came off as the most informative, composed and basically un-douchebaggy than the rest
wow. replys needn’t enter the realm of the grotesque.
watch your language, mr. anonymous adolescent
maybe the europeans are more in tune with reality than SV’s well funded bubble pushers. the smarter and well funded those darn entrepreneurs get the more tech opportunities are lost.
InnovationLocator.com – curiosity kills cats
Dare you shun alpha bot!
Where is this European startup with 2 hour lunch breaks located? I want to apply or at least verify that it even exists.
Agreed!
Both Loic’s and Michael’s points of view are awfully cliché… Not sure they really know what they are talking about.
dsfsdfddfs
Keep cool Michael, a french expression says ” we tease only those we apprieciate/like” (Qui aime bien chatie bien !).
So, it seems you are appreciated in France !
My point that understanding a Nation is also understanding its humour.
Agreed, Europeans are just flat out lazy compared to Americans. Mark Canter is a traitor.
I disagree that European are lazy. As I said in the video, though, saying Silicon Valley is an insiders game, and saying that you as an entrepreneur insisted on work life balance, etc., is just an excuse for failing.
Meanwhile Loren, aren’t you off in the French countryside with Michelle drinking wine?
I hated the whole tone of that discussion. Anyone from anywhere can succeed in this business if they are smart and work hard. I came from NYC and in a relatively short amount of time have become one of the leading sources for “analysis” and puppets on the web.
Yes I’m on the South of France, but I am here for business.
Send me the nominations please, so I can continue to work harder than most please.
KTHXBAI
Speaking of wine, is it true that in France you can’t advertise wine for sale on the Internet? I heard that several times from Europeans and I just couldn’t believe it.
Talk about tying your best industry’s hands behind their backs. Any wonder why WineLibrary.tv is happening in US and is building a global brand? The French should be all over this, but aren’t. That’s an example of how screwed up French law is against entrepreneurs and their own business interests.
Robert, in France you can’t advertise for alcohol AT ALL. Though, you are allowed to lead a wine selling website. Go figure.
speaking of wine, Robert, do you know adegga.com? That is one of the most interesting wine-related projects in the world. It’s not french, but it is from europe, from another of the great wine producers, Portugal.
@ Scoble
Apparently, if you’re Google, advertising alcohol is all good. Let’s see how they take the new rules to France.
what is it that you do exactly again Loren? oh, yeah… playing with puppets and sleep the rest of the day at your SV friend’s houses for free. lazyness new york style. what a great position to bash europeans for not working enough.
and you arrinton, look at what ‘winning’ brought you so far: a fat belly and no social life. dude, you don’t know anything about what life is all about, maybe some day you’ll wise up.
you two should always remember what wise STEVE JOBBS once said: “i don’t see the point of being the richest guy in the cemetery”. Now think about it when you’ll have your first heart attack.
And all what you’re saying is pure bullshit anyway. i’ve had a business for way longer than you ever had and ran it in france 15 hours a day 7/7 for 10 years until i realized all this is pointless if it doesn’t bring you happiness, not to mention the health issues. guess what? money ain’t everything. maybe YOU should listen to what the old continent is telling you for once, instead of displaying your arrogance from a collapsing empire.
your concept of working hard 5 years to retire early doesn’t work. need an example? take the current crisis and all the golden boys soon to be homeless for one. and for you to succeed, there’s like 1000 who worked as hard as you did (if not more) that fail. luck, opportunity and timing takes a great part in someone’s success. if the recipe was about working hard, anyone could do succeed and we all know it’s not true except maybe in the bubble you created where you meet exclusively succesful entrepreneurs. maybe you should pal around also with the deadpoolers.
Finally, you should know that productivity in France is slightly higher than in US: it’s $52.9 GDP/hour vs $52.4 in US. And Norway is at $71.5 GDP/hour, a slame in your face!
Thus please stop spreading false information. I thought your blog was about facts, right? thus if you want real figures, go check these stats about productivity across the globe, that’ll teach you something: http://stats.oe...tasetCode=LEVEL
“and you arrinton, look at what ‘winning’ brought you so far: a fat belly and no social life. dude, you don’t know anything about what life is all about, maybe some day you’ll wise up.”
Steven, your comment is so stupid, I don’t really know where to begin. What are you going to say next? Bill Gates, Larry and Sergey has no social life? Michael Dell is too fat? Steve Job is weird?
Get your head out of the sand.
And just FYI, the economy crisis did not start because of the technology companies, VC’s funding practices or choices. Lack of fund in the market is effecting technology companies. It has nothing to do with “lack of” production or hard working entrepreneurs.
Also if you are going to trash Mike, what the hell are you doing here? Create your own blog and make it as successful as Techcrunch and then you can talk with your filthy mouth.
No American should ever open up about how hard they work compared to others.
Your economy is 80 percent fluff jobs with service sector, your trade balance is out of whack because no one wants your remaining dingy products that you still produce, and you are up to your eyeballs in debt as a nation that you blew on renovating your dumb houses instead of building a functioning nation.
But somehow that all is balanced out because you have Google and Facebook. Give me a break.
And Loren, life is better in Europe, period.
There are no real constraints to not making it big in Europe, and any individual can work as hard as they want to, so why go to the wrong side of the Atlantic?
I’ll make you a deal. Americans won’t open their mouth about how hard they work compared to others, if the French don’t open their mouths about what it’s like to take a shower and wear deodorant.
Does that sound fair you disgusting piece of French shit? You guys repulse me in every way!
Dude…I’m american and I totally agree. Our gov’t and banks completely fed on the bottom here, and now we’re wondering why the damn thing is crashing. I don’t care what country you’re from, there’s something wrong with a society that functions this way. Fake wealth, increased debt, poor and starving people.
@D in your anger, you’ve said your piece backwards. you make yourself look unstable when you elscalate an argument to vulgar, personal attacks. what you meant to say was x won’t say they work harder if y won’t talk about NOT taking showers. Your argument is so weak that it’s barely made worse by this flip that shows you to be ignorant of just how stupid you are. which is the most dangerous-to-yourself kind of sphincter there is.
Agree 100%
I was in Toulouse France for 3 years working on an IT project, between the riots, fear, bureaucratic culture & laziness it was not somewhere I would ever choose to do business from again.
I do miss the restaurants and wine though.
wow, I know. One course last night had white truffles. The next had black. Both were fresh, which apparently can only happen during a very brief time in Decemberish, and only every few years. All of this was explained to me while I ate by Guy Savoy himself, who is arguably the best chef in France.
Mike, if you join us at the Web.Start conference in Zagreb this May, I promise I’ll take you to the best truffles lunch you have ever tried. French truffles can hide in shame before the ones from Istria.
There’s a great A&W at the very end of the Newark International Airport. It will make your french dining seem like dog food.
I have been through Newark 4-5 times these past 3 years and I always eat there.
It’s past security all the way down in the international flights section. There is a big circle of restaurants down there. A&W is the best.
please tell me this is another one of your sarcastic comments.
No, it isn’t. I went to France 2 years ago. The art was good, but the food made me sick.
They eat cow brains and intestines over there and call it gourmet.
They’re sick fscks just like the French Canadians. Mind you my dad is from there. I still think they’re sick fscks just like the French Canadians.
I’d take A&W over that any day. The only thing that sucks about Newark international airport is that the restaurants in the boarding area are not the cleanest in the world. I’ve gotten hair in my food eating at some of the other places, like that Mexican taco place on the left of A&W.
At any rate A&W is good. Screw Europe. I’ve been there tons of times. They’re like “oohhhhh, westerners, they must have LOTS of money for us”
They’re total leeches. Screw them.
Out of every country I’ve been to, UK, France, Germany, Swizterland, Germany was the least bad.
Anybody considering travel to Europe may want to take that into account.
They eat horses too. I swear. I’m surprised they don’t go for the dogs and cats like in China. I’m sure some of them do.
