A European Silicon Valley? Careful what you wish for. Posted by: CNN Correspondent, Juliet Mann November 10th, 2011 04:39 PM GMT London (CNN) â Europeâs internet economy is growing, but the continent lags far behind Silicon Valleyâs high tech community in the U.S. Europe has pockets of highly-skilled and innovative brains in various cities around Europe: Silicon Docks in Dublin, Silicon Sentier in Paris, corners of Vienna and East London. But it takes more than bits of modern architecture and a few flat-screens to create the business environment for big-scale, global, web-based success. Internet entrepreneur Ilya Laurs - whose company Getjar.com has become one of the biggest apps supplier in the world - tells me Europe is a great place to nurture start-ups. But growth is difficult. âThere are people in various niches. You can find maybe a hundred people in those specific areas. But this is pretty small-sized for Silicon Valley and you really need thousands of people. It is a level that I donât think any European place can do.â Even if there was a sudden, unexpected glut of just the sort of skilled workers he was looking for, he would still be reluctant to hire big and fast in Europe. It is a cultural thing. âThe European set of values in general is pretty much incompatible with innovation. When you think about innovation it is all about trial and error⦠if I hire fast and it doesnât work I will have to fire fast. Try that in France,â he says. He adds, âthe metabolism of your company needs to be high speed. Facebook was not built working nine-to-five, with government regulations of six weeks vacation. Europe needs social security, creativity, family, hobbies and work itself is not in the top set of values for Europeans. It is in America.â Read more: http://business.blogs.cnn.com/2011/...alley-be-careful-what-you-wish-for/?hpt=hp_c2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Truth from the mouth of a European :eek:
In barely two generations they rebuilt an entire continent shattered to bits of rubble, and people question whether Europeans are "innovative"? Good grief...
Actually that is not completely true. Britain just borrowed money from the US pay for it and they only recently paid it back. Germany still has parts that are not rebuilt.
Which parts are those? And let's pls not talk about former Eastern Germany, since that's different...
Except warm milk sucks and most Merecedes' look like hell (my opinion again...) But yes I agree, Germans are the best (Britain too, but they're not really European, they're Brittish!)