The US has one thing that Europeans cannot compete with:
One language spoken by close to all 320M Americans as a native language and spoken by More than a billion worldwide as first or second language and which also happens to be the language most technology uses, incl in documentation and tutorials.
Would Google have reached global fame if it had been in French to begin with? Of course not. What about if Facebook started at Bocconi and in Italian? No way Americans would have adopted it (let alone Spanish or Dutch).
Bureaucracy, taxes and other obstacles are possibly worse in the US than in most European countries (I lived both there and in three different European countries). We have very little to learn from the US in that respect. But without a common language it's difficult for Europeans. It's not a coincidence that most good startups in Europe are in countries where English is a first or very strong second language (UK, NL, Scandinavia etc).
One language spoken by close to all 320M Americans as a native language and spoken by More than a billion worldwide as first or second language and which also happens to be the language most technology uses, incl in documentation and tutorials.
Would Google have reached global fame if it had been in French to begin with? Of course not. What about if Facebook started at Bocconi and in Italian? No way Americans would have adopted it (let alone Spanish or Dutch).
Bureaucracy, taxes and other obstacles are possibly worse in the US than in most European countries (I lived both there and in three different European countries). We have very little to learn from the US in that respect. But without a common language it's difficult for Europeans. It's not a coincidence that most good startups in Europe are in countries where English is a first or very strong second language (UK, NL, Scandinavia etc).