European companies have been plenty successful at monetizing their innovations. If you look at OECD statistics
https://goingdigital.oecd.org/datakitchen/#/explorer/1/toolk... in the industry of "Computer programming, consultancy, and information service activities" Europe produced slightly more than the US in 2022, and the EU28 produced slightly less. Of course that means the US has a larger tech sector on a per-capita basis, but the difference isn't huge. If you think European companies are bad at monetizing technology and have a difficult time flourishing, you're probably narrowly focusing on the domain of large American tech companies (consumer products with strong network effects). Here, there are no European equivalents because those are winner-takes-all markets, and taking two companies with the same market penetration in the US vs. any European country, the US company has much higher revenue and hence more capital available for expansion. That's part of how Facebook steamrolled various European social networks. Investors know this too, so even before the winner is decided, they're reluctant to bet on European startups in such markets. On the other hand, there are plenty of B2B niches where network effects are much less strong and European companies are doing fine.