5 ms·

>There is a thriving tech scene in Europe please explain

thijsc 5y ago
Hard to know where to start! Looking at the Netherlands, where I'm from: There are many fast-growing tech companies. Both big and small. Bigger examples are Adyen and Elastic. GitLab started out here. This is a pretty nice overview, which still misses a lot: https://www.notion.so/Dutch-SaaS-Landscape-89504403a57e43f58f6c4105228abf88 https://www.notion.so/Dutch-SaaS-Landscape-89504403a57e43f58... There are many many tech companies with 10s of millions of revenue that aren't even on this list. On the other side of the spectrum we have a huge high-tech industry around Eindhoven. ASML is market leader by far in machines to produce chips. The M1 is made possible by them for a large part. NXP is a huge chip company. I could go on. There is a very diverse landscape here. I'm sure if you look closely you will find a lot in other European countries too.
- SOMA_BOFH 5y ago
  your anecdotal evidence is quite entertaining. please continue.
  - dang 5y ago
    Would you please stop posting flamewar and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot and we ban that sort of account because we're trying for a different kind of site here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit more to heart, we'd be grateful.
    - SOMA_BOFH 5y ago
      will do. you are correct.
      - dang 5y ago
        Appreciated!
- berkes 5y ago
  ... Just Eat Takaway. Booking.com are from the Netherlands too. Spotify is Swedish. As is Klarna and Mojang. SoundCloud is German. Mixcloud British. Several of the covid vaccines were develeoped in europe (albeit under the umbrella of US companies such as J&J). Volkwagen and Volvo are beating Tesla in sales numbers and in getting self driving to market hands down. There is lots of high tech in Europe. Just Because there are no redicoulous overvalued tech corps, does not mean we aren't creating solid, profitable tech here.
  - fifilura 5y ago
    It is not possible to argue that Volvo is European anymore unfortunately. It was sold by the american company Ford to the chinese company Geely.
    - dmitriid 5y ago
      Volvo's R&D is in Sweden.
    - mxschumacher 5y ago
      Volvo cars was sold, volvo trucks and heavy machinery for construction are still independent
  - ahartmetz 5y ago
    The BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine was AFAIK developed entirely in Germany by BioNTech. Pfizer helped with regulatory affairs, logistics and mass production. It is also interesting that three key people at BioNTech (founders and an original developer of mRNA medicine) are immigrants. That is an interesting similarity to SV. Soundcloud was also started by two Swedes in Berlin. That one is probably entirely due to the cultural capital of Berlin - from what I hear, Sweden is a good place for software businesses.
    - relativ575 5y ago
      mRNA vaccine was originated in the US in the 1980s [1]. BioNTech got in the mRNA game thanks to Katalin Kariko, who was a professor at UPenn [2]. Moderna started working at mRNA based approach in the similar timeframe, and get similar results. Also what does it tell you that Moderna can do trial and manufacturing on its own, as opposed to BioNTech who has to rely on Pfizer? Trial was absolutely vital in order to bring the vaccine to the mass that quickly, and Pfizer's role was essential. Of course Katalin is also Hungarian, so again, it goes to prove that things are complicated than it appears. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katalin_Karik%C3%B3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katalin_Karik%C3%B3
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  You chose the most competitive European economy (besides Sweden), that's not a good representation to Europe. But even if we only look at NL there are quite a few metrics it falls way short from the U.S: VC raised per capita, exit volume and salaries are all falling short.
  - thijsc 5y ago
    > You chose the most competitive European economy (besides Sweden), that's not a good representation to Europe. There are also vast differences between states in the US. If we're comparing I think it's perfectly reasonable to pick places that are on the top end of the scale on both sides of the ocean. > But even if we only look at NL there are quite a few metrics it falls way short from the U.S: VC raised per capita, exit volume and salaries are all falling short. I'm not claiming that the EU is equivalent to SV, or the wider US. There is certainly much to love about SV and we can and should do better in a number of areas in which SV is already doing very well. I'm only correcting the unfounded assumption that some people in this thread expressed that there's somehow nothing going on in the EU. Or that it's a bad place for business, it's really not.

