Fair point, ASML is a linchpin in the global economy, and very much a European company. But Europe has a population larger than USA, shouldn't they at least be close to us in leading edge companies? They invented the Industrial Revolution.
You sound like someone who is enjoying the retirement benefits and full social safety net. One which does not have the funding to continue on for the youth of today. You have a certain smugness about your current situation but maybe you should look at how things are actually coming along today for young people staring down the barrel of higher inflation and lower wages.
> An economy is there for the people. If that larger number of people have a higher quality of life than in the US, aren't they wealthier?
It's a little unclear how it shakes out there.
I've met a number of young western Europeans while traveling there who are jealous of the ability of Americans to afford cross-ocean/different-continent multi-week trips to tier-1-hotel-cost cities, while feeling like it's more out of reach to them to find a job that would let them. (Phrasing edited here because, as a reply pointed out, "international" travel in Europe is easy and common due to proximity.)
On the flip side, those people also enjoy having much more time off. But hey, at least American isn't as 996'd as China yet?
There's no single linear "better" scale.
(There are, of course, many Americans without the means to travel to Europe or Asia themselves, who could give two shits about an "innovative" company being based in the US vs anywhere else since it doesn't seem to be helping them personally, but the overall mobility is still higher for now. But that's more due to the age of the country than anything else. History suggests that as low-hanging-fruit continues to close the US will also get more and more of that social stagnation too. It's easier to become upper class when you go to a place without an upper class yet.)
> I've met a number of young western Europeans while traveling there who are jealous of the ability of Americans to afford cross-ocean/different-continent multi-week trips to tier-1-hotel-cost cities, while feeling like it's more out of reach to them to find a job that would let them.
Anecdotally, I think it’s out of reach for many young Americans in my cohort (26) but we’re insulated from that in tech
> I've met a number of young western Europeans while traveling there who are jealous of the ability of Americans to afford that travel, while feeling like it's more out of reach to them to find a job that would let them.
The statistics tell a story different from those anecdotes: young Europeans are considerably more internationally traveled than young Americans, probably by something approaching a factor of ~2 in the likelihood of crossing national borders in a given year. But they're not necessarily twice as geographically well-traveled. Much of the difference is due to Europe's small countries, open borders, dense transportation network, and cheap short-haul international travel.
Look up what percentage of Americans between 25 - 34 have never traveled outside their own country, vs. Europeans in western or Northern European countries.
I had this exact conversation with a barber on the UPC campus in Barcelona in 2005 (if my memory is right). My reply to his assertion was to ask if he ever considered how large US states are compared to EU countries. People do travel within the USA alone and with their families all the time. Just this week mine crossed three states for a beach vacation and the returned home. International travel is not unheard of but not the same distance scale. If I recall he said something like he had not thought of it that way. I do not recall if we were talking in Spanish or English anymore after 21 years.
> The statistics tell a story different from those anecdotes: young Europeans are considerably more internationally traveled than young Americans, probably by something approaching a factor of ~2 in the likelihood of crossing national borders in a given year. But they're not necessarily twice as geographically well-traveled. Much of the difference is due to Europe's small countries, open borders, dense transportation network, and cheap short-haul international travel.
Means and using those means for any given particular end are entirely different things. It's hardly surprising that Americans are generally insular and uninterested in non-American things. (This is not a good thing IMO. But it's a thing.)
But more importantly, like you say, "interntional travel" in Europe includes, say, "going to the UK from France" vs the overseas 5-to-10hr+ flights that are required to cross the Atlantic to have these conversations in my anecdotes.
That's my bad for saying "international" instead of "cross-ocean" or such. So let me clarify that the jealousy here is being able to pay for flights and hotels to spend 2+ weeks across an ocean in cities with $100-or-equiv-per-night-to-$300+-per-night hotel costs. They didn't think they'd ever be able to afford a similar trip to SF or NY.
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The non-anecodotal version of this story would likely be the rise in social-acceptance and popularity of the more right-wing parties in Europe. A lot of people, younger especially, feel like they're getting left behind and aren't interested in mostly-older or born-into-more-money people's generic remarks about how it's still great overall for them.
K-shaped economies + "stay in your lane" are how you get Trumps :(
Well, those Europeans are only encountering the Americans who can afford to travel. There are millions of Americans who have never even left their own state. Tens of millions more who have never left the US.
It's true that most of us in Europe get more time off but we don't really get more to spend on expensive holidays. We don't have the culture of spending thousands upon thousands on holidays. Most of us think it's crazy to spend that much on travel and do it much more frugally which means we get more but at a lower level of luxury.
while there are a lot of people in the US who also can't afford to leave the continent, even if we assume what you say is true (it isn't), I'd still prefer having the time
Missing out on every Revolution after the Industrial Revolution isn't a recipe for long-term success. I think you might be missing the point of the article.
It appears to me that in most of Europe there is an unspoken bargain: society provides you with a reasonably comfortable and secure life where your basic needs are guaranteed at least to some level, and in exchange you are supposed to stay in your lane, make sure your ambitions match and follow one of the approved tracks, and leave things like starting businesses to a hidden aristocracy with family money, who for their part generally accept higher demands on their contributions and avoid "vulgar" displays of their wealth in exchange.
I'm not trying to be inflammatory but just thought it was kind of funny that one could say the same about your own comment but just swap the placement of the words Europe and American. I think unless someone pulls up actual stats on quality of life and all that just saying what people feel is kind of meaningless.
> one could say the same about your own comment but just swap the placement of the words Europe and American
Maybe. I have citizenship in Switzerland and America. I aim politically active in both. That doesn’t give me authority—but it does afford me perspective.
And no. Europe is poorer than America. Comparable measures show the effect one would expect.
> unless someone pulls up actual stats on quality of life
These exist. Individual numbers slope as one would expect.
If you’re poor, Europe is better. If you’re middle class, it’s debatably, but probably Europe. If you’re rich, by which I mean you make a few hundred thousand a year or more, America. Obviously.
This depends entirely on which USA state is being compared. Many USA states have healthcare, education, and social safety nets that rival or exceed typical European benefits. Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Vermont, for example.
This may be a better way to slice it. If you’re in New York, regardless of income, you have a higher standard of living than someone comparable in the EU. If you’re in Missouri, a median European lives a better life than you do.
> If you’re poor, Europe is better. If you’re middle class, it’s debatably, but probably Europe. If you’re rich, by which I mean you make a few hundred thousand a year or more, America. Obviously.
This is what most Quality of Life America/Europe arguments on Hacker News boil down to. Overrepresentation of rich people. America has more upward redistribution of wealth. Ergo America is better.
The reason Europe can do that today is because of decades of being an industrial leader in the past. But Europe will not be able to do it tomorrow unless it continues to be an industrial power today.
Anyone can take time off work and go on vacation. That is certainly more enjoyable. But it's not an economic plan for high living standards in the future.
Europe is going to have a difficult winter. You are going to see announcements of government benefit cuts, higher costs, and this will continue up until the "high standard of living" in Europe catches up with the realities of economic output.
The American intelligence community choose to jumpstart the Surveillance Industrial Revolution which is what has enabled companies like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook to dominate.
ASML is not the norm in Europe. It is the exception.
The top ten companies by revenue, worldwide, features zero European companies.
We in Europe cheer our meddling technocratic leadership while sneering at American risk taking and innovation. We have a fundamental cultural malaise, and those of my friends who feel the same as me have simply left Europe for a better life in the US or other dynamic economies.
At this point I feel like a stick in the mud for staying here, and quite honestly, I worry for my children's future here.
> The top ten companies by revenue, worldwide, features zero European companies.
This completely ignores Mittelstand in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And for the record, Japan has zero corporations by revenue in the top ten, but has top five largest GDP globally. So, a failure? Or a poor metric?
It isn't a full picture, but still a very good proxy. The decline of Europe in global economy is unquestionable.
There were 17 European companies in the top 50 in 2006, 13 in 2016, 10 in 2026. Most of the remaining companies are automotive and energy (oil). None is tech. ASML isn't even in the top 100 in Europe.
Japan is the same story. There are 7 companies in the top 50 in 2006. The only remaining one in 2026 is Toyota. None is tech.
China's share has increased from 2 companies in 2006 to 12 in 2006.
In other words, China's progress and the importance of tech, along with the decline of automobile and energy accurately reflect how the global economy has changed.
(Side question: how much AI does my comment sound?)
Source: you can find plenty. Start with Fortune 500
I will summarise your answer: China GDP grew 7.5 times from 2006 to 2026. If India does the same in the next 20 years, there will be hardly any top 50 companies outside of US, China, and India. Still, it doesn't say much.
The nominal GDP per capita of the United States is about $86,000, while China's is about $13,400. Even if China has a bunch of companies in the top 50, it is still many many many many times better to live in the US, economically speaking. Even if you switch to PPP, China will roughly double to $25,000. Still, the US is way ahead.
This is expected though, right? Even in Europe, unless you're a verysmall country, most business you deal with is domestic. Do by default, the largest companies mare going to be in the largest economies. Doesn't mean you can't get lucky every now and again, but you are handicapped by not having a large domestic consumption base protected via political independence.
China and the US are continent-scale megastates. Obviously a mid-sized Atlantic island like the UK, or smallish peninsula like Italy, are not going to compete on scale.
No, if you lived long enough to remember the 90s and 2000s then you would have remembered that the European Union experiment was one that was supposed to be formidable and address the very thing that you are saying is a problem. Americans literally thought we were going to have to compete with Europeans in enterprise and innovation. Instead, the threat of European Union doing anything interesting was undeserved. China clearly deserves the recognition of being a the competitor we desperately need to keep going and make progress towards a more advanced species
It would be very hard for a country to force it's most ambitious to not leave if there are other places eagerly recruiting them.
But when such a pull exists, it's very hard to counter that. Consider the number of non-SV places in the US that have tried to replicate that environment and basically failed. Even the famously "business friendly" places like Texas or Georgia that are success stories for poaching tech companies or film production largely work by having companies move there once they've left the high-growth phase and are no longer chasing strictly the most ambitious would-be-best-and-brightest talent.
The success stories there (that aren't just resource-extraction) have come from significant protectionism, essentially forcing a country to build its own version of the mega-companies even if it's a money-loser with copycats building shoddy copies for decades at first.
There's no easy way for Europe to magically change that with "culture." There's too many already-established mega-talent-bases in other places to think you can have people just pass up on that in a fully-global-market situation.
I would ask instead: why let those foreign mega-corps be so integral to so many basic services of modern life?
Perhaps not just Europe, but the entire world, would be better off if we had fewer monoliths and more variations, with more flexibility for local markets to develop different solutions or in different directions.
Because eventually there will be an asteroid or nearby supernova that will destroy civilization unless humanity’s total wealth and technology have improved vastly between now and then. Stasis is death.
I don't find it likely that my kids or grandkids will have better odds of avoiding asteroid or supernova death by working to death to try to become interplanetary ASAP.
I think doing so would introduce far more risks to them. Space ain't friendly.
Beyond that I find it hard to care to drive anyone to work their ass off today for whatever humans are around 100+ years in the future. And, of course, more technological development brings more chance of mass self-inflicted die-off of humanity anyway. In 1900 it would've been much harder to kill 10%, 20%, 50%, 90% of the global population than it is today.
Everything is death eventually. And predicting the future is hard.
> working to death to try to become interplanetary ASAP
That’s not what I’m advocating. I’m not even proposing a global prioritization of goals. What I’m advocating is simply to not attempt to slow or halt the progress of technology.
I find it more likely we nuke ourselves with this ratrace to the bottom, than having to worry about supernovas. And what's more I don't buy into this kind of megalomaniac self-serving narrative, that smells of an easy way of enforcing one's broken ideals over others. Happening with AI a lot lately.
It is of course possible that we nuke ourselves. If we choose to. Or we could choose to use the same technology to massively increase our energy production. The more certain thing is that, if we do nothing, eventually something kills us.
Over the course of decades unemployment is generally just fine, so other than "what if AI breaks the economy" there's very little reason for it to be in the top worries. It's a priority but not a worry.
And ASML wouldn't be possible without US taxpayer funded research. ASML's extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology utilized foundational research from the U.S. Department of Energy.
> In 1997, ASML began studying a shift to using extreme ultraviolet.[7] Two years later, it joined a consortium, which included Intel and two other U.S. chipmakers, in order to exploit fundamental research conducted by the US Department of Energy. Because the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) it operates under is funded by the US government, licensing must be approved by Congress.[14] Furthermore, in return for being permitted to join this consortium, ASML committed to the establishment of a US-based research center and to source 55 percent of components for all machines sold in the US from American suppliers.[7] ASML collaborated with various manufacturers to obtain mirrors, including the Belgian firms IMEC and Sematech as well as Germany's Carl Zeiss.[14][15]
The same is true for several US companies - not doable without published research funded by the EU (or other countries in Europe outside the EU). We all freely share our publicly funded research, and whoever wants to use it for commercial success can try. That's how it works.
That includes the majority of the big tech companies, and why the US tends to throw money on importing expertise for these companies (for example AI frontier labs).
The logic is backwards. The research was already there, so ASML licensed it.
If the research wasn't there they would have developed it, and/or find another way to make it work using a somewhat different tech. This is but one of the dozen large technical issues that needed to be solved en route to EUV.
To state the obvious: Because Europe isn't adding any new fab capacity. That is crazy in the 21st century. They should be helping TSMC and Samsung build new fabs in Europe. What happened to the plan by Intel to build a modern fab in Europe?
The article is literally about ASML, the company that builds the most complex machine ever built by humans.
I can pick a couple of other companies across a wide variety of industries if you'd like.