Michael, you could have done better and know it, seemed unprepared, had an al around uninterested posture during all your stage performances. You didn’t have to depict the (too)black and white story and didn’t have to describe Loic as a lying entrepreneur. Being or thinking you are right doens’t always mean you are. We all know your rep, appreciate your pro’s and con’s but felt you went too far this time. That’s my opinion and has nothing to do with what i did or did not want to hear from you
that’s just absurd that I was unprepared. The Gillmor Gang, sure, which was unscripted. But my interviews with Amit Kapur and Marissa Mayer were carefully researched, plus I know that space well.
My back and forth with Loic is well documented. He is a very good friend, and he wants controversy on stage. And he did give the crowd very different reasons for being in the U.S. than he has told to U.S. audiences. It’s fair to call that out, as well as the fact that most of the speakers were American, not European.
Reading about ‘a pissed off Michael Arrington’. http://twurl.nl/xclvr1
my comment from that post:
“I think everyone is forgetting a few things. First, I didn’t write anything on techcrunch about the problems, while other media absolutely trashed them. Second, Loic and I are very, very good friends. And we also do a lot of business together. He speaks at TC50, I’ve invested in Seesmic, etc. Seesmic and Le Web are also sponsors of TechCrunch.
Making fun of the wifi, and the food, and Loic’s jacket, is a way to diffuse a difficult situation. It’s also my personality. I’ve lived in Europe twice, and I know that I sometimes rub Euros the wrong way. But I also say directly what I mean. You know where I stand on things.”
Thanks for commeting on our blog. I only have one thing to add to this thread: I think both you and Loïc confuse ‘Europe’ with ‘France’. Only the French take 2 hours to have lunch. From Loïc this mistake is logical as most French think that France is the center of the universe.
But you lived in several places in Europe so you know the difference, right?
Either way, nothing motivates an entrepreneur as much as a good hard kick in the ass. Thanks for that!
Oh we’ll take 2 to 3 hours of lunch in Belgium too, although it’s getting rare these days.
I agree with Boris’ post. France has a distinct culture that emphasises a more relaxed existence. You’ll find the same lifestyle in Italy, Spain, Belgium and a few other members of the EU.
But have a look at Germany, who lead the world in green tech initiatives. Or Ireland, which is becoming the IT hub for the Europe because of it’s business climate (a 12.5% corporate tax rate).
I’d argue the EU is in a better position than the USA because of it’s competitive structure. The US is fairly monocultural, big decisions are made in Washington everybody has to follow. In Europe, legislation comes from Brussels and then all the member countries decide how they want to interpret/ignore it. Countries compete for business so you have tax rates starting from 0%. Once you pick a country, you’ve got access to the whole European market.
So I think there’s something to be said for the European business culture. Don’t forget all the new member states from Eastern Europe, poverty is a great motivator.
Boris- right, the Italians and Spaniards take 3 hour lunches
@Cains, nobody in Silicon Valley follows Wash DC. And judging by how far Wall Street is falling, for many years no one in NY did either.
let’s be true to ourselves. We, French, take 7 hour lunches, no less. This is what the whole “35 hours” thing is about.
I love when you talk like this – so empowering.
Can’t wait to be back down there. The northwest is great, if you like ’staring at lakes’ as you say.
There’s nothing arrogant about wanting to change the world for the better.
great week in paris – nice post michael – hope to meet you in paris again
ok,
europeans are lazy! Me being German can not confirm this we have wonderful Internet companies see http://www.Spirofrog.de for a List.
But no google and amazon, and the reason is the finance not the ideas
and that’ s the US advantage
Totally agree. I live for 3 years in germany, and germans are everything but lazy. They work so hard, that it becomes sometimes even a disadvantage for them (no time for creative thinking -copycat approach, anyone?).
You just can’t put one label to whole Europe, “gringos” sometimes forget this is a multicultural continent..
Oh my, Michael. Did you eat the golden frog? Geez these guys are pissed. Sounds like you gave them a reality check.
it’s just because they’re all awake right now. In a couple of hours the americans will be online and will likely to be trashing europeans way beyond anything reasonable.
Europe should look to Israel for entrepreneurial spirit. How many TC50 companies came from there? More than five that I remember.
I am jetlagged too. I had a great time in Europe too although we flew coach back.
most startups in israel are created by french jewish immigrants you dumbass.
Steven: I went to Israel earlier this year and met with dozens of entrepreneurs. I didn’t see anyone with a French accent. And, the fact that the jews aren’t in Europe anymore is one that, personally, isn’t one that Europe should be proud of. What they did systematically to Jews is one of the human stains for all time. Dumbass indeed. Wow.
>>>And, the fact that the jews aren’t in Europe anymore is one that, personally, isn’t one that Europe should be proud of. What they did systematically to Jews is one of the human stains for all time.
What?! Are you serious? What did Europe do to Jews? You are aware of WW2, right? And you do know that Europe is NOT Germany, right? You do know, that most of the Europe was the victim, right?
I am from one of those European countries where so many families -OUR FAMILIES – have been destroyed by Nazis and now I hear that we – Europeans – should somehow feel responsible for killing Jews? WTF? Never in my life I have heard anything more ignorant and offensive.
It is incredible how many Americans in this discussion talks about Europeans like we were some kind of a nation. Europe is multicultural – there is nothing like ‘we’ Europeans – there is a bigger diference between France and Estonia than between France and USA. Talking about ‘lazy Europeans’ is about as meaningful as talking about lazy Americans ‘cos I went to Argentina and they did not work too much overthere.’
Scoble: how old are you man, give me a break. You met a handful entrepreneurs and suddenly you’re the central statistics agency for Israel, sheesh!
WW2 came and went, humanity learned a lesson, you should let it rest to make a banal point, for your own respectability, man.
I’m 43 and the Holocaust’s effects are STILL being felt by many people world wide. You really do need to get a clue. Never forget.
“handful?” Um, I’ve done more than 1,000 interviews to date with entrepreneurs from all over the world. Thanks for playing the game.
Please, I did not deny Europe’s wrongdoings, I was pointing out that you’re an ass to insert that into the discussion, but you also seem to conveniently forget that USA nuked, NUKED, Japan, not just once, mind you, but twice, during ww2.
Those effects are STILL felt by many people world wide. Maybe YOU should get a clue.
Robert Scoble: Don’t be naive. We all know that Jews have very good connections all over the world. So take that into account. The fact that there are no or very few startups from Africa at TC50, does this make African people lazy or stupid? See.
Ever wondered why there are so many Jews at Wallstreet? They’re not better than people of any other religion or ethnicity, but they have the connections to get the jobs.
And regarding the Holocaust. Are you even slightly aware of what’s currently happening in Hebron? Radical Jews are invading and killing and banishing Palestine people living there. This is happening right now as I’m typing this, not 60 years ago!
It’s no excuse for the Holocaust in any way. But it’s also not better in any way.
Cail: Don’t be such Anti-Semite.
” We all know that Jews have very good connections all over the world… Ever wondered why there are so many Jews at Wallstreet?”
Ever wonder who have the best educational level in US ?
Yes, Jews.. And Hindu, immediate second…
And the same with wealth level (per capita) – Jews and Hindu. Coincidence?
So pick you anti-semitic ass and go get some education – it may help.
P.S. “Jews are invading Hebron” – Hm, how Hebrews ( Jews) can “invade” city they build ? Hebron = “City of Hebrews”.
As to Hebron murder – last time mass murder happens in 1929 – google “Hebron 1929″ . Ah, yes.. Those Jews.. They have connections in Google as well….
I’m afraid Michael Arrington seems ignorant of the research into productivity.
On one level it seems like a truism that the more work you put in, the greater your chances of success. On the other hand, the overwhelming body of research shows that people cannot be productive in somewhat demanding situations for more than 40 hours a week. The message is that if they work 60 hours a week for any length of time, they have to make up for it by working less than 40 hours a week after that. Additionally, the research shows that people who consider themselves super-human and who work very long hours with little or no decrease in productivity – are delusional.
Interestingly, it has also been shown that people who become brilliant at things practice differently. They don’t practice seven hours a day but rather they practice intently for 1.5 hours a day – because it’s mentally impossible to do more.
