> If we want a 'European Google' or European startups in general, we need to become less risk averse, more willing to reward the types of people needed to work in those companies and less obsessed about regulations.

I think we don't. Europe just isn't setup for breakaway successes in the way that the US is. And we wouldn't be able to stomach the societal cost even if we were to try.

Europe is built to enable a Mittelstand [1] though which also allows for lots of diversity and innovation and is why Germany is still an industrial powerhouse.

If Europe wants to compete it should do so on its own terms; except doing so is virtually impossible when companies can claim ownership of their users data because that inevitably leads to the massive centralized monopolies we're seeing now.

One thing Europe is good at though is pushing through laws which prevent companies from establishing harmful monopolies though and that is what Europe needs to do.

If in addition to "the right to be forgotten" Europe would push through "the right to own your data" and forced companies operating in the EU to return all user data (down to request logs used for analytics) to the user the dynamics of tech industry would change dramatically; and in a positive way for the user too.

That will take a while but I think, or hope, it will happen eventually and either way; it will have a much greater chance of success than trying to copy a model that is inherently at odds with a value system developed over dozens of centuries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittelstand