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. bartread · 1790680394 · focus · HN ↗

      You don’t sound salty: you’re speaking from a place of ignorance and offering an opinion based on literally no evidence whatsoever so you merely sound uninformed.

      In the UK, for example, we don’t suffer from a dearth of innovation. What actually happens is that successful companies get hoovered up by foreign, and particularly US, investors. It’s extremely frustrating.

      For myself, I’m pleased to see events like this happening in other European countries.

      1. philipallstar · 1790692174 · focus · HN ↗

         The cause of the frustration is the entire culture of the UK: don't recognise risk as a valid input that requires reward; blame people who do well; tax them out of the country to pay for people imported recently or leasing the Chagos Islands.
      2. fakedang · 1790699552 · focus · HN ↗

         I just read today that the UK government had earmarked a plan to fund £300 million in research grants across universities in the UK, but not even 40% of those funds were allocated before the govt shut down the programme. That imo is a effectively a dearth in innovation capital.

         Companies don't get hoovered up against their will. The fact of the matter is that moving to the US significantly increases your valuation, even if most of your activity happens elsewhere. If the UK wanted companies to stay, they should make it easier for companies and investors, both domestic and especially foreign, to invest within the country.

         Case in point, you can start a factory in less than a year in the US (imo, the fastest in the world, even in these shitty times). That setup would easily take 3-5 years elsewhere.

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