There are also a lot of other reasons US internet companies do better than European ones that are more compelling as explanations than that Europeans don’t work hard enough. Americans have access to more and easier money. They have a huge market on their doorstep that’s easy to tap. They have a dense concentration of tech talent in the Valley that is the legacy of the success of one or two companies decades ago. (Note that there are tons of mobile startups and talent in Finland – and we know why). They have the best technology universities in the world. And so on.
So, I think MA has his work cut out if he wants to make a serious case that hard work is a big issue.
we celebrate entrepreneurs in the US. Europeans look down on them. Especially successful ones.
and working 40 hours a week is a part time job. 60 is just getting started. Do it for 5 years, make something successful, and then live the rest of your life how you wish.
and most entrepreneurs don’t even really see it as work. it is a compulsion that drives them. that’s why they win.
20% time does 80% work:
http://en.wikip...areto_principle
As a European entrepreneur I can tell you that friends and family will either say you’re nuts if you work >60 hrs/week, or they will pity you and say ‘Oh my, do you still have to work so hard? When will you take some time off?’
Good that you’re working hard replying to the comments. Perhaps the quality of the replies would go up if you replied to fewer
That’s a joke but you’re not exactly engaging with the points made. You might as well just google “trite cliche” and post them. Here, I’ll help:
To succeed you’ve gotta work 28 hours a day…and then some.
Second place is the first loser.
If your eyes aren’t bleeding when you go to bed, you’re a lazy loser motherfucker!
Is financial gain a measure of success? Seems like it in the US and that’s why the web is inundated with American sites.. Do we Europeans need to compete with them? Is this what it’s all about? All the different European cultures do loads of things a lot better than the Americans so why not leave them to lead the way in launching silly websites for the oh-so-cool mono-cultural youth if today? I think that we should leave them to think that they’re the world’s best entrepreneurs and keep enjoying our 2 hour lunches everyday (4hrs on Sunday)!
You know, nothing could possibly make you look like a bigger jackass that this constant repetition of this idea that you “win.” What are you, a high school jock on the football team? Life is not a competition you “win.” Life is something you live. People like you, as arrogant as you pretend to be, are nothing but insecure children who constantly have to try to prove their worth through money and material possessions, because deep down you don’t feel you have any intrinsic worth.
This whole “winner” attitude is exactly what has caused this rather huge financial crisis. People like you who think it is all a big game to “win,” no matter what the long term consequences. This idea that somehow you will be awarded some trophy on your deathbed for having “won” life. A bunch of sad little monkeys making themselves and everyone around them miserable just to try to prove something to some imagined scorekeeper wou will declare the “winner.” You can’t take pride in who you are, so instead take pride in all the people you imagine you have “beaten.”
Meanwhile there are millions of people out there who you probably think of as “losers” who will enjoy every day of their life more than you have enjoyed a single one of your “wins.” Why? Because they have been smart enough to realize that there are innumerable things in this world more important than a pile of money. They have been smart enough to realize that you really can have enough of something, even if the guy across the street might have more. The quest to “win” will never bring you happiness, because it never ends. There will always be someone smarter, younger, more attractive, and more successful.
Oh, and by the way, this comes from an American who would much rather spend 2-hours having lunch with interesting people, than sit is some annoying business meeting trying to “beat” the person across the table. I just say this so all you Europeans don’t think that all us Americans are pathetic children like this obnoxious blow-hard. Some of us really do know how to enjoy life, and can take pride in who we are, not what we own, or what other people think about us.
It’s not a European thing that people look down on you when you work a lot. It happens all over. Primarily because most of those people are stuck in 9-5.
People work hard in Europe regardless. I don’t have much experience with France (except for getting screwed by a French startup once) but I know that people work hard and 2 hour lunches are hardly the average.
And if you can afford a 2 hour lunch — why not do it? =) I’d be all for it and I don’t envy people for their success. We are frequently doing it during the summer, go on a longer lunch break, work longer in the evenings.
In general, you’re making the same mistake a lot of people make when they judge you. For starters, you may want to take into account that even though some people have the liberty to start late or take a larger break during the day, they end up working longer and often also weekends.
Most of my friends totally like my life style and think it’s so simple — yet, I work longer and probably also harder then them. I also make a better living and don’t have think twice if I book a trip or go out for dinner. But I also work on weekends and what not.
Other people give me shit because I’m not up at 10 AM, but do they know I worked until 4 or 5 AM? Probably not.
But this misconception is not European. It’s old vs. new thinking.
People in small town USA are not as liberal as you think they are. The American way of life likes to portray itself as hard working people, but it’s hardly their invention — most of you guys come from here [Europe].
Europe is a great place to live bottom-line. Choose your poison. Look at all the Eastern European countries — very young, lots of energy, not too regulated (ok, maybe some are corrupt). States in Western Europe have a great social system, lots of benefits – in general also a lot of support for new approaches, but agreed, VC doesn’t come as easy in the U.S..
Still I’m sure that it’s also a great place for small companies. If I think of NYC as a HQ — how expensive it is. Or SV? You can buy space here for what you pay for a single room over there. Who needs VC when you can stay independent and own your space without a bunch of people looking for a ROI within 6 months and thereby destroying your business?
You also don’t have to move to the woods (e.g. Philly) and not enjoy life anymore at the expense of cheap living. For example — just give Berlin a try. Metropolitan, cheap, lots of talent, lots of stuff to do, etc..
@till, I’ve worked in Silicon valley and Germany, Italy and Ireland.
Hands down silicon valley is the best place to launch a start-up company, but by no means the only place. New York scene is an up and comer, and very innovative things are coming out of Israel and Ireland. These become hubs which in turn attract talent, money, resources, and support systems. Thus more companies launch, etc.
Doing a company alone in a vacuum is a lot harder than in the valley. The downside (and can be to one’s advantage if flipped) is that SV is very cliquey, it’s very “who you know” and very much follow the leader with regards to funding and what’s “cool,” which in turn begets more funding.
So if you start a company outside such a hub, use the locale to an advantage and spread from there. e.g. free PR for being the only start-up not bribing the local gov’t in Minsk or Budapest. If it’s interesting in a local language and the company is growing, then consider moving to English – but start locally & use that as an advantage b/c it can be hard to be heard above the noise in SV. But you can’t dismiss the advantages that launching in SV provides.
Most people don’t have the work ethic required to get what they seem to want. People talk about running a successful company, about making millions, the cars, the trips, the toys, but at the end of the day, think working 60+ hours a week is either ridiculous, or unproductive.
If you truly want the financial freedom, 60+ hours is a mininum unless you have the right connetions. If you have those, you could probably get away with 40.
As to whether or not working 60 is as productive as consistantly working 40; I don’t think thats speaks to the reason why working 60+ is important. It’s important because it’s about the devotion of your life to your passion. Being devils advocate, maybe working 60 hours isn’t as productive, but you’re living and breathing and dreaming about the business/idea/industry, and that in itself propels you much further than 40 hours will. If you can manage your time, your life, and your mind properly, you’ll work 60+ hours a week more productively then average people work 40.
All the debate about cultural differences in success don’t matter. If you love what you do, work you ass off and you’ll get what financial rewards you want. If you don’t want to devote your life to that passion, then you probably won’t make it. Culture, origin, and language don’t matter.
Quoted for the truth:
“…and most entrepreneurs don’t even really see it as work. it is a compulsion that drives them. that’s why they win.”
Which is why I don’t need a vacation, 2 hour lunch break, or 4 hour work week; I love what I’m doing.
@Finnsense
I will agree with your statements as I too have seen the research. But there is a flaw in your logic. That research is about average people. Successful entrepreneurs are not average people. You are correct in saying that most people’s productivity falls off after 40 hours. There are some people who can’t last past 30. But I can tell you from experience that some people can continue well past 40. I had a team of managers working for me on a project. We worked between 120-140 hours a week for 3 months straight. And when I say straight, I mean 7 days a week, no days off. Now, I by no means recommend this to anyone, ever. But it can be done. And this team of managers ranged from 22 years old to 56 years old.
