Thread

1. shaolinspirit · 1790679601 · focus · HN ↗

   this is a joke I may sound salty, but the only innovations I see coming from Europe are plastic bottle recycling and fining American companies for GDPR violations.

   1. idiliv · 1790679769 · focus · HN ↗

      Switzerland has a strong startup scene. The country also ranks first in the global innovation index.

      1. esel2k · 1790681921 · focus · HN ↗

         This! We lack the big funding pockets like the US. But the innovation capabilities are world class with top university.

         Sad that people on HN can’t make the difference between funding and startup mindset/innovation potential.

         1. philipallstar · 1790692305 · focus · HN ↗

            Funding is highly related to those things. It's not related to intellect, but a place that is extremely high risk to invest in just won't be the place where investment ends up.
      2. malthaus · 1790689958 · focus · HN ↗

         the global innovation index is such a bad proxy / misinterpretion of "startup scene"

         we score high on innovation rankings because of 1) large corporates (e.g. pharma) and 2) strong universities.

         while we have deep tech spinoffs profiting from this, it is not a 1:1 correlation and the startup ecosystem (in the SV interpretation) in switzerland is extremely weak (lack of VC appetite, low risk culture, high cost of living, small domestic market with high cultural/language barriers, no startup visas for high potential foreign graduates, etc) compared to its potential

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