Hard to know where to start! Looking at the Netherlands, where I'm from: There are many fast-growing tech companies. Both big and small. Bigger examples are Adyen and Elastic. GitLab started out here. This is a pretty nice overview, which still misses a lot: https://www.notion.so/Dutch-SaaS-Landscape-89504403a57e43f58f6c4105228abf88 https://www.notion.so/Dutch-SaaS-Landscape-89504403a57e43f58... There are many many tech companies with 10s of millions of revenue that aren't even on this list. On the other side of the spectrum we have a huge high-tech industry around Eindhoven. ASML is market leader by far in machines to produce chips. The M1 is made possible by them for a large part. NXP is a huge chip company. I could go on. There is a very diverse landscape here. I'm sure if you look closely you will find a lot in other European countries too.

SOMA_BOFH 5y ago
your anecdotal evidence is quite entertaining. please continue.
- dang 5y ago
  Would you please stop posting flamewar and/or unsubstantive comments to HN? You've been doing it a lot and we ban that sort of account because we're trying for a different kind of site here. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - SOMA_BOFH 5y ago
    will do. you are correct.
    - dang 5y ago
      Appreciated!
berkes 5y ago
... Just Eat Takaway. Booking.com are from the Netherlands too. Spotify is Swedish. As is Klarna and Mojang. SoundCloud is German. Mixcloud British. Several of the covid vaccines were develeoped in europe (albeit under the umbrella of US companies such as J&J). Volkwagen and Volvo are beating Tesla in sales numbers and in getting self driving to market hands down. There is lots of high tech in Europe. Just Because there are no redicoulous overvalued tech corps, does not mean we aren't creating solid, profitable tech here.
- fifilura 5y ago
  It is not possible to argue that Volvo is European anymore unfortunately. It was sold by the american company Ford to the chinese company Geely.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    Volvo's R&D is in Sweden.
  - mxschumacher 5y ago
    Volvo cars was sold, volvo trucks and heavy machinery for construction are still independent
- ahartmetz 5y ago
  The BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine was AFAIK developed entirely in Germany by BioNTech. Pfizer helped with regulatory affairs, logistics and mass production. It is also interesting that three key people at BioNTech (founders and an original developer of mRNA medicine) are immigrants. That is an interesting similarity to SV. Soundcloud was also started by two Swedes in Berlin. That one is probably entirely due to the cultural capital of Berlin - from what I hear, Sweden is a good place for software businesses.
  - relativ575 5y ago
    mRNA vaccine was originated in the US in the 1980s [1]. BioNTech got in the mRNA game thanks to Katalin Kariko, who was a professor at UPenn [2]. Moderna started working at mRNA based approach in the similar timeframe, and get similar results. Also what does it tell you that Moderna can do trial and manufacturing on its own, as opposed to BioNTech who has to rely on Pfizer? Trial was absolutely vital in order to bring the vaccine to the mass that quickly, and Pfizer's role was essential. Of course Katalin is also Hungarian, so again, it goes to prove that things are complicated than it appears. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katalin_Karik%C3%B3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katalin_Karik%C3%B3
joelbluminator 5y ago
You chose the most competitive European economy (besides Sweden), that's not a good representation to Europe. But even if we only look at NL there are quite a few metrics it falls way short from the U.S: VC raised per capita, exit volume and salaries are all falling short.
- thijsc 5y ago
  > You chose the most competitive European economy (besides Sweden), that's not a good representation to Europe. There are also vast differences between states in the US. If we're comparing I think it's perfectly reasonable to pick places that are on the top end of the scale on both sides of the ocean. > But even if we only look at NL there are quite a few metrics it falls way short from the U.S: VC raised per capita, exit volume and salaries are all falling short. I'm not claiming that the EU is equivalent to SV, or the wider US. There is certainly much to love about SV and we can and should do better in a number of areas in which SV is already doing very well. I'm only correcting the unfounded assumption that some people in this thread expressed that there's somehow nothing going on in the EU. Or that it's a bad place for business, it's really not.