Entrepreneurs are a different breed. That’s why they do what they do. And the successful ones are the ones that can put in the 100 hour weeks and remain productive.
So whereas your information is correct when speaking of averages, I don’t believe that is what Michael is speaking of.
@Michael I laughed when I saw “working 40 hours a week is a part time job”. We used to say 8 hours is a “half day”.
Like I said in my original post, the research shows that people who think they are above average and work very long hours are delusional. The studies show they are just less productive.
Of course much of this depends what you consider work. If there are aspects of your job that allow you to relax – like certain networking events – I suppose you can bump the numbers up. By “work” though, I mean where you have to be fully focussed.
it’s funny, I consider things like le web as time off, and i need to put in more hours afterwards to catch up.
You are missing the point here. First of all you can’t use France and Europe as equal terms. France is this area where the students start burning cars and people, when they don’t like political decissions. France is this area, where all folks drive those bent and rusty cars. Europe is all about diversity, so being a polite american, you should think of the uk, the netherlands, germany, belgium, austria, switzerland and so on.
Educated europeans probably don’t think that all americans are like your rural southerners…
So why do americans think that europe is entirely like france? ask uk people what they think of france….
Oh – and have a look at the economic figures (US vs. Europe). There is a worldwide economic downturn, but in the US it’s even worse.
I’m more comparing Silicon Valley to Europe, not America. A very large percentage of entrepreneurs in SV aren’t american. Many of them are europeans who want a real chance at success.
Then we basically agree. It’s not about the people – it’s about the resources. If you put a lot of bright and motivated people into one room, they motivate each other.
There is just no Silicon Valley in Europe, Europe is “full of sparks”, but there is not this “big centered bushfire”.
Maybe good, maybe bad in certain (economic) situations.
Silicon valley is the size of a peanut, whereas Europe stands at about a billion people if you count in the european satellites nearby that are culturally close.
Get real! If you compare Silicon-friggin-valley to anything, do it to something that carries the same profile, which is most definitely not a continent.
By the way, most Europeans are as ignorant about Silicon valley and your failing state of California as you are about Europe, so I suppose it all evens out in the end.
Silicon Valley is the size of a peanut, but we built some of the world’s most scalable businesses from our orchards here. It doesn’t matter how many people you have or how much land you have. That’s the lesson of modern business.
Scalability is what matters now, and Europe hasn’t come up with the world’s most scalable businesses. You might ask yourself why so many happen in a little plot of land within 100 kilometers of San Francisco.
“Scalability is what matters now, and Europe hasn’t come up with the world’s most scalable businesses.”
I don’t see any differences in potential for scalability, this comment just baffles me. Maybe you’re just unaware of the range of European companies that mostly do business without the American press coverage.
“You might ask yourself why so many happen in a little plot of land within 100 kilometers of San Francisco.”
Fine, I’ll tell you why. Your economy has been pumping borrowed foreign money since the early 90s to the economy, so that every start up with “scalability” gets funded and does an IPO even though it will never make a profit.
Now you’re the biggest debtor nation in the history of the world, and the Ponzi scheme is over, and with it, is the story of Silicon valley as a source to get your half-assed idea funded as long as its scalable.
(Dear French European Fellows: Of course France is full of diversity, too and there are great people, areas and companies)
rusted cars? you’re a dumbd ass. Renault is gonna buy general motors for a symbolic dollar bill. remember my words.
And Mercedes will buy out Ford for 50 cents!
tata is buying all your companies who can’t pay salaries to lazy workers
@Michael
I applaud you for calling it as you see it. There are way too many people today that are too concerned with being nice and not concerned enough about saying what they believe. The problem with being nice is that if it is not the truth, it’s not helpful…it’s harmful.
Second, although I don’t have the background to comment on the differences between Europeans and Americans as far as work ethic, I can say that the same differences exist in the U.S. Have worked in several different states and I can say that there are areas of the country where the people just don’t have the drive or work ethic that they have in other areas.
Usually when I am building the staffing model for a new organization, I use myself as the example, having worked practically all of the positions that I oversee. In some areas of the country, that model works well. In others, I have had to hire as many as 3 people to fill what I believe to be one position. I am sure people reading this may jump to the conclusion that I need to hire better. My answer is that you can’t hire labor that isn’t available.
So once again, good for you Mike. Always call it like you see it. That’s why I read TC. If people don’t like it, they can vote with their feet.
I fail to see where the word “ethic” fits in here. Is it more “ethical” to work 80 hours a week, and “unethical” to work less than 40?
If you wish to work 80 hours a week in an attempt to get rich, then fine. You may succeed. Most don’t. If you wish to work 40 hours a week and have 5-6 weeks vacation, then that is also fine, and probably better for your health and your kids too.
In my example above, I am not talking about hiring people to work more than 40 hours. The jobs where I had to hire as many as 3 people to fill one position were hourly jobs working no more than 40 hours per week.
The reasoning behind it is this. I don’t do those jobs anymore, or a least, not on a regular basis. So I have lost some speed. If I can do job X today in 30 minutes, after not having done it for a while, it is fair to assume that someone who will be doing it everyday can do it in 30 minutes. The problem is, that it would take people as along as an 1 1/2 hours to do the same job. In my business, the job has to be done in the 30 minutes or less, so I have to continue to add people until we achieve that rate.
The reason the word “ethic” fits here is because if a job can be done in 30 minutes, you take 1 1/2 hours, then you are “stealing” 1 hours worth of pay.
Thank you, Finnsense. The “other” reasons are the only reasons.
Mike,
I am still wondering why you and the press have been so soft on Le Web. You have left the criticism to Guardian. How come Techcrunch has noting detailed on the ‘few’ hiccups of high impact. NO INTERNET in a tech conference just a hiccup?
You also had nothing to say on the high fees paid by people coming to present their start ups (especially in this period of the credit crunch. You had a lot to say about DEMO 2008.
I guess the answers lie in your opening paragraphs. Loic must have been a wonderful host for the ‘big boys’ of the web. I do not think the little ones have the same view as you do. Being Nigerian, I am glad to know it is not only in Nigeria that influence matters a lot.
I am assuming you have to protect your personal relationship with Loic, but you should note that millions depend on you for your impartiality and objectivity, especially me.
PS: I assume what I watched on UStream was the conference.
one of the reasons i am not being critical of le web’s internet problem is that we had no internet for the first day at tc50.
internet access at events is a huge problem. Loic spent 100k euros for internet, and it didn’t work at all. We spend close to that at tc50 and we had our own problems. the companies that set it up don’t have to pay for failure, so they have no incentive to get it right. it’s a train wreck. but it isn’t the event’s fault.
wrt the heat, it didn’t bother me.
there wasn’t enough food.
but beyond that the conference was really excellent, as it always is.
It’s really enjoyable to see how Americans are clueless when faced with English humour. A quick reminder:
Rule #1 Any thing French has to be trashed.
Rule #2 Any thing important has to be trashed (but with a detached smile if it’s the Queen).
So if a British person says something positive about something that is remotely Continental, then he is a Scott. If an English trash the food and the temperature, then you bet the Start-ups were great. What they do not mention are always the good stuff. Believe me: I’m French with a British-sounding accent, I see the change in the jokes as soon as I say where I’m from; in spite of the truckload of mean, they remain always fantastically helpful and to the point.
You being there (and intelligent) it made the Guardian paper quite clear: those were annoying hiccups, and the real big news was Viewdle — and can someone please explain to me why noone is buzzing about them? Everybody is trying to buy them at low price?
If you go to a conference for the food, for the climate, for the wifi, you are going there for the wrong reason. Please do stay home and watch it there where you can have all of those things much more reliably.
Great discussion. Although there are many pockets of innovation outside Silicon Valley such as Israel, there is something to be said for the unique concentration of minds, money and the market in California, that breeds success and accepts failure.
I watched the gilmor gang live before this article was written on ustream.tv and I pretty much agreed with what Michael said. However I have clients in Europe who really word hard and are building pretty good stuff. So I agree with Mike’s viewpoint of having more European speakers on the stage next year and should tell their stories to fellow audience on making a successful company in Europe.
May be that will also answer the Loic’s concern of not getting coverage in worldwide tech blogs.
I hope to see you people here in India and would like to hear about your views on India.
Good discussion and worth the debate, but just wanted to add that’s exactly why I started http://plugg.eu, so European entrepreneurs can get inspiration from European speakers instead of only American ones (there are other conferences like Le Web for that).
Cultural differences aside, I think there’s a lot of generalization coming from both sides of the Atlantic, and it’s never as black or white as some may think. All depends on how you define ’success’, I guess.
In France everything is about food and wine but in Europe we also have other countries like Germany where everything is about bier and sausage
I don’t know where I belong now because I dont drink alcohol, eat meat very rarely, and I work 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week. I think I’m on the wrong continent
Does the crystal ball you’ve spoken through there look forward, or back? (Je dois admettre que j’admire votre typo, M. Miric!) re: “A bier is a stand on which a corpse, or coffin containing a corpse, is placed to lie in state or to be carried to the grave.” (Wikipedia) Is this meant to characterize Europe?
I love switching discussion into search for spelling mistakes and pulling out wikipedia articles.
Anyway, my comment above was just a joke (with little bit of truth in it
@François Friedman no one uses the word “bier” in English as a stand for corpses in every day conversation, but everyone knows that bier is german for beer; jesus, stop being so frenchy
I could give a kcuf whether or not others use bier to mean what an English or American dictionary defines it as; it was a telling and instantly obvious typo, which took no ‘hunting’ effort.
I can’t help it if you have no skill for language, or are just lazy with it.
I’m not French in the least, assuming clowns. I spotted a double entendre and I credited you, who still don’t get it, with this creative use of words. Not my fault you don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Europeans are not lazy; they just appreciate good life better than Americans. At the end, what’s the point of being successful, when you’re living a miserable life and destroying your health?
@Mike Arrington: How many successful entrepreneurs do you know who retired after 5 years of hard work? I’ve heard of some that slowed down the pace for 1-2 years max, but as success is addictive, nobody retires until they can still repeat it.
I’m jealous of the Savoy dinner….will have to hear details sometime. I really liked this post, thanks for writing it and spurring interesting discussion.
America, Fuck Yeah!
The fun part is going to be when the big panda wakes up…I would be interested to know how many US vs European investors are living in Shanghai right now?
Pat: the guy who started Softbank lives in Shanghai. I interviewed him there: http://scobleiz...shanghai-china/
Oh, and this week we’ll have a video of Liam Casey, an Irishman who got kicked out of the US and started a supply-chain management firm in Shenzhen.
China is going to kick our ass and it’ll be partly because we’re focused on this little fight instead of looking at how China is protecting its startups from foreign competition with its firewall.
Thank you for context.
following your point, Michael, any american settling in Europe would be much more successful than europeans….
You’re right if you talk only about IT, web or software companies. Let me just show an example of a european country that has been traditionally seen as the country of “sun, bulls and siesta” .
There are 3.161.480 SMB, which means one small business for every 14 people. And one business for every 9.7 people between 20 and 70 years old.
And behing each of those small companies there is an entrepreneur too. I guess so.
Thanks for your comments.
Bon appétit,
Mariano
Michael, you say that if you don’t work hard you don’t “win”. Can you define what you mean by “win”?
not losing.
Agreed, but what is losing? Would you say facebook is winning or losing? Google? Myspace?
In sports it’s easy to know. In business it’s not so easy – every business eventually dies, and winning the market isn’t actually needed to win at your plan.
E.g. it’s not too difficult to make a few cool million coming dead last in some markets. If that’s what you went in to do (retire on 10MM) then how isn’t that winning? Your’e just playing different games.
Silicon valley is built on large exits and huge success. The rest of the world isn’t and has less “massive” companies, but a lot more winners from what I see. 99% of all the companies I see in silicon valley are crap, widget this widget that, social this copy that….
What you celebrate is the luck of the large, and a whole ton of fail down below. That’s not sustainable like your economy
google, facebook and myspace = winners.
they’re winners for now…
money IS NOT everything, balance and equilibrium is the key.
mark my words, everything that goes up has to come back…down
in the uncertainty the world and especially the US economy is now in, ANYTHING can happen, ANYTHING…so don’t be too sure of anything
you think you got it all down? think again…
23andme needs to research the gene that makes Europeans reflexively negative.
Fortunately that gene turns recessive when you cross the Atlantic.
France is not Europe, only a part of it.
The best thing about the conference as a watching brit was that it seemed to be all in english which gave me a rye little smile. Just one of those Anglo French fun things :p
I don’t think it mattered about who was on stage its about time people realised we are all on the same side so to speak. we all love tech and can geek out just the same no matter where we are from.
“…it all seemed to be in [E]nglish which gave me a rye [sic] little smile”
What is it w/ you Brits and (your) food? Or, in this case, *your own (bloody) language?*
Darren: I think it was funny when the French Economic Minister, Christine Lagarde, came out and said that she wished the conference was given in French.
Yeah I had a good laugh at that but she spoke English with a very good accent :p
@Frank I am a programmer and English has written English has never been a strong point :p
Well, I’ve been an entrepreneur both in the U.S. and the Czech Republic.
I’d agree the Euro culture supports more relaxed style and that entrepreneurs are looked better at in the US than at least in my part of the Euro zone.
I’d also agree that the EU bureaucracy might be prohibitive more than in the US to success.
On the other hand, Michael, you’ll find lotsa entrepreneurs even here for whom 40hr/wk job is considered a laughable part time. Actually, especially here in the post-Eastern Europe, the workload is highest almost all of the world in that segment of business. BUT – it’s also one of the least efficiently spent time, so in turn, we work more with less effect. We miss the tradition of culture of self-management and entrepreneuship. But hey, we’re getting there.
And frankly, I eventually decided to do my several businesses here in .cz rather than in the US just for the sake of the long lunch breaks and the ezy Euro culture :p (yes I gave up on building the next Amazon, but having a life outside of the business is great as well
)
Thats bullshit Mike
Lazy!!!!!!!
Maybe the French with their socialist background can enjoy the high life but the rest of Europe work their asses off.
My team work a minimum of 60 hrs a week and I would hate to tell you how many hours I work.
Sorry I missed the Techcrunch party but I was working
Nice suits by the way
As a German journalist covering many industries during the las 14 years I encountered the US-European conflicts again and again.
There is one thing missing: It’s not the quantity of works that counts. Most american companies I encountered are working by far not as efficient as their European counterparts. By the way: Same with management schools – during my summer school stay at UC Berkeley it took the Europeans two weeks to completely take over the discussions in class from the Americans.
What’s true, though, is the difference in entrepeneurial spirit. In the US failing with a company is seen as some sort of glory. In Europe it’s a shame.
If we could mix the attitude in the US with the down to earth working habit in Europe, it could be the perfect blend.
Great post. Very true°!
Hey Thomas … bitte lies mal GENAU was die herren da alles schreiben! das wird nicht nur extrem primitiv und voller Ressentiments sondern ist massiv schaedigend fuer uns alle … ich denke die wissen alle nicht, worin sie da grade reinstolpern …
A great discussion at Le Web and a very nice post Michael.
I live in Czech Rep. and build internet (social) start-up (http://soci.ali.sm). I lived in the US back in dot-com-bubble year 1999. It is really funny how everybody is pushing his or her own personal preferences as as the only reality.
America is fast, optimistic and there is a phenomenon called “the American dream”. People dream about ocean-view houses in Southern California and imported cars. They do not see the hard-work behind and are dying while dreaming.
In Europe there is a centuries-long tradition of social society. We do not like to risk and are skeptic. We are not trying so hard to reach the success.
At the end I can not say which side of Atlantic is better as it really depends on what you are looking for. We are just slightly different and that’s it. BTW when working on our startup I always look for inspiration overseas. European start-up scene, in terms of VCs, entrepreneur gurus, revolutionary services etc., can not keep up with the American one. And it is not going any better soon imho.
