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Comment by ricardobayes | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, becoming an enterpreneur is really uncommon in Europe, where all you said was free. I think it actually has an inverse effect.

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What definition of enterpreneur are you using?

According to [1] 14.5% of all EU workers are self-employed (i.e.: they have their own business, as small as it may be) whereas only 6.6% are in the USA.

[1] https://data.oecd.org/emp/self-employment-rate.htm

I'd say "self-employed" is essentially being a contractor or owner-operator, with no or very few employees and focused on facilitating the work for themselves (and possibly their immediate family), not growth & scaling & expansion.

Entrepreneurs start companies that are meant to grow beyond themselves and aren't just a legal framework to provide their work.

Not to disparage anyone who's self-employed. I am too, but I wouldn't consider me an entrepreneur. I might become one, but that would mean changing my work setup.

There several reasons for that, but one key thing is that people do not, in general, desperatly dream of the „get rich quick“ to escape their life situation. A big share is simply well off, taken care of if there are problems, and live their live in good conditions.

I am fine with not every useless thing to exist and waste resources on that.

Lots of people in the US that start companies are well-off, too, and they don't "desperately dream" of escaping their life situation. They just have a very different risk profile, and are happy to risk failing for a better chance at success.

It’s more than a desire for money too. The SV culture simply assigns a lot of respect to founders — definitely to the successful and also somewhat to those who try and fail. The founders I know do this not to get rich but to access that prestige. In fact, most know it will be a financially difficult task. Consider eg the lore of the Airbnb founders having to max out a binder full of credit cards…

For sure, when I said I was an enterpreneur in the US, Hungary and Spain, I got three different reactions. In the US, people think you're a cool kid, in Hungary they think you're a crook and in Spain they think you are poor.

Interestingly that's a popular myth. Much of Europe - especially Scandinavia - is much friendlier to startups than the US. The proof is the much higher social mobility.

What the EU lacks is the Ivy->Startup pipeline and insider/investor networks with access to old and old-ish money. And also the relentlessly aggressive branding and self-promotion (and tolerance of scamming and grifting) that defines US hustle culture.

If you're not in or around those networks already your chances of success in the US are pretty slim.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/02_econ...

The EU also lacks the equity compensation pop that makes people millionaires overnight after 10 years of hard work. It's largely cultural rather than regulation related, but for example Spotify IPO'd but minted few millionaires relative to if it had been a silicon valley startup like AirBNB or Dropbox or Slack.

Yes this is exactly it!

America is a great place to be rich. In Europe they tax you. But why should a millionaire care about healthcare for the poor or homeless shelters?

The recent discussion on Slack's stock options showed how few SV startups make employees millionaires these days. It's as rare in SV as it is in Europe now.

I don't think that's true, it's hard finding comparative figures that aren't out of date (one below is mostly ~2004), but it indicates European countries generally have more SMEs per 1000 people than the US, and a couple of more recent articles say the UK still has more.

Anecdotally, I live in Europe and know plenty of entrepreneurs, albeit mostly either in the tech space or as incorporated side gigs.

Source: https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/Micr...

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