A fabulous treaty with deep insights applicable to many industrial sectors. Work in the space sector and see many of the elements included in the analysis and share the view that new formulas adapted to the European reality are necessary, including admitting that we are a developing region in the tech industry. Merci @Nicolas Colin
Thank you for this wonderful piece, which offers, most importantly, hope about Europe's ability to build tech, and do it in its own way. I particularly like the "decentralised coordination", and the examples that you give.
As a person living in Poland, I also appreciate the idea of my country being a "dynamic Europe region". Somehow, that promise seems unfulfilled. We are facing huge brain drain, our top talent works in the US, our AI darling startup Eleven Labs quickly relocated to the US, and everyone in business debates repeats the mantra: "there is too much regulation here to innovate". My colleague Dominik Batorski said recently that the most obvious path is that of Poland as an "AI Assembly Plant" - with software houses doing low-value dev work for clients.
Ah, the "AI Assembly Plant" sounds a lot like what Ukraine has been doing for quite some time—eventually giving rise to significant tech companies (Preply comes to mind).
As for the brain drain and the shift toward relocating to the US, that’s exactly the dynamic that needs to be reversed. But it will only change when there’s tangible proof that returns and wealth can materialise here just as much as there. Any other attempt to reverse the trend is bound to fail.
Finally, I really don’t think the problem is excessive regulation. And as the essay explains, even if it is part of the issue, solving it won’t address the deeper strategic challenge Europe must confront.
Hi Nicolas, I enjoyed reading your article and the parallels you draw. Don't have time to write a lengthy comment but want to point you to the story of Booking.com. This is originally a Dutch company, and was left to thrive only needing the cashflow the American owner provided. Having worked there for almost a decade I see the strengths a European mindset can provide. If you ever want to chat about this let me know.
Yes! Booking.com is one of those forgotten stories—rarely told, if at all—because it shifted too quickly from “cool, promising startup” to “boring, profitable corporate.”
There’s some interesting coverage online (see here: https://skift.com/oral-history-of-booking-acquisition/), but it’s true that it rarely comes up as a clear example of European excellence in building great companies. I'll try and keep it in mind for future writings.
As usual, your publications are deep, thoughtful and often convincing, but I am not fully convinced that the answer to the European failure is "Remedying Fragmentation Through Buy-to-Build". In a way it is what Pierre Chappaz had tried with Kelkoo in the early 2000s - he built a European tentative champion by acquiring his competitors or analogs in its neighbors. And he finished being acquired by Yahoo. I loved your "What makes an entrepreneurial ecosystem" and I think it is still relevant, and the reason the Family did not work is certainly better known to you, but I would think as Josh Lerner said in his Boulevard of Broken Dreams that "avoiding common mistakes: timing [be patient], sizing [not too small, not too large], flexibility [learn by doing], create the right incentives [and here it is a complex situation as perverse effects from good ideas often occur] and evaluate [which does not happen often enough]" did not happen often in Europe and his two other advice were "enhancing the entrepreneurial culture [through the right laws, the access to technologies, tax incentives and training]" and "increasing the venture market’s attractiveness [through allowing partnerships, creating local markets, accessing human capital abroad]" also require patience. As Churchill claimed, "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm", I tend to agree with you that the continuing failure is depressing and require thinking, but I fear the answer is not yours. Entrepreneurship is not about mergers, it seldom works and I still believe Innovation = Entrepreneurship: I might be wrong because too old. Thanks again though !
Thanks, Hervé. As suggested in the essay, I believe entrepreneurship was the most relevant approach over the past decade—but that window has now closed. We’ve reached a point in the Carlota Perez cycle (the synergy and consolidation phase) where other approaches to building successful companies will start to emerge and become more relevant.
Thanks Nicolas. A really good piece. I agree that Europe needs to use its landscape to position itself better. We will always be decentralised and speak multiple languages.
But we also have a huge population that lives close to one another and can consume and create great wealth. I think the PE play is a good one to start but it won't go far enough. We need to create companies of 500B (new word Frillion) in Europe and that won't come from PE.
We need to use our industrial past and information age "present" information to build a vertical integrated led future. We must be determined to scale companies to that size and value that serve Europe (and other markets) and solve Humanity Level Problems.
PS: I could not agree more on accelerators being the last brick you lay down when building an ecosystem!
(Indeed, when it comes to accelerators, I only realise now you can use this simple image: you can't accelerate if the road hasn't been built and clearly signposted yet.)
A fabulous treaty with deep insights applicable to many industrial sectors. Work in the space sector and see many of the elements included in the analysis and share the view that new formulas adapted to the European reality are necessary, including admitting that we are a developing region in the tech industry. Merci @Nicolas Colin
Many thanks, Xavier, for the note! Very glad that it resonated with your experience in the space sector.
Thank you for this wonderful piece, which offers, most importantly, hope about Europe's ability to build tech, and do it in its own way. I particularly like the "decentralised coordination", and the examples that you give.
As a person living in Poland, I also appreciate the idea of my country being a "dynamic Europe region". Somehow, that promise seems unfulfilled. We are facing huge brain drain, our top talent works in the US, our AI darling startup Eleven Labs quickly relocated to the US, and everyone in business debates repeats the mantra: "there is too much regulation here to innovate". My colleague Dominik Batorski said recently that the most obvious path is that of Poland as an "AI Assembly Plant" - with software houses doing low-value dev work for clients.
Ah, the "AI Assembly Plant" sounds a lot like what Ukraine has been doing for quite some time—eventually giving rise to significant tech companies (Preply comes to mind).
As for the brain drain and the shift toward relocating to the US, that’s exactly the dynamic that needs to be reversed. But it will only change when there’s tangible proof that returns and wealth can materialise here just as much as there. Any other attempt to reverse the trend is bound to fail.
Finally, I really don’t think the problem is excessive regulation. And as the essay explains, even if it is part of the issue, solving it won’t address the deeper strategic challenge Europe must confront.
Hi Nicolas, I enjoyed reading your article and the parallels you draw. Don't have time to write a lengthy comment but want to point you to the story of Booking.com. This is originally a Dutch company, and was left to thrive only needing the cashflow the American owner provided. Having worked there for almost a decade I see the strengths a European mindset can provide. If you ever want to chat about this let me know.
Yes! Booking.com is one of those forgotten stories—rarely told, if at all—because it shifted too quickly from “cool, promising startup” to “boring, profitable corporate.”
There’s some interesting coverage online (see here: https://skift.com/oral-history-of-booking-acquisition/), but it’s true that it rarely comes up as a clear example of European excellence in building great companies. I'll try and keep it in mind for future writings.
As usual, your publications are deep, thoughtful and often convincing, but I am not fully convinced that the answer to the European failure is "Remedying Fragmentation Through Buy-to-Build". In a way it is what Pierre Chappaz had tried with Kelkoo in the early 2000s - he built a European tentative champion by acquiring his competitors or analogs in its neighbors. And he finished being acquired by Yahoo. I loved your "What makes an entrepreneurial ecosystem" and I think it is still relevant, and the reason the Family did not work is certainly better known to you, but I would think as Josh Lerner said in his Boulevard of Broken Dreams that "avoiding common mistakes: timing [be patient], sizing [not too small, not too large], flexibility [learn by doing], create the right incentives [and here it is a complex situation as perverse effects from good ideas often occur] and evaluate [which does not happen often enough]" did not happen often in Europe and his two other advice were "enhancing the entrepreneurial culture [through the right laws, the access to technologies, tax incentives and training]" and "increasing the venture market’s attractiveness [through allowing partnerships, creating local markets, accessing human capital abroad]" also require patience. As Churchill claimed, "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm", I tend to agree with you that the continuing failure is depressing and require thinking, but I fear the answer is not yours. Entrepreneurship is not about mergers, it seldom works and I still believe Innovation = Entrepreneurship: I might be wrong because too old. Thanks again though !
Thanks, Hervé. As suggested in the essay, I believe entrepreneurship was the most relevant approach over the past decade—but that window has now closed. We’ve reached a point in the Carlota Perez cycle (the synergy and consolidation phase) where other approaches to building successful companies will start to emerge and become more relevant.
Thanks Nicolas. A really good piece. I agree that Europe needs to use its landscape to position itself better. We will always be decentralised and speak multiple languages.
But we also have a huge population that lives close to one another and can consume and create great wealth. I think the PE play is a good one to start but it won't go far enough. We need to create companies of 500B (new word Frillion) in Europe and that won't come from PE.
We need to use our industrial past and information age "present" information to build a vertical integrated led future. We must be determined to scale companies to that size and value that serve Europe (and other markets) and solve Humanity Level Problems.
PS: I could not agree more on accelerators being the last brick you lay down when building an ecosystem!
Thanks, Colin, for your comment!
(Indeed, when it comes to accelerators, I only realise now you can use this simple image: you can't accelerate if the road hasn't been built and clearly signposted yet.)