MA: couldn’t agree more. I have lived and worked in London for some time (in the late 90’s), grew up in SF Bay Area, and now live in Los Angeles. I am also doing my second startup.
I must say my buddies in London saw the entrepreneurial path I took as a really out-there concept. It was as if I went to the moon, a completely foreign experience with nothing they could personally relate to.
Most of them had a strong calling to follow what their fathers did. Work was just work, not a really a big part of their life, whether you were entry-level or SVP at some big outfit.
So, all they saw in me was a work/life balance totally out of whack, and I did it only in hopes of a big payoff. What I couldn’t convince them of was that my work _is_ what drives my life…the two couldn’t be more closely interwoven.
What’s success in high-tech? If it’s about working 80 hrs/week and doing lots of PR then most SV startups are a success. If it’s about developing great technology that makes a difference and building a solid, sustainable company behind it, then 90-something% of them are failing badly, as the economic downturn is revealing. So entrepreneurs worldwide don’t fall for the American quick-recipe for success: work hard, market hard. Building a great company based on great ideas and great people is a much better option, and then it really shouldn’t matter how much time you take for lunch.
90% of them are supposed to fail. but the only way you get a 10% chance of succeeding is to give it everything you have.
I disagree. Spending 120% on a plan that looks like this:
- lets take an existing idea and tweak it a bit
- build a lame alpha and call it beta
- bombard the net with references
- get mentioned on Techcrunch
is far worst than working at 70% efficiency on something truly great.
huh. ok, point to the truly great european internet startups. I’m not saying there aren’t any, but as far as I know they’re all eventually bought by US companies.
The only reason european startups are bought by us companies, is that us VCs believe in smoke and hot air – where is the value in facebook? in europe a company like facebook would never ever get the capital facebook got and gets.
its not european entrepreneurs fault… its investors fault.
thats no justification for failure … its a fact.
b.t.w. there are maaaaaaany european companies kicking the crap out of us companies (talking about burn rate and invest/return ratio)
Maybe. But how many of those US companies were started by European entrepreneurs that moved there?
lots of them, which is awesome.
Mike, and you didn’t even nail them for allowing all the German copies of American web services. Until they stop the outright cloning they will never have their own entrepreneurial zone. Why? Great entrepreneurs don’t copy. Even China is realizing this, watch them turn on their own innovations over next 10 years — of course helped at times by their protectionist firewall which keeps outside companies from competing fairly.
In reply to: (I was also watching in the crowd at Le Web and wanted to join in!)
“ok, point to the truly great european internet startups. I’m not saying there aren’t any, but as far as I know they’re all eventually bought by US companies”
Its really very simple to explain, but its not because of laziness.
Firstly europe is so old that cultures/languages are so different simply by traveling 100 kilometers in one direction a lot of things change. Whats needed is a “sillicon valley” type place to put all the talented people in tech in europe in one place.. however for the average european getting up and moving to this “sillicon valley” type atmosphere for most internet start ups is a lot bigger deal, since they wont have similar friends, languages, food, amenities etc available to them. They therefore tend to be more inwardly focused on their country first (look at germany/france).
America has the luxury of being a huge market with the differences between cities in an overall sense being small (off course comparing LA/NYC very different but same language similar cultures).
So first issue is simply SCALE, its harder to become big from europe if you are starting with a smaller market.
Second reason why we have no big companies, is simply that this market originated in the states with the likes of IBM etc, it has an “economy of scale” on brain power if you will, since so many tech minds emigrated or moved to silicon valley/the US either wanting to work in this industry and be a part of the center of it, or because they got moved there by there job.
Everyone knows its about the QUALITY of the people that makes a successful company, but also the quality of your NETWORK of people and Sillicon Valley is swimming in both of these. It is only increasing with companies like skype getting bought or Last.fm, americans want their employees close generally, at leas the important ones and people get moved.
So the reason why big companies in tech tend to be AMERICAN is a. INERTIA, b. abundance of quality people c. scale of market after launch.
Adding on the end: AND NOT BECAUSE WE ARE LAZY!
The whole difference between Europe and the States is, that americans have a strong believe in smoke and hot air. Therefore it’s much easier to acquire capital and catch attention in the states. In Europe we have a good system of “self control”. When a startup comes up with an idea that sucks, those guys are told – they get zero coverage and thats it.
In the states they get coverage and even acquire capital, although the idea sucks – the capital is then used for even more coverage and acquisition of smart engineers and business developers that actual turn a sucking idea into a good idea.
In Europe: Even hard to acquire capital WITH a good idea…
Thats the only issue in Europe…
US -> smoke + hot air = capital
Europe -> bright ideas + smart founders = bankruptcy (or acquisition by us guys)
justifications for failure.
The thing is, you can’t tell which idea will suck and which one will win at an early stage of a company anyway. It’s all about the founders and how well the idea is executed in the end.
I wouldn’t say that in Europe we have a good system of self control. This narrow-minded vetting of start-ups trying to acquire capital is done for one reason only: ‘Cover my a**’.
Nobody wants to be blamed for having given money to company that failed later on.
Sadly enough, there are only two ways of convincing those people: Either your business already is financially sound (in which case you actually don’t need any venture capital anymore) or you have an idea that’s already proven successful somewhere else (which possibly is a reason for the many copycat approaches in Europe).
Still, getting no money from venture capital companies is no reason for not starting a business anyway. There are so many businesses out there which started with no money at all.
(y)
You (MA) have a lack of understanding other cultures and are an arrogant American who makes other Americans look bad. I work my ass off about 60-90 hours a week to get my company to a higher level and I am not an American I am a world citizen who happens to love what he does and works on. I know many people in my environment who work just as hart, are world citizens and think the way you talk and express your self sucks! With this attitude you lower your self, de-motivate people around you and I hope you learn from it. You know why?
The US has no history like we have in Europe. And with history I mean real history. We are the real great traders of this world. Look only once to the fourteenth century and you’ve seen it all. Good book for you read: A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman. Good for your personal development.
We have learned from our past and the US still needs to develop itself and would be better if you expand your mental faculty and have a more open-mind.
Your attitude and egoistic approach is the same as the people that brought this economic crisis upon this world. We in the EU have a strong economie that the US can only dream of. So please quit the bullshit, get your act together and apologize for your attitude. And don’t get me wrong, I respect you for what you have achieved but please don’t be an American be a world citizen in a web-made-world.
“Not all people are equal, but we should all treat each other equally and fairly. In this way, we can work together–utilizing our individual strengths and weaknesses–and accomplish our goals.”
what a bunch of socialist bullshit and propoganda. besides, I spent part of my childhood growing up in the UK, and lived in London, Copenhagen and Canada as an adult. I am many things, but unaware of different cultures is not one of them.
Europeans always talk about how superior they’re culture is, in the same sentence they call americans arrogant.
[Europeans always talk about how superior they’re culture is, in the same sentence they call americans arrogant.]
hu… maybe because most europeans can spell their own language.
..unlike you, who don’t know the difference between “their” and “they’re”.
Like Thomas Knüwer says “Most american companies I encountered are working by far not as efficient as their European counterparts.” Look at companies like GM. It is about time they fell and leave the automotive market. GM v.s. Toyota says it all.
It are the facts and you’re talking like the Americans are the “superior culture” not me. I am just holing a mirror in front of you…
To bad you look down on the EU start-ups. Without them there would never have been a US.
I do agree with this “If we could mix the attitude in the US with the down to earth working habit in Europe, it could be the perfect blend.”
Obviously Mike is sleep deprived… or maybe it’s just too much good food that he can’t digest.
Of course Silicon Valley is the hot bed for wanna make it big entrepreneurs. there is no question. this is the one place where should you have the ambition and drive you can make it happen easiest, fastest and best.
however this comes at the price of lifestyle balance. so yes if family is not important to you and your personal ego and bank account is what matters the most, of course go to Silicon valley, work hard, and be successful. then once you have made your millions or billions, come and enjoy the good life in London, Paris, Zurich or Berlin…
I write Techcrunch UK and Ireland, write for TechCrunch.com, went around Europe this year hunting out startups everywhere from Oslo to Istanbul. I also spoke at Le Web on the European startup scene, here is the video: http://www.ustr...recorded/931933
It worries me how many generalisations there are in this debate. For instance, “Europe” now includes Poland and the Czech Republic – places with some of the fastest growing economies and increasingly entrepreneurial. Then there is “Old Europe” (UK, France, Germany). Despite the recession the UK is a dynamic and flexible economy where it is probably easiest to hire and fire in Europe. Just watch the UK produce startups in this down economy – it will happen. In France it still costs 10,000 Euros and 6 months of red tape to start a company, but you will STILL find some amazing startups like Liligo.com or
Grande PrivéVente Privee. In Germany there is a healthy startup scene, especially in Berlin, but taxes remain high. In Athens – despite the amazing weather and easy-going cafe culture – I found entrepreneurs like George Tziralis doing AskMarkets.com. In Rome I found Angel/Entrepreneurs like Gianluca Dettori trying their damndest to get a startup scene going, resorting to throwing their own conference (TechGarage). In Istanbul I found blogger Arda Kutsal writing about the Web 2.0 scene in Turkey – and there are more Turkish connections inside Silicon Valley than you might think.I guess my point is that there are still amazing entrepreneurs in Europe who CHOOSE to stay in Europe, despite the tax, scepticism from their peers, you name it, because they want to live here. This is where there roots are, their families. But now, as Michael says, we need our own heroes, we need people like George and Arda and Nicholas Zennstrom, founder of Skype and Joost, to be on stage at Le Web (he wasn’t this year for some reason) and at other conferences around Europe.
The historical context here also needs addressing. Silicon Valley is a classic “cluster” and has had 50 years to develop. In Europe, our “Silicon Valley” is a state of mind and whatever peers we can gather around us in our city. We have had barely 10 years so far, if you count the last bubble.
But things are changing – because, guess what? Things like social networks are bringing us together. It’s now easier than ever to find other entrepreneurs in Europe.
I’d just like people to remember these kinds of things when addressing this debate.
And BTW – next week TechCrunch UK will run an event in London (Tuesday) where we will have startups pitching from all over, even one from Iceland…
Mike, nice to mention the Czech Republic
I agree there are start-ups in Europe, on the other hand I can see the huge amout of work which is ahead of us if we want to catch the American start-up scene success.
Thank you for this detailed statement about start-up culture in Europe.
Let me preface this by saying that I’m French-American, and I love a lot of things about France and the States.
I must say that Butcher is right on. For one, globbing the entirety of Europe in with France is a huge error. I left France for a reason, I didn’t get much respect as a young, hyper-motivated, woman in tech. France gets some things right, and there are even some great french coders (one that I’m hiring is going to work over xmas break, virtually unheard of for other French companies). I met with another big name french coder on Monday night for more developer recommendations.
I have now lived in Berlin for three years. Berlin has been in a huge recession for over a decade, more so than other cities in Germany and people here work their butts off to get things done. We certainly don’t have two hour lunches, and all the other startup people I know are working 24/7 just like my team. My graphic artist got scooped by another local startup and she has had to work nights and weekends as well. So to sum it up, France is ok, but not great at breeding startups. As far as I can see personally, Berlin is a hotbed of coding, solid business plans, and buying up of server space and sysadmins.
My one regret from Le Web was that I ended up meeting a ton of businessy or marketing-ish french people, and not enough crazy-houred-coders as I would have liked to have seen. As for me, I ditched about 50 percent of Le Web each day to get back to my net connection at the hotel and do some work. So perhaps the other Parisian uber geeks were off coding or getting things done.
To be honest, i know a ‘lot’ of french crazy coder (consider myself being one of those (75h last week \o/ )), and there is two case :
- They’ve already moved to another country where skill are recognize and where we don’t base people value on there diplomas or age.
- They plan to move soon.
I’m a 22 years old french coder, i just have two small diplomas, but i love what i do and i’m not afraid of working.
In France, with that i don’t get anywhere, just some low position doing shit job in Paris, and i don’t want that.
And it’s not only me, the IT market in France make me sick, it’s bullshit, unless you’re an engineer from a SupInfo or some of those “good” (lol) schools.
Experience and diplomas, that’s what is all about in France, and when i see people in those comments laughing about the US economics status, i want to say : look at the past twenty years in France, it’s just a disaster, and french people don’t want to face it, they’re just complaining (the only thing french people are good at).
So if you want to meet crazy french coder, come to Montreal there is a lot of them here, where company are not afraid to hire them.
I’m here since May of 2007, and i grew up in my company higher than i would ever do in France.
Concerning the US vs Europe, as always, it depends of what you’re looking for…
Mike, and don’t forget Terry Jones in Barcelona. What’s funny is that he’s unfundable, partly because he’s in Europe. You should listen to my hour-long interview with him: http://scobleiz...anging-startup/
Good and detailed statement Mike. I must add that you should start something that 1.4 billion people can use when you start a new start-up. Pursuing a new business model that’s not new or game-chancing to your industry or market is a waste of time and money! The economy does not deside if you will be successful as an entrepreneur. It creates an tremendous focus for your organisation. So if your an American, European or live in a bad economic climate that should never matter. It is about focus, hard work and devotion.
I really do not think that these TechCrunch pitches are helping; most of the companies pitching are so wanna be’s and who are they pitching to anyway – a crowd of peers in the same situation just waiting for a party with a few free beers? I really do not think that this is helping the perception of European startups, how many successful European startups would consider pitching at one of these events…?
TechCrunch UK posts are becoming more and more irrevelant and very negative – if you are a European startup I’d suggest trying TechCrunch direct rather than the UK/European front (for traffic if nothing else.) – this is certainly what most Eire entrepreneurs do.
Yes, Social Networks are bringing us together but I’d really appreciate it if Mike would be less negative and sceptical as the TechCrunch UK “social network” has become; unless of course you are into sponsoring & drinking in London and very little else…
“In France it still costs 10,000 Euros and 6 months of red tape to start a company”
this is really stupid –or ignorant (’Xcuse me !)
I am from the UK and have lived in the US and elsewhere in Europe and although I don’t like to admit, Michael is right – there is very little entrepreneurial spirit at least in the parts of the continent that I know best. This is why almost anyone with a drive and motivation will be more successful in the US.
On the otherhand, europeans do know how to throw a good party so at least we have something going for us. Though this focus on friday night rather than monday morning will probably be our downfall.
… he says with a hangover.
Hey Mike, it’s great you did the european presentation at LeWeb.
With all respect though, please note the largest european startup success these days is called “Vente Privee” and not “Grande Privé”
They were on stage and have 600 million euros of revenues in a few years.
Sorry Loic, yes I meant Vente Privee. Looks like my brain is, even now, still recovering from Le Web’s closing night party!
soon to be acquired by match.com or another big US company.
i think it’ll be the other way around soon what the US dollar will be worth peanuts. starting with french dating network Meetic buying Match.com i’ll laugh my ass off that day.
Yes, there are very large US tech companies acquiring European companies. The accident of birth that is the “scale” and single market that the US has helps it somewhat in this example. But there are also of course a few exceptions to this rule: Nokia will sell more cellphones this year globally than Steve Jobs could ever dream of. But of course, that game still has to play out…
Does the fact that a successful European company is about to be acquired by a larger American company mean that the American way of doing business is somehow better?
Vente Privee is successful enough to warrant Match.com’s attention. This only means that Match.com was first and has raised enough money to purchase companies like VP; it says nothing about VP’s way of doing business as compared to any American company’s way of doing business.
The internet was invented in the US and areas of high entrepreneurial concentration like Silicon Valley have had time to pop up before the rest of the world could get involved. The difference is timing, not culture.
Thank you for pointing that out on stage Loïc — I would have prefered you mentionned that most technologies that Google & Co are so successful about were developed in Europe: WWW, MP3 & Video compression, relevance-based search engine, auction theory, etc. What Americans are good at is not regulating their monopolies and letting them loose on the world, while Europe tries to promote open stardards.
Of course I wanted to ask the Gillmore Gang if anyone could point out were Kiev (where the Prize-winning startup was developped) was on a map. That would have been meaner then ask whether they’ve heard about a billion-dollar business; it would have been meaner, but not completely inappropriate to point out that, like Webnode (Second prize) great things were happening further East. But, one point that appeared even more obvious to me —you, Loïc, are the best to tell if I’m right— is how Silicon Valley is using its role as a center to remain the point of focus: Seesmic, your last company has far more coverage on TechCrunch, thanks to your personnal, closer friendship with Mike — and that alone could justify your move to California.
To illustrate that: I have issues with the confusion between the “Worldwide” version of a site, and the American version: google.com or google.us — which is the US version? Same for TechCrunch. Having local offices hides the imbalance of TechCrunch. The problem with this inbalance, like all discrimination, is that it is self-reinforcing. If all our good serial entrepreneurs go to Silicon Valley to benefit from that centrality, and all American VC refuse to invest in what they presume wrongly is Lazyland — when will Europe be great again? Will we need quotas and positive discrimination? And yes, I would include Mike’s time in the quota: fancy a little warm Mont d’Or this Februrary? Believe me: Europeans would love your temper, and two months here would be fascinating in every way.
Actually, as moderately-understandable English speaker, we can’t complain: the pannel about Asia was far more eye-popping, and the one just before that (which mentionned South-Africa, Iran and Indonesia mobile businesses) was almost unworldly in comparison to the Usual Suspect culture of Highway 101.
Finally Loïc, I missed you mentionning that US was also the land of “The Four-Hour Work Week”, and that while we all admire —and live by— your commitment Mike, boasting about how long you work is pride-worthy in the US (or among French entrepreneurs), to Middle-to-Eastern Europeans it sure looks as a sign of inefficiency.
To go on with this year’s metaphor: More important that how much time that digital mistress of yours steals from you: Do you love your job, Mike? — Well, we would love our continent’s work ethic a lot better if our American parents would understand it, and approve of her. Working over a long, great lunch to understand someone’s real values is worth six month of joint investment in company: there’s a reason why dates don’t happen in office-like settings.
I could have found Kiev on a map. Can you find Shenzhen on one? It’s going to kick all of our asses soon.
I wouldn’t have to work nearly as hard if I didn’t have to travel the world to find the best entrepreneurs. I did 140,000 miles this year on United alone.
Oh, and I met my wife at a job (she proceeded to steal my job, I was on the interview team) so, don’t know about your claim there.
I met quite a few US hi-tech workers that were neither industrious nor highly-motivated. On the other hand, as people pointed out, there are plenty of hard-working Europeans (in and outside France). So diligence alone is not the reason that Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Facebook are as successful as they are. There may be other factors at play: proximity to the huge USA market, proximity to the technology media, influx of hungry immigrant talent, taxation (we agree on that), more investment money available and probably a bunch of other things.
I do think you hear the Europeans rejecting the US-born axiom that truly successful people don’t have life.
Michael,
Be sure that to stay in Europe and specially in small countries (like Portugal in our case) is not laziness but to have a really great ambition to develop our own culture and our own people in a culture unprepared for entrepreneurship and lacking flexibility to change.
Probably the laziest option is just to take a flight to California…
you guys keep saying lazy. i didn’t say that nor do i mean it. i think the culture is not conducive to entrepreneurialism. that’s not even close to saying people are lazy. it’s more like the culture is lazy, and good people get sucked into it thinking its the way to go.
Our culture is as lazy as the american one…
The problem, and that is what Loic said at the conference, is that we don’t have an “elite” place where all people are gathered to make projects happen and to be close to each other…
That gives Silicon Valley a competitive edge over all other places… European or not…
It’s not a problem of culture but a problem of organization.
Most of your statements are cliche. It would be like us, French, saying that all Americans are stupid red necks voting for George Bush twice in a row (anything more stupid?).
Yes there are lazy Europeans, yes there are red neck stupid Americans who don’t even have a passport.
But I know a whole bunch of smart Americans who are cultured and have traveled the world and a lot of French who work their ass off to build their business. I am one of them, and I never take 2 hour lunch. Never!
Move on, stop seeing us as a good country to eat well and drink wine. I promise we’ll stop looking at you as a bunch of red necks who never travel, eat at Mcdonalds 5 times a day and vote for dumb Presidents
“Most of your statements are cliche.”
perhaps, but they are cliches reiterated on stage as justification for why european startups are better.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
What a lazy thought for someone like you Michael.
Should have spent more time reading don’t you?
I would say the reason is that Europeans are more conserving and conservative. Americans are always open for change; Europeans are only open for change for the better. They are more inclined to be sceptical and intuitively know that there are limits to everything in life, especially things like money, success and time. This makes them slower at adapting new trends, but they also make less mistakes.
While the American attitude often leads to short-term success, the European attitude proves to be the prudent one in the long term. Just look at the doomed American car industry which quite literally retired after its early successful phase in the first half of the twentieth century.
I find the underlying assumption of the discussion and post (: non productive = lazy) oversimplistic and misleading: Productivity is not a function of hour worked but a measure of output produced by the hours worked. Americans manage to be more productive not because they work more but because they have institutions in place that bring fruit to their labor more quickly than in Europe. Europe does not lack hardworking people. On the contrary. What it lacks is the uniform market the US enjoys, a single language, agile authorities and forward thinking legislators.
american are NOT more productive. will someone take finally the time to look at actual stats about GDP/HOUR?!!!
here’s the link: http://stats.oe...tasetCode=LEVEL
Steven, the table you are pointing me to shows exaclty the opposite: GDP per hour worked relative to the USA for Eurozone is 85.8. What is your point?
overall yes. but take france and finland, and it’s higher. the reason why it’s lower in GDP is because of countries like Poland, Greece or Portugal where the salaries are lower.
This whole debate is pointless.
Nikos, you have hit the nail on the head. I’m from neither side of the Atlantic, but I can see what Europe lacks.
If you ask me though, I’m going to keep my eye on Ireland.
Silicon valley’s environment is just better suited for startups. Americans are used to hire fast, get money fast… and layoff fast. There is a reactivity/momentum that Europe (France particularly) doesn’t have.
This is just the way it is. People in France are more conservative. They dont like to change work often, they like stability, garantee that they’ll get their paycheck at the end of the month, and social security so that when it gets too cold, they can queue up in hospitals.
Last comment I promise: don’t blame me for opening the Pandora box — Mike started with his great picture of a Dutch merchant with a button issue. If it’s the Europeans that eat for hours, why was it the Americans that appeared to be the over-indulging ones on that stage?
I’ve read several anti-European articles by Michael Arrington in the past, and they were biased and made generalisations that were not true. But I’m sorry to say that this one is quite the opposite; it’s an accurate description of the cultural challenges we face. Our attitudes towards government, politics, economy and entrepeneurism are just way off. We’re lazy, indifferent, indecisive and stuck in the past. A lot of people may not be, but the overall culture and attitude is, and it’s going to take a lot of work to change that.
While I couldn’t agree more that in Europe we have a problem with our startup culture, I don’t think the problem is about work-life balance.
As mentioned above, Pareto’s principle applies or as Timothy Ferris probably would say: ‘Be productive, don’t be just active.’
Running a startup certainly takes a huge amount of time but working all day long just to fit into the cliché of the hard-working entrepreneur is kind of stupid.
For being a successful entrepreneur you certainly have to consider work as an essential (and fun) part of your life but ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’,
Besides the very personal reasons, like not wanting to ruin your health or getting to see your family and friends from time to time, there is also a very practical reason for having a sound work-life balance: It helps you with thinking out-of-the-box.
Talking to other people or taking some time off will help you to reassess and check if you’re still on the right track.
Oh, and European entrepeneurs WEAR SUITS! Doesn’t that just say it all?
Who said to you that what you wear make you better or worst?